Hello there,
It has been one full year since the pandemic hit.
While exposing cracks in the food system, it has also made the inequities glaringly obvious. The after-effects of 2020’s economic crisis continue to affect some worse than others.
Food and eating have changed so much for all of us. There’s a renewed focus on comfort, health. But there are many heartwarming stories of solidarity through the community, with a side of kadak chai.
While we jog your memory with the story of Parle-G, dive into this month’s issue.
Stay Curious.
Anusha & Elizabeth
Farming in Araria, cutting cane in Karnal: PARI
Lakhs of farmers in our country, earn more as farm labourers in other states than as farmers in their own states. Parth M.N. for PARI, follows the story of some such farmers and documents their struggles.
To be a Farmer or a Farm Labourer?
The pandemic has made the cracks in our food system visible. We thus need new green shoots — new ways of growing, distributing and consuming our food, in ways that help both people and the planet.
Follow along with this research project that is understanding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on food systems in Bangalore. Green Shoots from a Game-Changing Year
On Agriculture & Access
🌽Why India’s farmers fight to save a broken system? NYTimes
🔊Listen: Farmer protests, dissent, and disappointment IDROnline
⚡What it takes to build a supply chain and logistics tech ecosystem
Livemint
🤕Starvation stares poor in the face as PDS fails to safeguard Indians’ Right to Food
Firstpost
👎NITI Aayog’s Proposal to Cut Food Subsidies Will Worsen India’s
Rising Hunger Problem
The Wire
Event Alert: Coffee, Circularity and the City
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Food Policy & Laws
Where are the food parks?
India’s ambitious attempt to develop large food processing hubs across the country has not yielded the desired results. At the heart of the failure lies a tale of misguided policies, botched implementation and basic infrastructure issues
Women grow 80% of India’s food
In a given crop season, women farmers in India work about 3,300 hours, double the 1,860 hours their male counterparts put into farming. But new farm laws are unlikely to help them.
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How might we build a better food future for everyone, everywhere?
The Food Systems Game Changers Lab’s Phase 1, is hosted by IDEO and seeks people who have ideas, initiatives, or innovations that have the potential to bring positive change to global food systems — and the passion, grit, collaborative spirit, and determination required to take their solutions forward in partnership with others.
Learn More.
Privileged Nutrition & Wellness 🤨
Supplements of food evidently, aren’t new to us. Recently, archaeologists discovered protein-rich laddoos in the Harappan site. What we know and understand as “healthy eating” is constantly changing and making multiple comebacks under various different labels. Everybody has their own personal nutrition philosophy. And newer sciences of nutrition are emerging. Read on for 2 different perspectives on the nutrition industry, below.
The formula for the wellness industry remains the same: “Take indigenous knowledge, infuse it with Western capital-centric imagination, and sell it back to Indian women”
Vittles
From quinoa dal dosas to vitamin gummies, companies are getting ahead of themselves to make sure we have no dearth of “clean” eating options.
Boom in Nutrition
What we’re watching
Seaspiracy: From an exploration into the environmental impact of overfishing, marine life, plastic debris in the sea to sustainability labels catch this stunning documentary on Netflix.
Food & Culture
Khazans, a Goan farming system that preserved saline-resistant rice varieties is slowly dwindling in the state. But what wisdom do these last living khazans preserve?
The Goya Journal
The Rise and Fall of the Curry House: “A new wave of Indian restaurants focusing on street food and regional cuisine has emerged. Some of these restaurants’ owners are more than happy to call time on the curry house”. Vittles
Kerala’s Traditional Cookware are symbols of an oppressed era, the fall of the feudal system, and tell stories of marginalized voices. The cookware are now making a comeback, sans the narrative.
Goya Journal
Every time Bengal loses a traditional rice variety, it loses a little bit of its culture. Old customs and foods no longer have the same meaning because the rice varieties associated with them are long gone.
Scroll
A first-of-its-kind Badaga restaurant in Coimbatore is attempting to revive the traditional cuisine of the Nilgiris’ original inhabitants.
The Hindu
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