Food security is no longer only about producing enough food but about producing nutritious food, argues Dr Suresh Kumar Chaudhari in a column for Krishi Jagran. The views are the writer's own.
Micronutrient malnutrition, or hidden hunger, still affects more than 2 billion people worldwide, he writes, and in India deficiencies of zinc, iron, iodine and selenium remain a major public-health concern. His case is the soil-plant-animal-human chain: nutrient-poor soils produce nutrient-poor crops, and so poorer food and fodder.
He cites ICAR's analysis of more than 242,000 soil samples from 615 districts, which found deficiencies of zinc (36.5 percent), boron (23.2 percent), iron (12.8 percent), copper (7.1 percent) and manganese (4.2 percent). Data from the government's Soil Health Management Programme, covering nearly 30 million samples, show about 39 percent of Indian soils short of zinc, the country's most widespread micronutrient gap.
The cause, he writes, built up over decades: fertiliser use focused on nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, while continuous cropping removed micronutrients that were not replaced; high pH and low organic carbon make the remaining nutrients harder for plants to take up. Livestock suffer too, because feed and fodder short of zinc, copper, selenium and iodine affect growth, fertility and immunity.
His remedy starts with soil-test-based nutrient management and the right use of zinc sulphate, ferrous sulphate, borax and newer micronutrient products. He cites ICAR agronomic biofortification studies in which soil and foliar micronutrients raised crop yields by up to 34 percent and increased zinc and iron in grain, and ICAR's release of 206 biofortified varieties of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables.
Agriculture must move beyond counting calories, he concludes, and balanced fertilisation, organic recycling and biofortification fit the government's National One Health Mission, which joins human, animal, plant and environmental health.
Source: Krishi Jagran
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