Nourish South Asia: Growing a better future for regional food justice
Overview
Forty percent of the world’s hungry people lived in South Asia even before the food price crisis of 2008. Hunger stalks the entire region, from the mountain slopes of Nepal to the arid plains of southern Afghanistan. Although large-scale famines have largely been kept at bay, millions of poor people are unable to afford two square meals a day.
Productivity from the resource-intensive Green Revolution agriculture has reached a plateau. Incessant diversion of fertile land for non-farm activities, depletion of ground-water tables and declining budgetary support have pushed South Asian agriculture to the brink.
Climate change threatens to exacerbate these resource constraints in a region where 60 percent of farming is rain-fed. Even the most optimistic of projections indicate that average crop yields could plummet and the frequency and severity of disasters increase multi-fold. The prognosis for regional food security is dire.
There are reasons for optimism, however. The combination of the food, finance, and agriculture crises has brought to public attention the magnitude of the hidden iceberg of hunger. Media channels, parliamentary debates, and even regional films are finally paying heed to the scale of undernourishment which engulfs the region.
And with the recent establishment of democracy in Afghanistan and Nepal and the end of prolonged conflict in Sri Lanka, unprecedented opportunities exist to initiate structural changes. South Asian leaders need to rise to this challenge with vision and concrete initiatives before the impact of climate change further weakens the fragility of South Asian food and agrarian systems.
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978-1-84814-978-6How to cite this resource
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