Tag: stunting

India’s Conquest of Famine

April 19, 2026     In the weeks since Paul Ehrlich’s passing away, there have been many articles about the change that have occurred since his publication of the Population Bomb, where he warned about trends in risk of famine in India.

Indeed, one of the greatest stories in human history of overcoming food insecurity and famine has been India over the last 50 years. Not only has India grown in terms of food production, but it has diversified its economy, built infrastructure, and increased its GNP, which also supports improvements in long-term resilience.  In the 1990s, India turned away the food assistance provided in large quantities by the US Government’s Food for Peace, and India became itself a food aid donor to other countries.

In the late 1960s, India began intensively experimenting with ways to improve yields of key food crops, particularly wheat.  A few Indian scientists played an historic, important role in feeding this country which today has more people than any other.  The most important was M.S. Swaminathan, an unassuming man who, in his own gentle way, revolutionized India’s agricultural sector.

Swaminathan started out in 1947 working on plant breeding at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi. Swaminathan collaborated with US plant breeder Norman Borlaug touring India, breeding Mexican wheat with Japanese varieties. This new crop produced high yields of good quality.  In 1964 he earned funds to plant demonstration plots which convinced Indian farmers to experiment with its use.  Further experimentation led to wheat varieties which by 1968 increased wheat production to 17 million tons.

Swaminathan’s lifelong commitment to transparency pushed him to establish various systems of accountability of the institutions he headed; therefore, he placed the entire international rice collection under the supervision of an international rice board even though it was already a part of IRRI.  Swaminathan never tired of crediting that the seeds of the green revolution in India were actually sown far back in 1949 in the fields of the Central Rice Research Institute in Cuttack, India long before Norman Borlaug came to India.  Working with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, he established a commission for plant-based genetic resources to address issues related to the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources for food and agriculture. This included plants, animals, and aquatic organisms.  The commission’s focus was on the management of biodiversity.  In the 1980s, Swaminathan led, as Director General, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Here he shone as a brilliant and dedicated scientist, an excellent leader, and kind-hearted.  Despite occasional setbacks, he persevered in promoting international cooperation in the utilization and conservation of genetic resources.  His vision extended beyond yield per hectare. He was a prophet of sustainability long before it became a buzzword of the 21st century. From championing greater participation of women in agriculture to espousing ecological balance, from advancing research in Russian attics to promoting sustainable coastal farming, from advocating for tribal food security to establishing gene banks for endangered crops, his canvas was vast, and his brush precise. Swami Nathan was generous and humane, embodying the best and noblest of the India into which he was born and by which he was shaped.

As shown in the graph at right, food production in India has more than kept pace with population growth due to ongoing improvements in applications of scientific methods. In these same last fifty years, India’s population hasalmost tripled, from 520,000,000 to about 1.5 billion today.

India’s agricultural geography has shifted from a northwest “Green Revolution core” (1970s) to a much more broad-based and increasingly central/eastern growth pattern (last decade).  In the 1970s, increases in production were largely in the Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh.   More recently, Indian States with the strongest increases in food production:

    • * Madhya Pradesh – often cited as India’s fastest-growing agricultural state in the 2010s
    • * Chhattisgarh – rapid expansion in rice production and procurement
    • * Jharkhand – gains from irrigation and diversification
    • * Bihar & Eastern Uttar Pradesh – improvements in rice, maize, and horticulture.

The elimination of famine has not meant that there is no malnutrition in India.  Fifty years ago half of children were stunted (low height per age) from undernutrition, while today 1 in three are.

Meanwhile, rate of wasting malnutrition (as measured by weight for height) has remained stubbornly high over the last 50% years, by many estimates stuck in the range of 17-18%.

The government’s most current estimate for the national prevalence of wasting (low weight for height) among children under five in India for 2025 is estimated the 5.4% though estimates from prior years are closer to 18% among children.  Wasting malnutrition also varies across different areas.  For instance, the Union Territory of Lakshadweep reported the highest wasting rate at 11.6%, followed by Bihar (9.31%) and Madhya Pradesh (8.2%).

Much of the growth of production in India has been facilitated by increases in application of synthetic fertilizers. This is relevant today because, as reported yesterday, India’s food economy is seriously dependent upon fertilizers from the Middle East that are now blockaded and will be increasingly expensive, which may challenge food production in India this year.

Read more:   M.S. Swaminathan in conversation with Nitya Rao: The Ethics and Politics of Science, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation Centre for Research on Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development, 2014.

Charles C. Mann, The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 2018).

Priyambada Jayakumar, M S Swaminathan: The Man Who Fed India,  HarperCollins India, September 10, 2025

Debate over Child Malnutrition in Gujarat, India

In his book Development as Freedom, Nobel-prize winning scholar Amartya Sen wrote that “no famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy,” tying that claim to the presence of elections, opposition parties, and a relatively free press.

The press in Gujarat, India is giving a current example of how politicians are being held accountable to metrics of child malnutrition.

As reported in Indian news, quoting the independent, population-based National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), the opposition party in Gujarat is criticizing the government for a 41% rate of stunting in Gujarat state (or some 260,000 children), whereas the government is quoting a lower rate based on self-selected clinic-based screening of children.  The NFHS also reports 19% of children under age 5 were wasted (acutely malnourished).

The opposition has claimed, “Despite this BJP government with more than 150 seats and 28 years of rule, only one figure comes on record, that 40 out of 100 children are malnourished. A very large section of them are tribals.”    In districts like Panchmahal and Banaskantha, the numbers are objectively worse than the state average, which is why they were the focus of the March 12th debate.

Over roughly the last two decades, Gujarat’s child malnutrition record has improved, but unevenly.  But wasting moved the wrong way for a long stretch: about 19% in 2005–06, 27% in 2015–16, and still about 25% in 2019–20/21; severe wasting also rose from about 7% to 11% and then stayed around 11%.  Several underlying determinants improved substantially over time in NFHS: by NFHS-5, Gujarat had higher coverage of improved sanitation (74.0% vs 63.6% in NFHS-4), clean cooking fuel (66.9% vs 52.6%), improved drinking water (97.2% vs 95.9%), and continued high use of iodized salt (95.6%).  Those changes usually point in the right direction for nutrition security.

Reference about the recent controversy:

https://www.thehindu.com/data/fact-check-are-40-out-of-100-children-malnourished-in-gujarat/article70744284.ece

Threat of Child Malnutrition in Iran Amid U.S.–Iran Conflict

The U.S.–Iran war that began today, 28 February 2026, threatens to sharply worsen malnutrition among children under five in low-income urban neighborhoods of strike zones (Tehran, Isfahan, Kermanshah) and in rural border provinces (e.g., Sistan-Baluchestan and Kurdistan) that already experience high malnutrition rates.

Iran, with a total population of 93 million people, has 7 ½ million children under five years of age, which is more children than Germany, the UK, Canada, Iraq, Syria, Italy, Turkey, or France.

Over the last few decades the occurrence of childhood stunting (a form of long-term malnutrition) and of wasting (short-term) malnutrition have declined in Iran, reflected by the government’s attention to treating malnutrition.   However, studies in southern Iran from 2018 to 2023 show a significant increase in underweight and wasting among young children, with the annual % change of severe wasting increasing by 8.9%.  Nationally, the rate of wasting has averaged 4.2%, which is medium for regional and peer countries.  Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoHME) manages child malnutrition programs through primary healthcare centers, hospitals, and nutrition initiatives.  Treatment follows protocols similar to WHO/UNICEF guidelines for community-based management of acute malnutrition, which emphasize outpatient therapeutic care using Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for severe malnutrition.

The most widespread micronutrient deficiency diseases in Iran include vitamin D (rickets), iron (anemia), vitamin A, and zinc deficiency.  Iran addresses these through national programs (e.g., supplementation, fortification of foods like flour with iron/folate, salt iodization, and targeted UNICEF-supported interventions in high-risk provinces), but challenges persist due to economic factors, dietary habits, and regional disparities.

Even before the current war threats, Iran’s food economy was struggling under the weight of international sanctions and mismanagement.  The conflict will further reduce Iranian families’ ability to afford food.  In fact, the protests that broke out in December 2025 were in part over increased food prices after the rial plunged against the U.S. dollar.   There has been criticism by Iranians that their government has failed to present a clear emergency response plan, leaving citizens to fend for themselves. 

Iran produces much of its own wheat, dates, barley, rice, pistachios, walnuts, citrus fruits, and saffron.  It imports rice, cooking oils, soybeans, sugar, tea, and dairy.  The fighting will disrupt Iran’s ability to import food commodities, tightening supply.  Agricultural supply chains, transportation networks, storage facilities, and water infrastructure are all vulnerable.  Damaged roads and ports will impede food distribution across the country.

Urban bombardment now underway in Tehran and other major cities will displace families.  Reuters today reports that Iranians have fled cities in search of safety, rushed to stock up on food, and formed long queues at fuel stations as attacks by the United States and Israel spread fear and panic throughout the country.  Iranian government messages have explicitly encouraged people to leave Tehran and other targeted cities to avoid attacks.  This kind of internal displacement typically leads to overcrowded towns, strain on services, and informal settlements on the periphery of safer cities.

Internally displaced populations lose access to stable food sources, income, and caregiving routines.  Young children are disproportionately harmed by the disruption of feeding practices and by unhygienic displacement conditions that compound malnutrition with infectious disease.

Iran is known as a country that takes care of refugees.  Estimates vary, but UNHCR and other agencies report roughly some 3.8 million refugees and people in refugee-like situations in Iran as of 2025, overwhelmingly from Afghanistan and a smaller number from Iraq and other countries.

Iran has been prone to disasters due to large earthquakes and famines.  As well, in February 1972, a week-long series of storms  brought up to 26 feet (8 meters) of snow in rural areas of western Iran which buried over 200 villages, killing thousands.

Iran also suffered severe famines in 1870-72 and during the First and Second World Wars.  The most recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization report about Iran (November 2025) notes that persistent dry weather has hampered winter wheat plantings, leading to an estimated cereal production nearly 10% below the five-year average in 2025.  It found that wheat prices in Tehran had risen 50% and rice prices had tripled, compared to the previous year.

Iran has a fairly extensive domestic social protection system by regional standards, though it has faced significant strains in recent years.  The Imam Khomeini Relief Committee (IKRC) is one of the largest non-governmental charitable organizations in the world by some measures. It operates under government supervision and provides cash transfers, food assistance, healthcare subsidies, and vocational training to millions of low-income Iranians. It draws on religious endowments (waqf) and public donations alongside state funding.   The State Welfare Organization (SWO) handles a broader range of social services including disability support, elderly care, and assistance for vulnerable families.

International aid agencies help Iran in disasters, including the Red Cross.  The national Red Crescent society of Iran, part of the global IFRC network, has deep roots in domestic disaster relief, rescue, and healthcare operations.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been working in Iran since the late 1970s.  The ICRC provides humanitarian services related to conflict-affected populations, health, and protection.

Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors without Borders) has been operating health programs in Iran.  Many other international NGOs have been hesitant to work in Iran, where the government distrusts Western organizations.  An exception has been Relief International (RI), which was founded in 1990 following the catastrophic Manjil–Rudbar earthquake in northern Iran.

The convergence of active conflict, pre-existing economic strain, and disrupted supply chains creates a compounding crisis for Iran’s most vulnerable — particularly children under five.  International humanitarian organizations face their own obstacles operating in Iran, given longstanding government suspicion of Western NGOs. The children most at risk — those in strike zones like Tehran and Isfahan, and those in already-malnourished border provinces like Sistan-Baluchestan — are precisely the populations least able to weather further disruption to food access, clean water, and caregiving. Without rapid and coordinated humanitarian response, the malnutrition crisis that predates this conflict will deepen sharply, with consequences that will outlast the fighting itself.

 

 

 

 

 

Low Height-for-Age Malnutrition Examined in the North of Rwanda

A study published this month, February 2026, about long-term malnutrition, measured by the degree of a child’s stunting (low height for age) in Rwanda found that despite economic progress, low growth rates were found in 27% of children in northern areas.

The authors note that “In addition to food deficit linked to poverty, stunting is associated with factors like inadequate diets, poor sanitation and hygiene, inadequate maternal and childcare practices, polluted water sources, limited healthcare access, low maternal education, and limited socio-economic opportunities.”

The authors set out to evaluate the how well geographically-weighted logistic regression (GWLR) enhances the understanding of spatially varying risk factors for malnutrition.

the authors found that key interventions such as vitamin A tablets or deworming medicine were, unexpectedly, associated with greater stunting.  Maternal autonomy was preventive of stunting.  “At the household and community level, the presence of a handwashing facility near the toilet and household electricity access were consistently associated with lower odds of stunting.”

The authors demonstrate that the patterns and causes of malnutrition and hunger vary within countries for a range of reasons, including livelihoods, terrain and local customs.  Therefore, “localised interventions should be prioritized to address specific needs identified in geographically distinct clusters, optimizing resource allocation and intervention effectiveness.”

See  “Spatial heterogeneity and spatially varying determinants of childhood stunting in Northern Rwanda: A cross-sectional study to inform targeted interventions” by Kagoyire, Ndagijimana et al, from the Universities of Lund and Umea Sweden.

Another review of this is found at:  https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/science-environment/3817025-why-children-in-northern-rwanda-are-still-stunted-despite-green-fields