Vice President puts focus on nutrition-sensitive food

Problem of hunger and undernourishment may become more acute with the Corona pandemic: Vice President

The Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu has highlighted the need to constantly review our food, agriculture and trade policies according to the times. He also called for reorienting agricultural priorities towards more nutrition-sensitive food.

Inaugurating the virtual consultation ‘Science for Resilient Food, Nutrition and Livelihoods’ organized by the M.S Swaminathan Foundation (MSSRF), the Vice President drew attention towards impacts associated with poor diet quality and said that both undernutrition and obesity are significant risk factors for Non-Communicable Diseases.

We must step up investments in improved storage, processing and preservation to retain the nutritional value of food products, rather than investing in highly processed foods, he opined.

Talking about SDG goals, the Vice President said that it is time to take stock of the progress made so far. Where are we in terms of achieving the ‘zero hunger’ and ‘good health and wellbeing’ goals, he asked.

Citing a UN report which states the number of people suffering from hunger in the world has been slowly increasing in recent years, Naidu said that nearly 750 million people were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity in the world in 2019.