Multiple cropping alone does not improve year-round food security among smallholders in rural India

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Author(s)Mondal, Pinki
Author(s)DeFries, Ruth
Author(s)Clark, Jessica
Author(s)Flowerhill, Nicole
Author(s)Arif, Md.
Author(s)Harou, Aurelie
Author(s)Downs, Shauna
Author(s)Fanzo, Jessica
Date Accessioned2023-09-22T15:39:10Z
Date Available2023-09-22T15:39:10Z
Publication Date2021-06-17
DescriptionThis article was originally published in Environmental Research Letters. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac05ee. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
AbstractAchieving and maintaining food and nutrition security is an important Sustainable Development Goal, especially in countries with largely vulnerable population with high occurrence of hunger and malnutrition. By studying a small-scale agricultural system in India, we aim to understand the current state of dietary diversity and food insecurity among the farmer communities. The study landscape has witnessed a steady rise in multiple cropping (i.e. harvesting more than once a year) along with irrigation over the last two decades. Whether this multiple cropping can be expected to improve year-round food security is not well understood. We specifically examine if planting multiple food crops within a year is associated with dietary diversity and food security. We collected information on demographic and economic variables, farming activities and livelihood choices, from 200 unique households for three seasons (monsoon/rainy, winter, summer) during 2016–2018 (n = 600). Based on both a 24 h and a 30 days recall, we calculated several indicators, including the household dietary diversity score, the minimum dietary diversity for women, and household food insecurity access scale. At least 43% of the sample population experiences moderate to severe food insecurity in all seasons. Cereals (mainly rice) remain the most important food item irrespective of the season, with negligible consumption of other nutrient-rich food such as tubers, fish, eggs, and meats. Around 81% of women in all seasons do not consume a minimally diverse diet. Multiple cropping is associated with higher food security only during monsoon, while selling monsoon crops is associated with winter food security. Households practicing multiple cropping consume more pulses (a plant-based protein source) compared to single-cropping or non-farming households (p < 0.05). We find that multiple cropping cannot be used as a cure-all strategy. Rather a combination of income and nutrition strategies, including more diverse home garden, diverse income portfolio, and access to clean cooking fuel, is required to achieve year-round dietary diversity or food security.
SponsorWe are grateful to Mrs. Kusum Jhariya for data collection and to the entire team at the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES, Mandla), especially Ishan Agrawal for project logistics. We are thankful to Melissa Gallant for creating and managing the preliminary database. Mondal was supported by the Lamont Climate Center and the University of Delaware. Clark was supported by the Center for Food Systems and Sustainability (CENFOODS) Undergraduate Internship Program at the University of Delaware. Household survey data collection was funded by the NASA Land-Cover Land-Use Change Program (Grant No. 522363). We are grateful to CENFOODS for providing financial support for open access data publication. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards at Columbia University (AAAM4551) and the University of Delaware (1387713-4).
CitationMondal, Pinki, Ruth DeFries, Jessica Clark, Nicole Flowerhill, Md Arif, Aurelie Harou, Shauna Downs, and Jessica Fanzo. “Multiple Cropping Alone Does Not Improve Year-Round Food Security among Smallholders in Rural India.” Environmental Research Letters 16, no. 6 (June 2021): 065017. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac05ee.
ISSN1748-9326
URLhttps://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/33316
Languageen_US
PublisherEnvironmental Research Letters
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywordsfood security
Keywordsdietary diversity
Keywordssmallholder agriculture
KeywordsIndia
Keywordszero hunger
TitleMultiple cropping alone does not improve year-round food security among smallholders in rural India
TypeArticle
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