Group 9_C | SDG 2: Zero Hunger

 Authored by: Gokul Ajith BJ21141, Kushankur Datta BJ21148, P Karthik BJ21155, Rishabh BJ21162, Shivani Rai BJ21169, Tejas Bagrecha BJ21176, Suhas P BJ21185

SDG 2: Current progress, Private sector Involvement and the Path Ahead

What are the Sustainable Development Goals?

The United Nations General Assembly in 2015 set up a roadmap for sustainable and inclusive development of all the UN member nations by 2030. It was an all-encompassing mandate to improve the significant social, economic, and environmental indicators in all the UN member states. To that end, the UN General Assembly identified 17 broad inter-dependent topics on which international organizations, regional governments, and business institutions should work. The topics range from eliminating poverty to climate action to saving marine life. The 17 goals are as stated below:

Figure 1: The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals(https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/12/sustainable-development-goals-kick-off-with-start-of-new-year/)

What is SDG-2?

 

Amongst the 17 developmental goals, SDG-2 deals with ensuring food security, ending malnourishment, increasing the income of small-scale farmers, and implementing sustainable means of agriculture. SDG-2 focuses on the interdependency of food security and nutrition with farmer income levels and sustainable agriculture. SDG-2 has eight targets and 14 indicators to judge the progress on these targets.

These targets can be broadly divided into four parts:

a.     
Ensuring food security: As per a United Nations report, roughly 15% of the world's population goes to bed hungry every night. This accounts for approximately 820 million people, most of whom are from low to middle-income countries in Asia and Africa. The problem of food security has aggravated recently due to instances of violence, climate change, and migration, among others.

b.  Ending malnourishment: Child malnutrition is linked with ensuring food security. It is one of the leading causes of mortality among children worldwide, leading to 7.6 million deaths annually of children under five years. The graph on the right points to a very concerning problem, the malnutrition rate had been steadily decreasing in the past few decades until 2015, until it started to rise again.

Figure 2: Malnutrition rate around the world (https://www.statista.com/chart/15477/the-number-of-malnourished-people-worldwide/)

c.IIncreasing the income of small-scale farmers: This target aims to increase farm productivity and subsequently income of small-scale farmers by two times. It also puts particular emphasis on removing the gender pay gap in agriculture.

d. Implementing sustainable means of agriculture: The current farm practices in developing countries erode soil quality and produce shallow nutritional content. They are also blamed for reducing the water level in the regions where unsustainable farming is practiced.

 

Why is SDG-2 relevant for India?

 

With a population of over 1.3 billion, India has witnessed exponential growth in the last few decades. GDP has grown four and a half times, and consumption per capita has increased three times. Consequently, food production has also doubled. India produces enough food to feed the entirety of its population, but a vast majority of Indians go to bed hungry every night.

The dire state of nutrition in India: As per the 'The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2020 report', 190 million people are undernourished in India, accounting for 14% of India's population. In the same tone, 52% of women in reproductive age between 15 to 49 years are anemic. Further, 35% of children under five are stunted (too short for their age), while 20% suffer from wasting (weight is too low for their height). The propensity to die among malnourished children increases exponentially. India has been slipping down on the Global Hunger Index due to poor nutrition indicators for the past couple of years.

Figure 3: India in the global hunger index (https://static.toiimg.com/photo/imgsize-,msid-54830803/54830803.jpg)

Agriculture in India: Agriculture, with its allied sectors, is India's largest source of livelihood. Seventy percent of its rural households still depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihood, with 82 percent of farmers being small and marginal. Agriculture in India trails behind the world standards in almost every aspect, be it per hectare crop production, the income of an individual farmer, or the means of production currently in use. In recent developments, private institutions have taken up various initiatives in the agricultural sector, but many of them are unsustainable.

 

 

Why should companies care about undernutrition?

 

When we talk about SDG-2, the primary question that arises is how undernutrition affects businesses. Hunger and malnutrition are often classified as problems that are to be dealt with by the government. While there is no immediate correlation between a company's profits and malnutrition, there is more to this than what meets the eye. Let us take a deep dive and understand how malnutrition affects a person in general.

"The wealth of nations depends in part on the health, nutrition, skills and knowledge of their people"- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.

Undernutrition and labor productivity: The burden of malnutrition takes a massive toll on the country's labor productivity. Adults who were malnourished as children have reduced cognitive ability and productivity. The 2018 Global Nutrition Report revealed that India loses close to $3.5 trillion per year due to malnutrition. This figure is more than the current GDP of India. Stunting (low height for age) slows down brain and muscle development, and when stunted children reach adulthood, they are less productive in the workforce than a properly nourished adult. This statistic is of grave concern for India, which aims to be a $5 trillion economy by 2025. The labor productivity statistic of India lags many of its peers and competitors. Extending that line of thought, we can understand how malnutrition affects the country's manufacturing sector.

Figure 4: India's labor productivity v/s the world(www.livemint.com/Opinion/3qjewAnLB1AxPOEhyhAEiN/Indian-workers-have-a-productivity-problem.html)

Lower consumer base: The interlinkage between undernutrition and poverty has been well established. Children who grow up malnourished have inferior cognitive and physical abilities leading them to do low-income jobs and not reach their full potential. This leads to them falling into the poverty trap, which again circles back to undernutrition for the next generation. High poverty is concerning for governments and businesses alike. Due to low disposable income, companies' consumer base reduces, which in turn leads to low revenue generation for the companies.

Agriculture and the private sector

 

The agricultural sector is the largest employer in India, with 42% of the workforce working in it. Agriculture is the backbone of the country, feeding 1.3 billion people. Agriculture in India trails behind the world standards in almost every aspect, be it per hectare crop production, the income of an individual farmer, or the means of production currently in use. The grains and vegetables that companies source for their use are majorly untraceable.

Supply chain: With current awareness generated around sustainable agriculture, companies are increasingly looking to source their products from small landholders who practice sustainable agriculture. They are also increasingly looking down their supply chains to trace the origins of their raw materials to weed out traces of pesticides and insecticides.

Business opportunity: The current production level in Indian agriculture trails world standards and is highly resource-intensive, which in turn has a significant burden on the land and water resources of the country. Businesses have a vast scope to enter the agriculture sector throughout its supply chain, from farm inputs to cold storage.

 

What have companies done so far?

 

Bajaj Auto Initiatives: Bajaj Auto funds initiatives in sustainable agriculture through external agencies such as the Jankidevi Bajaj Gram Vikas Sanstha (JBGVS), Action for Food Production (AFPRO), and the Foundation for Ecological Society (FES). In the financial year 2019-2020, before the pandemic, they had spent INR 40 crores on agricultural activities. These initiatives have focussed on water conservation and restoration of degraded lands for agricultural usage.

 

VI Initiatives: Telecom companies like VI have been focussing on smart agriculture - the internet, mobile technology, and the internet of things to improve agricultural productivity. VI is currently working with 50,000 cotton and soybean growing smallholders in Madhya Pradesh on an IoT-based project which combines Sensors, Multilingual Applications, QueryBot, Crop Disease Detection, Artificial Intelligence for data analysis. They also provide training for the smallholders on smart agriculture. This initiative has increased yield per acre by 8% for cotton crops and about 35% for soybean compared to farmers not in the program. They have also witnessed a revolution in input costs by about 10% and 20% for cotton and soybean, respectively. 

 

Nestle Initiatives: As Nestle is a food and dairy company, it has initiatives in both nutrition and sustainable agriculture. Additionally, it has also integrated these aspects into its business operations. For example, in India, Nestle has partnered with SAN for responsible sourcing of spices for its products, ensuring that it buys from smallholders following sustainable agriculture practices. Globally, it has pioneered the Nestle Cocoa Plan and the Nescafe plan to develop sustainable coffee and cocoa supply chains for its products.  Since the adoption of SDG 2, it has moved towards offering healthier food items, removing artificial additives, and reducing sugar and salt from its products. 

 

Analysis and the suggested path ahead

 

The private sector can be a key stakeholder in the fight against malnutrition, rural poverty, and food insecurity. There is also growing recognition within the private sector, especially those companies operating in the food and agriculture sector, of the importance of creating sustainable agricultural supply chains to protect long-term shareholder value. As previously illustrated, many companies are working with smallholders as part of their corporate social responsibility programs, and some companies like Nestle have integrated it into their business operations. 

 

However, many companies are yet to embrace sustainability as part of their business strategy, seeing it as something confined only to their social responsibility obligations. Additionally, while the private sector does plenty of work for sustainable agriculture, very little work has been done to solve malnutrition. Companies are working to produce better food products, but this is primarily due to consumer demand. Even in their work for sustainable agriculture, it is not very clear if the initiatives of the companies are protecting smallholders and agricultural diversity. 

 

In terms of the path ahead, we believe that the following initiatives can enhance the contribution of  the private sector to SDG2:

Protect agricultural diversity: Many food companies source only a single variant of crops for their food products, and in many cases, this variant is patented by the company. This has resulted in geographical variants and cultivars being grown less and less which threatens food security as there is a greater chance of crops being decimated by disease. Promoting agricultural diversity also favors smallholders over large farmers.

Funding open access research for agricultural resilience - Due to climate change, crops in the future will have to contend with unfamiliar weather conditions. There is a need to research and promote climate-resilient crops, and the private sector has the capital required to fund such research. Additionally, such research will also benefit the supply chains of private sector players. 

Low-income access to nutritious food - There is now a trend among private players to focus on healthy foods, but these foods are targeted at consumers at the top of the pyramid and are sold at a premium. There is a need for private players not to ignore the consumers at the bottom of the pyramid and develop production, manufacturing, and supply chain innovations to improve low-income access to healthy food. 

 

Overall, the world has regressed instead of progressing towards achieving SDG 2 in 2015. If the targets of ending world hunger, malnutrition and ensuring sustainable agriculture are to be achieved by 2030, there is a need for urgent efforts by both the public and private sector.

References:

1. https://investors.bajajauto.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Bajaj-Auto-Ltd_AR_2020-21_Web_IndiDesign_-1.pdf
2. https://www.myvi.in/content/dam/microsite/pdfs/annual-reports-page/annual-report/VIL_AR_2020_21_6Sep2021.pdf
3. https://sdgs.un.org/sites/default/files/publications/2209fao%20strategies.pdf

4. https://www.sdgsinorder.org/goals

5. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/health/child-malnutrition-in-india-a-systemic-failure-76507

6. https://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/goals/goal-2/en/

7. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=400&nr=2399&menu=1515

8. https://sdgs.un.org/sites/default/files/publications/2209fao%20strategies.pdf

9. https://www.statista.com/chart/15477/the-number-of-malnourished-people-worldwide/

10. https://www.fao.org/india/fao-in-india/india-at-a-glance/en/

11. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/specials/pulse/malnutrition-a-major-impediment-in-indias-economic-growth/article29799682.ece