Exposed: How Tata Trust is Poisoning the Food of millions of People across India

The demise of Ratan Tata has brought Tata Trusts into the spotlight. As the largest public charitable foundations in India and the majority owner of the $165-billion Tata Group, the Trusts' boards will have to appoint a new chairman from among the trustees.

Before that, let us understand how Tata trust in the name of philanthropy and humanitarian aid is poisioning the food plate of millions of people in India

Rice has the highest uptake in government food programmes such as the public distribution system, mid-day meal schemes, integrated child development services, etc. It has a potential to reach 740 million people, especially women and children .

India’s ration scheme also called Public distribution System(PDS) is the largest food safety scheme in the world, reaching 80 crore or 800 million individuals. Under the National Food Security Act, 2013, every member of a poor household receives five kg of grains, wheat or rice, at very low costs at village ration shops.

Tata Trusts is working directly with Government of Maharashtra and Government of Andhra Pradesh, with Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department, to commence the supply of fortified rice across the Public Distribution System, to introduce fortified rice across the 15 states on pilot basis through the Public distribution System.

What is Fortified rice?

Industrial processing of rice and abrasive polishing to increase the “whiteness” of rice by removing its bran layer, a dietary fibre rich in minerals and other nutrients. As rice grains get stripped of nutrients, some NGO's are advocating re-introducing nutrients into rice, by fortifying it with a micronutrient premix which are artificially added to rice. 

To fortify rice with factory-made nutrients, a powder “pre-mix” of vitamins and minerals – Iron, vitamin B12, folic acid – is added to powdered rice and broken grains. The paste is machine-carved to manufacture new rice grains, which are then mixed into grains being given as a food subsidy to poor households under the National Food Security Act through PDS throughtout India.

The Tata Trusts reason for Rice fortification:

Anaemia remains a widespread disease in India, affecting children, women, and men across various age groups and income levels impacting the overall health and productivity of the nation. So, Tata trust thinks that by fortifying rice with iron, anemia problem could be solved.

India has the second highest sickle cell disease burden incidence in the world, and the largest number of children with thalassemia in the whole world.

Sickle cell disease is a blood disorder caused by a genetic mutation. In it, an individual’s blood cells are misshapen, like sickles. Such misshapen cells can get stuck in blood vessels, causing organ damage, debilitating pain, and heart attacks or even deaths. In India, this disease largely affects Adivasi communities.

Thalassemia is another inherited blood disorder caused by damaged or missing genes in which the body does not make adequate haemoglobin. It is managed with regular blood transfusions. 

The fortified rice given in the public distribution system carries a warning in small print in English – a language neither understood nor spoken by the vast majority of India’s rural poor – that the fortified rice is not meant for those with conditions such as sickle cell disease and thalassemia. Doctors say iron fortified rice is not meant for people who have sickle cell disease and thalassemia as this would cause serious side effects including death.

Among the evidence the Union government considered in rice fortification's favour was a randomised control trial study, conducted by the Tata Trusts.a study which has two groups – one which receives an intervention and the other which doesn’t – are compared) on the impact of fortified rice on reducing anaemia.

During the study, Tata Trusts study recorded a “loss of sample”. It had to exclude a sizeable number of individuals from the study sample because it found they “suffered from sickle cell disease”. Ministries’ correspondence first accessed by The Reporters’ Collective notes that in blood tests, “7.4% mothers at Kurkheda, 17.1% at Bhamragarh”, “15% adolescent girls at Kurkheda, 10.3% at Bhamragarh” and “9.5% of children at Kurkheda, 8.2% of children at Bhamragarh” were found to “have sickle cell disease”. The evaluators avoided feeding iron-fortified rice to these women, adolescents and children who suffered from the blood disorder resulting a flawed scientific research and outcome.

Also, doctors say anemia is not caused due to iron deficiency rather poor iron absorbing capacity of individuals. So, fortified rice will not have impact on Anemia.

Iron fortified rice also causes problems for healthy individuals.

"Studies show some patients will not be able to down-regulate their iron absorption, and will continue to absorb iron. The problem with excess iron is that it ends up in a toxic form in the blood,” explained Dr Anura Kurpad, a professor at St John’s Medical College, Bengaluru, who chaired the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) expert committee on nutrient requirements.

This excess iron that is unbound to the usual transport protein called transferrin is called “non transferrin bound iron”. This is particularly toxic as it forms reactive oxidative species that cause a lot of damage to cells.” Doctor Kurpad added that this could lead to “cardiac damage, liver fibrosis, gonadal dysfunction, and growth retardation, among many others” for such individuals.

Tata Trusts in partnership with PATH, is supporting Akshaya Patra’s pilot rice fortification programme for the mid-day meal kitchen, which runs in Lucknow. Around 100,000 children are eating fortified rice under of this scheme. Nobody knows what will happen to the children because there was no screening before giving them rice.

In 2010, the Indian government had halted a trial by PATH (funded by the Gates Foundation) among Adivasi children, in which it was testing vaccines against cervical cancer. 

It was found that PATH had described the project as an “observational study” and circumvented rules & laws around such trials, such as reporting of serious adverse effects. The India's parliamentary enquiry found that PATH had violated children’s rights. It had collected data on a large population of 23,500 children of age 10 to 14. In the case of 5,000 children, the parents/guardians were not literate and could not even sign in their local language and in Andhra, they had simply obtained the consent from hostel wardens of residential schools the Adivasi children were in. Many tribal and adivasi girls died in these trails.

With the criminal background of PATH and a flawed study conducted by Tata Trust, Government of India has allocated Rs.17,082 crore of our tax money to fortify rice.

The every poor household in India gets 5 kg of rice per month under Public Distribution System(PDS). The poorest households get 35 kg grains each month. Under the midday meal programme, millions school children get a hot cooked meal daily, and under the Integrated Child Development Scheme(ICDS), the world’s largest early childcare program, thereby millions of people depend on PDS rice.

Seeing a potential business market, Tata trust which has a potential conflict of interest as it owns several businesses, including in chemicals, food and in nutraceutical sectors has done a flawed study to promote rice fortification in India despite knowing it will harm and kill poor people of our country.

Share it with your circles. Let us illuminate the public about Tata trusts and its evil plans for humanity.

Credits,

https://m.thewire.in/article/rights/plastic-rice-why-union-govts-experiment-with-an-artificial-grain-is-hard-to-swallow-for-rural-adivasis

Some testimonials:

Jawahar, a social activist, questioned why fortified rice had been mandatory. “If it is harmful for some group of people, such as those with thalassemia or sickle cell disease, why is it being given to anyone at all?” he asked.

Jugal Kishor Dansena, a Jharkhand villager said he had tried ways to test the fortified rices' goodness. “I first noticed a few months back that there is krutim chawal, artificial rice, in the house,” he recounted. “I separated the strange grains and threw them to the hens. But even the hens did not eat it! It took it in its beak and threw it out.” 

"If birds can't eat this rice, how can we humans eat it?''

Soumik Banerjee, one of the authors of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) fact-finding report on the scheme in Chhattisgarh, calls mandatory fortification “a wasteful strategy, while potentially harmful for a few.” 

Indigenous rice are known to be nutrition rich. Indian farmers had 2 lakh indigenous rice varieties during 1950. Today, More than 98% of indigenous nutrition rice is extinct due to industrial chemical farming. Remaining 2% indigenous rice seeds are also endangered. Why should not the government provide indigenous nutrition rich food to poor people to uplift them from malnutrition?

Further reading,

Who Did the Union Govt's Food Policy Help? India’s Anaemic, or Vitamin Businesses and Big NGOs?