US Soybean Export Council (USSEC) come together to build transformational partnerships involving multi-stakeholders to promote soy entrepreneurship and its integration with food and nutritional security of India. In continuation to building on this agenda, a stakeholders consultation is being organized jointly by Solidaridad and USSEC at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, known as soybean bowl of India.
Problem of malnutrition in India is one of the alarming magnitude but also of great complexity. India suffers from the consistent problem of Protein-Energy-Malnutrition (PEM) across the spectrum of age, sex and socio-economic background. PEM is a critical problem with many determinants playing a role in causing this vicious cycle of undernutrition.
Soybean offers a great potential for developing value added and affordable protein rich foods products using appropriate processing and other technologies by the commercial food industries and local enterprises.
Since soybean may play vital role in improving nutritional status of millions of urban and rural population in India, it needs to be promoted as food for household consumption through soy entrepreneurship development and especially its integration in the feeding and social welfare programmes and schemes of Government of India.
Director, India Soy Food Programme, US Soybean Export Council (USSEC) Ratan Sharma addressed with emphasizing the malnutrition in India in general and discussed the importance of soy in nutritional and food security, soy-based entrepreneurship and its potentials for integration with welfare programmes. Dr Sharma mentioned about the wide scope of soy fortification with wheat fortification in Public Distribution Schemes and soy based dal analogue which is extruded product by using wheat, soy and corn.
He further emphasised that with the rising affluence in India is leading to increased consumption of food in this situation soy could be a sustainable solution to address the Protein-Energy- Malnutrition.
Key stakeholders representing from Indian Council of Agricultural Research - Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering (CIAE), ICDS, UNDP, UNICEF, CARD, SRIJAN, Tejaswani Programme, lupin Foundation and Abott international participated in this consultation.