India is emerging as the world centre of hunger and malnutrition, a report by Indian campaign group, the Navdanya Trust, says, according to BBC online Friday.
The trust says that there are more than 200 million people – or one-in-four Indians – going without enough to eat.
The prominent environmentalist Vandana Shiva, who runs the trust, said there were now more hungry people in India than in sub-Saharan Africa. Ms Shiva noted that 57 million children in India are underweight due to malnutrition.
The centre-left government in New Delhi has repeatedly pointed out that huge progress has been made in recent years to improve the regional superpowers food security as Indias population grows by an estimated 18 million people a year.
Nevertheless, the Navdanya Trust says that per capita food consumption in India has decreased from 186 kg per person annually in 1991 to 152 kg in 2001, despite government food subsidies costing billions of US dollar.
The report is largely based on data collected from government surveys as well as the trusts own material from areas where malnutrition is an issue.
Ms Shiva argued that food provided in ration shops across the country does not provide for a balanced diet and is too rich in starch (stivelse), leading to diseases such as diabetes (sukkersyge).
She was also critical of genetically modified crops and chemical fertilisers, arguing that they only served to increase the costs of food production, forcing farmers into debt and in some cases causing them to commit suicide.
– Studies worldwide show that the hungriest of people are its producers – the farmers, she said.
