The aim of this research project is to gather and analyze village and household survey data in order to determine the impact of grain banks, a recent innovative food security intervention, on the nutritional and health status of participating households as well as the institutional features and socioeconomic factors which affect their successful operation in Orissa, India. Grain banks have so far not been subject to any rigorous evaluation. What presently exists by way of evidence is largely qualitative based on case studies of a few "model" grain banks. In spite of this gap in knowledge, both the government of India as well as NGOs view grain banks as highly promising and have promoted them as an integral component of their food security strategy for rural tribal communities. In meeting the goals of the project, it is hoped that the findings will be useful to policymakers and practitioners interested in improving existing and designing new, more effective food security interventions in India and elsewhere. In terms of the research design, the impact evaluation will be quasi-experimental in nature and exploits the fact that not all villages in the survey area have grain banks, while the institutional analysis will primarily exploit variation in the design and implementation of grain banks across villages.
Orissa was selected for the study as the state has a particularly poor food security record and is also home to a high incidence of grain banks. A village and household survey will be conducted in a predominantly tribal area in rural Orissa, where a high concentration of grain banks were established by Agragamee, a prominent rural development NGO which has set up the largest number of grain banks in the state. A previous visit to the proposed survey site has allowed the co-PI to initiate contact with Agragamee's management, field staff as well as residents of that area. Agragamee's management has endorsed this project and has agreed to provide the required logistical and facilitation support in the field.
BROADER IMPACTS This project will be the first to conduct a systematic, quantitative impact and institutional analysis of grain banks. This will be made possible by partnering with a major NGO, facilitating greater cooperation and the direct exchange of knowledge between practitioners and researchers. It is hoped that the findings of the study will better inform and benefit individuals and organizations within and outside India who are interested in learning how grain banks have fared in terms of meeting their stated food security objectives, what their major strengths and weaknesses are, and what environmental factors and institutional design and implementation features have aided or impaired their operation measured in terms of various key performance criteria. The findings will be disseminated broadly through interactions with policymakers and practitioners in various settings as well as through scholarly and non-scholarly publications. A valuable by-product of the project will be the creation of a dataset with extensive demographic and socio-economic information at the household- and individual-level including, for example, on anthropometry, perceptions on food insecurity, dietary diversity, morbidity, migration, productive assets, agricultural output, credit, and savings. This information will be collected for a random sample of tribal households in southwest Orissa, one of the most disadvantaged sections of Oriya as well as Indian society. This relatively unique dataset will be made publicly available, and it is hoped that it will promote further research into the circumstances and needs of this largely neglected sub-population.
