RSS affiliate SJM opposes current anti-malnutrition drive initiatives, call for national policy

RSS affiliate Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) has opposed the corporate led anti-malnutrition drive for children that are being rolled out by various states in the country.

In a letter to Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister for Women and Child Welfare, Ashwani Mahajan, All India Co-convenor, SJM, called for a national policy to end the use of commercial Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) promoted by global food giants. The organisation wants it to be replaced by the supply of 'indigenous, economical and culturally relevant' home augmented food items.  

The letter specifically targets the Scaling UP Nutrition (SUN) movement that has partnered with the state governments of Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh to provide packed RUTFs to children in rural areas to tackle malnutrition. Another agency that has come under SJM attack is the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). The letter points out that SUN has a business network called SBN with majority of its members in food businesses promoting ready-to-use foods, nutrition supplements, ingredients for formulas and highly processed products and snacks. These members include Pepsi, Cargill, Nutriset, Britannia, Unilever, Edesia, General Mills, Glaxo SKB, Mars, Indofood, Nutrifood, DSM, Amul, and Valid Nutrition, it states. Inorder to suggest a conflit-of-interest possibility, the letter also informs that GAIN, chaired by Vinita Bali, former managing director of Britannia, leads the SBN.

"These vested interests like to promote 'magic bullet' and market-led approaches. Such approaches are misleading and undermine local, bio-diverse and sustainable food cultures", the letter alleges."Rajasthan is already using RUTFs under the National Health Mission supported by agencies like GAIN, ACF, and UNICEF. It is no doubt very expensive also and not sustainable", it adds.

According to SJM, the Indian data for the treatment of SAM children suggests little difference between commercial ready to use foods and home augmented foods."The locally created ready to use therapeutic food group was found better as there was 57 per cent recovery rate as compared to 43 per cent among the commercial RUTF group," it said.

The organisation also adds that several international experts and research bodies have questioned the evidence for the routine use of RUTFs for severe acute malnutrition, though international agencies like World Bank and UNICEF continue to support the SUN movement.

More than 44 million children under the age five remain chronically undernourished in India. Over 90 per cent of the children i.e. 23 million out of 26 million born, between the age group of 6-24 months do not get to eat the recommended four food groups crucial for their growth and development.

Terming childhood under-nutrition a deep rooted and multi-dimensional problem, SJM wanted it to be solved through food security, protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding and optimal complementary feeding, preventing early child bearing, strengthening preventive and curative health systems, and improving water supply and sanitation.