Nutrition levels in food falling: Study

You may soon have to rethink on the contents of your daily meal -- climate change is reportedly causing the depletion of nutrition of wheat and rice, the main sources of energy for most Indians, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Nov 29, 2009, 01:39:13 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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You may soon have to rethink on the contents of your daily meal -- climate change is reportedly causing the depletion of nutrition of wheat and rice, the main sources of energy for most Indians.

In a first-of-its-kind study that quantifies nutrition loss, the public sector Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) has found that protein content in wheat can fall by 10 per cent and iron content by eight per cent because of carbon emissions.

“Higher carbon content in the area dilutes the capacity of wheat to intake nitrogen, essential for protein generation,” said P.K. Aggarwal, lead author of the study.

The annual average production of wheat is 75 million tonnes, 95 per cent of which is consumed within the country.

On an average, the Indian population has protein deficiency of 20 per cent, said Dr Parameet Kaur, chief dietician, All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

“Because of climate change it can increase to 35-40 per cent, having major health implications for the country’s future generations,” Kaur said.

Agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan believes climate change may not be the only reason for the depleting nutrition. “The high use of chemicals and changing dynamics of water and soil may also be contributing to the quality loss,” he said.

As per ICAR estimate India needs Rs 7,000 crore every year to protect the agriculture sector from devastating impacts of climate change. “Not just money we should groom quality agri scientists to ensure food security,” Swaminathan said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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