Assessing the multi-sectoral convergence of interventions impacting nutrition at the household level: Lessons from Sundarbans, West Bengal, India

Background: Malnutrition is a multifaceted problem requiring interventions that address the multi-sectoral determinants contributing to it. As per National Family Health Survey - 5 (2019-21), with 33.8% stunted, 20.3% wasted, and 32.2% underweight children, West Bengal is one of the high burden states for childhood undernutrition in India. Objectives: The objective of the study was to assess household-level access (i.e. the percentage of households availing select services) to various nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions and understand the extent to which convergent action has taken place in the most hard-to-reach areas of the Sundarbans.  Methods: Cross-sectional survey following 30 x 30 cluster sampling; the sampling was done based on population proportion to size (PPS) methodology. A total of 912 households were recruited for a quantitative survey, and the data was collected through computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) tools. Data was collected from October 15-25, 2021 from households having at least one child in the age group of 6 – 24 months.  Result: The study focused on 19 nutrition-specific and sensitive interventions. Household-level coverage of 13 of these interventions was 1.5%; coverage of the six others was 4.2%. The estimated coverage of all 19 interventions was found to be almost non-existent (0.2%). Conclusion: The conspicuously low coverage of services at the household level is a clear indicator of poor convergence of government schemes and programs, reflecting, in turn, disjointed action on the part of the various departments of the government. The results suggest the need for reconsidering the household-level delivery of services as a wholesome package of interventions rather than seeing them as discrete departmental deliverables

Influence of gender and parental migration on IYCF practices in 6-23-month-old tribal children in Banswara district, India: findings from the cross-sectional PANChSHEEEL study

BACKGROUND: The interdisciplinary Participatory Approach for Nutrition in Children: Strengthening Health, Education, Engineering and Environment Linkages (PANChSHEEEL) study used a participatory approach to develop locally-feasible and tailored solutions to optimise Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices at an individual, household, community, and environmental level. This paper aims to evaluate the influence of gender; migration; and Health, Education, Engineering and Environmental (HEEE) factors on IYCF practices, with the primary outcomes being three key complementary-feeding practices of Minimum Dietary Diversity (MDD), Minimum Meal Frequency (MMF) and Minimum Acceptable Diet (MAD). METHODS: A cross-sectional survey of 325 households with children aged 6-23 months was conducted in nine purposively selected villages in two blocks of Banswara district, Rajasthan, India. A survey tool was developed, translated into the local language, pre-tested, and administered in a gender-sensitive manner. Data-collection processes were standardized to ensure quality measures. Association of the primary outcome with 27 variables was tested using a Chi-square test (Mantel-Haenszel method); backward stepwise regression analysis was conducted to assess the impact of effect modifiers (gender, parental migration). RESULTS: Half of the surveyed children were of each gender, and fathers from half of the households were found to have migrated within the previous year to search for additional income. Parental literacy ranged from 60 to 70%. More than half of the households had access to milk-producing animals. Consumption of each of the seven food groups, eggs (4.7% vs 0.7%; p < 0.02), MDD (10.5% vs 3.2%; p < 0.02) and MAD (9.4% vs 2.6%; p < 0.02) were higher for boys than for girls. After controlling for contextual factors, a male child was 4.1 times more likely to get a diet with MDD and 3.8 times more likely to get a diet with MAD. A child from a non-migrant household was 2.0-2.1 times more likely to get a diet with MDD and MAD as compared to a child from a migrant household. However, this association was not found to be statistically significant after regression. Presence of milk-producing animals in households and consumption of milk/milk products by children in the previous 24 h were the other two strong predictors of MDD and MAD, although access to animal milk in the house did not translate to an increase in consumption of milk/milk products by a child. CONCLUSION: Gender discrimination in diet diversity and complementary-feeding practices starts early in childhood with boys having a distinct advantage over girls. In the case of parental migration, further research is required to establish if it has an adverse impact on feeding practices. Emphasis needs to be given to gender issues and other contextual factors when developing strategies to optimise complementary feeding practices. TRIAL REGISTRATION: With UCL ethics [Ethics ID 4032/002] in United Kingdom and with Sigma IRB [10,025/IRB/D/17-18] in India

Identifying opportunities to improve digital soil mapping in India: a systematic review

Soaring food demand, population pressure, land degradation, small size of agricultural land holdings, and diversified soil types in India require advanced digital soil mapping (DSM) for sustainable land management. This paper systematically reviews the common trends of SCORPAN based DSM in India to identify the important research gaps and opportunities to improve in future. A systematic literature search from 2000 to October 2021 has yielded 35 numbers of peer reviewed articles, which have performed DSM in India following the SCORPAN approach. The increased number of published articles from 2017 onwards suggests that there is a growing interest for DSM in India over the past few years. However, only two articles have prepared digital soil maps at the national extent. Moreover, the local and regional extent DSM are being limited to only a few parts of the country. There still remains 50% of the states and Union Territories of the country where no DSM studies have been performed so far except the national and global level interventions. Among the target variables, soil carbon related attributes have been predicted most frequently, whereas soil classes have been rarely predicted. Environmental covariates representing organism (O) and relief (R) have been widely included for DSM, whereas the use of other covariates has been limited. Among different machine learning (ML) algorithms, regression kriging has been adopted most frequently followed by random forest and quantile regression forest. Most articles have adopted data splitting (76%) as the model and map evaluation approach, whereas independent validation has been limited to only 5% of the articles. Only 34% of the articles have presented the uncertainty maps. Major research gaps identified by this review include lack of standardized digital soil databases, poor sampling density, coarse resolution, limited use of environmental covariates, insufficient comparative studies among ML algorithms, inadequate independent validation, and undersupply of uncertainty maps. Key evidences from this review will be helpful for improving future DSM activities by scientists and practitioners involved with DSM in India and abroad

Response of Organic, Inorganic and Bio-fertilizers on Qualitative, Yield and Economics of Bottle-gourd (Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl) c.v. BB0G-3-1

The current study was carried out during the 2019 Kharif season at the Department of &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Vegetable Science, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT), Bhubaneswar, to determine the impact of organic manures and chemical fertilizers on the yield attributing characters, quality, and economics of Bottle gourd (Lagenaria Siceraria L.) cv. BBOG-3-1. The experiment consisted of Twelve treatments and three replications. Organic manures, inorganic fertilizers &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;and Bio-fertilizers were used in twelve different treatments. viz.,T1(Control),T2(100% RDF)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;(80:50:50 Kg NPK ha-1), T3 (FYM @15 t ha-1), T4 (Vermicompost @ 5 t ha-1], T5 (50% RDF + FYM @ 7.5 t ha-1 +Biofertilizer), T6 ( 50%RDF+ [email protected]+ Biofertilizer), T7 (FYM @ 7.5 t ha-1 +Biofertilizer),T8(50%RDF+Biofertilizer),T9([email protected]+Biofertilizer),T10(100%RDF+FYM @7.5tha1+Biofertilizer),T11(100%RDF+Vermicompost @ 2.5 t ha-1 + Biofertilizer) and T12(50% RDF + FYM @7.5 t ha-1+ Vermicompost @ 2.5t ha-1+ Biofertilizer), Out of these, an application of 50%[email protected] ha-1 + Vermicompost @ 2.5t ha-1+ Biofertilizer (T12) had a beneficial effect on minimum days to the first fruit harvest(59.00days), maximum days to last harvest(92.00days), Average Fruit weight(1231g), TSS(4.97ºBrix), Ascorbic acid(8.60 mg100gm-1), Reducing Sugar (3.78%), Non-Reducing Sugar(1.89%), Total Sugar(5.67%),Yield (44.82kg plot-1),Yield(280.13qha-1) and B:C ratio (2.92 )

Influence of Flower Inducer on Flowering, Yield and Fruit Quality of Mango (Mangifera indica L.) cv. Amrapali Planted under Different Spacing

Flowering is the first of several events that lay the foundation for mango production every year. The temperatures below 15°C readily promote floral induction. Decrease in temperature below 20 0C is common in sub-tropical regions but seldom occurs in many tropical ones. So, an alternative strategy for optimum flower initiation under tropical condition is essentially required for increasing the productivity of plant. Among different strategies evolved, paclobutrazol and potassium nitrate application is effective not only in flower induction but also in early and offseason flower production in mango. Hence, an experiment was conducted to study the effect of paclobutrazol and potassium nitrate on the flowering, fruit yield and quality of Amrapali mango (Mangifera indica L.) plants grown under different plant spacings at Horticultural Research Station, OUAT, Bhubaneswar during 2018-19 and 2019-20. The experiment was laid out in a Factorial Randomized Block Design with 24 treatment combinations and 2 replications. The treatment combinations consist of four levels of spacings (2.0 x 2.0 m, 4.0 x 2.0 m, 4.0 x 4.0 m, 8.0 x 2.0 m) and 6 levels of chemical treatments ([email protected], 0.50 and 0.75 g a.i. per meter of canopy spread and KNO3@ 2% and 4%) and a control with water application.&nbsp; The results revealed that plants spaced at 4.0 x 4.0 m with application of paclobutrazol 0.50 g a.i. recorded maximum flowering intensity (82.48%), fruit set percentage (6.47%) and yield (11.12 kg/tree). Whereas the fruit quality parameters like TSS, acidity, reducing sugar, total sugar, ß carotene content are not significantly influenced by either due to plant spacing or flower inducer such as paclobutrazol and potassium nitrate

Vertical Distribution of Available Nutrients in Boudh Block of Boudh District Catena

An investigation was conducted to analyse the distribution of available plant nutrients and to examine the relationships between soil properties and available nutrient status in soil profiles of Eastern India. Three soil profiles were exposed under three different topographic positions. In all the pedons, soil reaction (pH) was increasing and EC was very nominal because there is no accumulation of dissolved salts in the soil pedons. The status of available N was decreasing with soil depth and phosphorus (P) was increased with depth of soil, Organic carbon (OC) was unevenly distributed with the depth of soil, sulphur was also unevenly distributed with depth of soil which is comparable with the (OC). There is similar trend between pH and P