Climate Change: a Threat to Child Food Security in the Indian Sundarbans

Abstract

The Sundarbans, the mangrove forest delta shared both by India and Bangladesh, is among the worst hit regions of climate change in the world. Even though food insecurities due to climate change are felt across the region, the distribution of vulnerabilities is largely uneven depending upon existing climatic and social intersections. Within the context of socio-cultural and political dynamics, and rapid globalization, efforts to respond to, mitigate, or adapt to climate change needs to address issues of equity and social justice, posing both challenges and opportunities. As there is a lack of knowledge on nutritional care systems for the existing vulnerabilities of children from socio-geographically marginalized regions like Indian Sundarbans, it is hard to identify and act upon the impacts of climatic changes on food security for them. This knowledge gap created divergence, causing a weakening of the care delivery systems’ capacity to absorb climate change impacts in the food system, and subsequently resulted in nutritional deficiencies among children in the region.