Starvation Deaths
In the Press
The villages of West Bengal face the terrifyingly archaic enemy of death by starvation. Bengal Rural
Welfare Service is pouring resources and manpower into development of 12 "poorest of the poor"
villages to prevent starvation and malnutrition and to secure a stable, nutritious food source for
the future. BRWS recently began operations in the village of Amasole, where families were found to
be living on an appalling diet of dried rice and burnt maggots. Tragically, this is not an isolated
incident - countless rural Bengalis have struggled with food security due to their destitution and
the violent conditions in the surrounding area.
The circumstances that lead to starvation deaths are widely varied: erratic monsoon rainfall that fails to produce the staple crop of rice; pests that kill off the winter vegetable harvest; government policies that keep prices of cash crops low; and poorly nourished cows and goats that often fail to yield milk. These conditions are readily soluble with twenty-first century technology, and BRWS is doing its part to bring sustainable agricultural practices to rural West Bengal.
These practices include creating organic farming demonstration plots, planting mango trees for consumption and sale at the market, creating sources of irrigation, and encouraging updated farming techniques such as crop rotation. Please join BRWS in the fight against starvation and malnutrition in rural Bengal by visiting the volunteer or donate page today!
The circumstances that lead to starvation deaths are widely varied: erratic monsoon rainfall that fails to produce the staple crop of rice; pests that kill off the winter vegetable harvest; government policies that keep prices of cash crops low; and poorly nourished cows and goats that often fail to yield milk. These conditions are readily soluble with twenty-first century technology, and BRWS is doing its part to bring sustainable agricultural practices to rural West Bengal.
These practices include creating organic farming demonstration plots, planting mango trees for consumption and sale at the market, creating sources of irrigation, and encouraging updated farming techniques such as crop rotation. Please join BRWS in the fight against starvation and malnutrition in rural Bengal by visiting the volunteer or donate page today!