‘Rice project fails to help Adivasis with blood disorders’

Ranchi: A seven-member team of the Right to Food Campaign (RTFC) and the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA-Kisan Swaraj) shared its fact-finding report on Wednesday which claimed a significant portion of the Adivasi population suffers from multiple blood disorders which nullifies the plan of fortified rice consumption to check anaemia.
The team visited five villages in East Singhbhum and Khunti districts from May 8 to 10.
The fact-finding team helmed by RTFC’s James Herenz, ASHA-Kisan Swaraj’s Kavitha Kurunganthi, social activist Balram and Greenpeace’s Rohin Kumar reported on the Centre’s rice fortification pilot project under the public distribution system (PDS) which was announced in 2019 and began in October 2021 in Jharkhand. “While the government understands the health risks involved in the consumption of iron-fortified food for people with particular health conditions, the government itself is distributing such rice in all food schemes where the poor have no option but to depend on PDS for their food security,” Kurunganthi pointed out.
Kurunganthi further said that the tribal-majority Jharkhand lacks population-based screenings. “People suffering from various health conditions themselves might not be aware of their blood disorders and when the government is distributing such (fortified) rice without any proper information or dialogue with the communities, it is a violation of their fundamental right to choice and to know and choose what one is eating,” she said.
RTFC team member James Herenz said, “People who are consuming this fortified rice under the PDS consider the fortified rice as plastic rice and separate the fortified rice kernels out which increases the workload of women.”