In 2006, 47% of India’s children under the age of five were underweight.[1] After ten years, the country has seen slow, steady improvements, but the 2.4% annual decline in children who have experienced stunted growth[2] has not been enough to achieve the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals,[3] a set of objectives set forth by the UN in 2000 to decrease poverty and increase health worldwide. One of these eight goals was to have halved the
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The reliance on sustainable agriculture goes beyond solely providing food and food security as it provides economic stability and growth. Implementing sustainable practices into the agriculture sector, especially in Wayanad, provides lasting labor opportunities, sufficient income and a better quality of life. The use of pesticides has a deleterious effect on crops and water run-off, leading to health risks. As a small village with little education and with pesticides readily available, Wayanad is highly susceptible
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This summer, I started a small garden in my backyard. After building a raised bed and planting small seedlings, I anxiously (and impatiently) waited to see signs of growth. I planted red bell peppers, summer squash, zucchini, eggplant, and green beans. Every afternoon, I watered and weeded the bed until one day in July, I began to see some new developments. A small bell pepper was beginning to form on one of the plants! Gardening
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The SNAP Challenge is a weeklong experiment to get a glimpse of what life can be like for low-income Americans living on food stamps. The average daily food stamp benefit is only $4 per person per day. I took on this challenge for a “Justice and Civil Society” course in college to better understand the difficulties and unfairness of our nation’s lack of food security. My limit for a week’s worth of meals was
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Growing up under my parents’ roof, I constantly heard them reminding me to study, do my homework, and pay attention in class. At the time, it was a bit of an annoyance. I wanted to be indifferent to my schoolwork because I recognized its time-consuming nature rather than its practical applications. Fortunately for me, my parents emphasized the latter. By worrying about my success in the classroom, they created a culture of education inside our
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