Caritas India Steps Up Fight Against Malnutrition Through Community Food Initiatives

Caritas India Tackles Rural Malnutrition Through Community-Led Food and Nutrition Model NEW DELHI, India — Caritas India is addressing persistent malnutrition in rural communities through a community-led food and nutrition model that promotes dietary diversity, adaptive farming, indigenous foods, women’s participation and stronger links with local health services. The initiative is being implemented through the Smallholder Adaptive Farming and Biodiversity Network (SAFBIN), a flagship program of Caritas India that works with smallholder farming communities to strengthen local food systems and improve household nutrition. According to Father Paul Moonjely, former Executive Director of Caritas India and an initiator of the Community-Led Food & Nutrition Model study, undernutrition remains a serious concern in developing countries, particularly among pregnant women, newborns and children under five. The SAFBIN approach has helped more than 756 families improve access to balanced diets by encouraging the use of a wider variety of locally available foods. Addressing Malnutrition in Rural Communities The program has focused particularly on communities in Sagar and Mandla districts of Madhya Pradesh, where malnutrition and anaemia continue to affect vulnerable populations. In Sagar, nearly 39.7% of children under five are stunted, while about 67.8% of children aged 6–59 months experience anaemia. In Mandla, anaemia affects approximately 75.7% of pregnant women aged 15–49. To respond to these challenges, SAFBIN introduced a series of community-based interventions designed to overcome geographical, social and nutritional barriers. One important component was the recruitment of 60 local volunteers in Sagar and Mandla. Many of the volunteers were women and girls from the villages because a large proportion of beneficiaries were pregnant women, lactating mothers and mothers of young children. The volunteers work alongside local health workers and SAFBIN teams to monitor health conditions, conduct household assessments and organize community meetings. For families living in remote areas with limited transportation and network connectivity, these local volunteers also provide timely support in accessing government health and nutrition services. Promoting Indigenous and Locally Available Foods A central feature of the initiative is the promotion of locally available and traditional foods rather than dependence on external food sources. Project teams identified 41 locally grown traditional food items as well as 12 uncultivated fruits, including jackfruit, wood apple and karonda. These foods provide important nutrients and help families make greater use of the biodiversity available around them. The program also promoted backyard kitchen gardens. Thirteen varieties of local vegetables were recommended for nutrition garden kits, leading to the establishment of specialized nutrition gardens among 1,306 farming households. These gardens enable families to grow fresh vegetables close to their homes while strengthening household food security and dietary diversity. Mothers at the Centre of Nutrition Education The program also introduced a 15-day “Positive Deviance Hearth” initiative, through which mothers received practical training on child nutrition and food preparation. Participants were taught how to monitor their children’s weight and prepare nutritious meals while minimizing nutrient loss during cooking. By combining practical education with locally available food resources, the initiative seeks to make healthy dietary practices easier for families to adopt and sustain. Stronger Community and Government Partnerships Caritas India’s model operates at multiple levels — from household practices and community environments to broader policy engagement. The approach has also gained recognition from local government health authorities. The District Health Department in Sagar replicated the community-led food and nutrition model in eight neighboring gram panchayats, extending services to more than 500 vulnerable families. This collaboration demonstrates how community-based approaches can complement existing government health and nutrition programs, particularly in geographically remote communities. Improving Dietary Diversity and Food Security Project evaluations indicate significant improvements in household nutrition. According to the SAFBIN report, communities have achieved approximately 85–90% adoption of nutritional dietary diversity through homestead-based food production. The evaluation also found that participating smallholder farming families were consuming balanced diets throughout the year, with consumption reportedly increasing by approximately 129% compared with their previous status. These outcomes suggest that strengthening local food production and empowering families to manage their own food resources can play an important role in addressing chronic malnutrition. A Community-Led Model for Long-Term Resilience Caritas India’s experience highlights the importance of looking beyond conventional approaches to rural hunger. Rather than relying solely on high-input agriculture or externally supplied food, the SAFBIN model emphasizes indigenous biodiversity, traditional knowledge, local farming practices and community leadership. Women and local volunteers play a particularly important role in connecting vulnerable households with health services, nutrition education and locally available food resources. The initiative also demonstrates how partnerships between communities, farmers, health workers, government departments and civil society organizations can create stronger and more sustainable responses to malnutrition. For Caritas India, the experience offers a potential model for other rural communities facing food insecurity, climate-related agricultural challenges and nutritional deficiencies. By placing local families at the centre of food and nutrition decisions, the community-led approach seeks not only to improve diets today but also to strengthen long-term food sovereignty, resilience and nutritional well-being among vulnerable households.