After arriving in Sadaivigha village in Lakhisarai, Bihar, on a hot day in June, Anurag and I followed a field technician, Abhay, to the farmhouse where we would conduct our first focus group discussion of the day. It was my second day in the field with Anurag, a field scientist based at CIMMYT’s Patna office…

In mid-August, I traveled to Bihar, India as part of a team of researchers from the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition to study strategies to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture. With the trip scheduled during monsoon season, I was prepared to spend most of my time soaked from the rains. It…

In national and international media, Pakistan and India are often portrayed as threats to each other, but less attention is paid to a threat both countries have in common: malnutrition. According to the World Food Programme, malnutrition costs Pakistan $7.6 billion annually, or roughly 3% of the country’s GDP. On the other hand, according to…

Some of the world’s foremost experts on food systems will visit Cornell University this year as part of the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition’s (TCI) 10th Anniversary Distinguished Lecture Series. The lectures will be held in a hybrid format, with virtual attendees participating via Zoom. The series begins on October 19 with a lecture…

The Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) is organizing a special conference on “Food, Environment, and Health—Global Evidence” at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, on May 10-12, 2023. The two-day conference is part of TCI’s yearlong 10th-anniversary celebration. The conference is aimed at bringing together scholars working at the broader intersection of food, the…

Women in rural India face significant burdens on their time, as they often must balance farm work with unpaid housework. This is especially during the harvest seasons, when women spend even more time on the farm. The drudgery that women face can negatively influence their health and nutrition. That is why I was excited to…

While anemia has declined in India from 2005-2015, the latest round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) shows that it is now on the rise, increasing from 53-57% in women and 58-67% in children in the past five years. In an op-ed published in The Indian Express, TCI researchers Soumya Gupta and Payal Seth…

The Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) kicked off a celebration of its 10th anniversary on Thursday, September 8, with a series of presentations on different aspects of the Institute’s work. The event was the first of a planned yearlong celebration that will include monthly guest lectures and culminate in a two-day conference in…

Not so long ago, famines were a recurrent feature in Asia, with many dying from chronic hunger and poverty. The continent’s swing from deficiency to self-sufficiency in food did not happen unaided; it was thanks to policy and technology interventions. Will the same approach work for Asia’s current and future food system challenges, like malnutrition,…

Public plant breeding programs play a central role in tackling local food security challenges around the world, but how can we be sure that they are operating effectively and optimally at the institutional level? In this blog series, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement’s (ILCI) institutional capacity team explores how they came…