Bill Gates calls malnutrition a concern, praises India’s efforts to promote millets: ‘You have to change the seeds you grow’

Billionaire Bill Gates has said that malnutrition is severely underfunded and often ignored, and he even believes that malnutrition has not been fully researched and that people have only begun to understand it in the last decade.

“When you mention the word malnutrition, people mostly think of famine, not enough food, and children suffering because of it,” he told hindustan times.

“But this is not the main cause of malnutrition. The main cause of malnutrition is a very restricted diet, which ends up inflaming the gut microbiome and prevents the absorption of nutrients,” he added.

When asked about the role of millets in addressing malnutrition, he lauded the efforts being made in India to promote millet cultivation.

“As part of my last trip [to India]”I see the role that millets can play in an overall balanced nutritional diet,” Gates said. “Some traditional crops have very low yields per hectare, and unfortunately that doesn’t work very well.”

“The good news about millet is that a lot of work has been done to increase its yield, it doesn’t require a lot of water, it can handle higher temperatures and it’s a valuable part of the diet,” he added.

The Goalkeepers Report, published every September by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to track progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, focuses this year on malnutrition.

Gates noted that the foundation has funded a lot of research on malnutrition, which has found that many diets lack essential vitamins, micronutrients and protein. He also stressed the need to reduce the price of nutrient-rich foods such as milk and eggs, and educate families to diversify their diets.

Turning to India, he said stunting remains an unsolved problem. However, the problem of stunting in India is not as severe as in Africa. He stressed the need to develop tools to understand the impact of malnutrition on brain development.

Climate crisis and malnutrition

When asked about the impact of the climate crisis on malnutrition, Bill Gates said: “The biggest impact of climate change, the biggest disruption it causes, is on food systems.”

He said the most negative impact of the climate crisis is that it makes food production more difficult and increases the number of years with crop failures.

“…India has various ways to build resilience… the government ensures food supply, but it has to change the seeds that are planted. Change the varieties, go for varieties that have higher yields,” Bill Gates said.

However, he praised the improvement in India’s mortality rate.

“Some countries have gone backwards once the outbreak hit, but India continues to make progress in reducing the death rate,” Gates said.