How Women Farmers In Eastern India Are Supporting Families By Cultivating Nutrition Gardens
Bhubaneswar: Mayurbhanj is Odisha’s third most populous district that shares its boundary with Jharkhand and West Bengal. The district also has Odisha’s highest tribal population; over 58% of the population belongs to the scheduled tribes (STs), as per the 2011 Census. In 2015-16, 43.5% children under five years of age in Mayurbhanj were short for their age (or stunted) and 43.8% underweight, according to the fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4). This is higher than the state average of 34.1% stunted and 34.4% underweight children under the age of five.
In Odisha, tribal families depend on the collection of minor forest produce (MFP) for their food and livelihood needs. However, during the pandemic-induced lockdown, tribal women were unable to sell their produce because they neither had access to local markets nor could the traders procure it from their villages resulting in distress sale, the report noted.