Agriculture and Nutrition Resource Review

This paper analyzes the concepts, empirical evidence, analytical frameworks, and recommendations of the multifaceted pathways through which gender and health interact. With an emphasis on women’s dual roles as users of health care systems and providers of health care, the authors urge the development agenda to address ethical and public health imperatives of women’s health throughout their lives and to recognize women’s contribution to health care.

This year’s global nutrition report card assesses countries’ progress toward achieving nutrition targets and explores how to build sustainable and nutritious food systems. It documents how well countries, aid donors, NGOs, businesses, and others are meeting the commitments they made at the major Nutrition for Growth Summit in 2013. And it spells out the actions that have proven effective in combating malnutrition in all its forms. Country, regional and subregional profiles and other supplementary data are available online in addition to the report.

This policy brief presses for nutrition-smart actions to ensure food security in the face of climate change. Rather than exclusively promoting high production of staple crops, the focus should be on providing diverse, high quality and healthy diets.

The FAO offers a series of courses for agriculture and food security professionals, including an introduction to basic concepts of nutrition and livelihoods. This 35 minute module is built for professionals from a variety of sectors involved in shaping and implementing nutrition-sensitive programs, investments, and policies.

This online training course on pathways and program design developed by USAID Global Health and the Bureau for Food Security introduces professionals to nutrition-sensitive agricultural programming. The course lasts three hours and introduces essential nutrition concepts and the pathways connecting agriculture and nutrition. It also includes guidelines for practitioners to use when designing programs that promote access to nutrient-rich foods and dietary diversity.

The ENGINE Project has launched a YouTube channel, with videos detailing its programs and explaining some of the outcomes of their nutrition-specific interventions, homestead gardening interventions and strategies such as Social and Behavior Change Communication and Capacity Building.

In September 2015, officials and experts met in Tanzania to discuss the future of food fortification and its potential in nutrition programs. This article details initiatives by the Government of Tanzania to improve nutrition, including legislation on food fortification, a national nutrition strategy, and other programs, which were explored as part of the summit in September.

Dairy consumption has the potential to improve dietary diversity among smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This blog emphasizes how human nutrition should be considered throughout the dairy value chain, from breeding for high milk yielding cattle that utilize low-value feeds to safe milk handling.

This blog highlights the need to improve food safety in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly with regard to aflatoxin contamination of staple crops, and how major food processing companies have joined forces with the creation of a non-profit called Partners in Food Solutions  to share expertise.

Curbing food waste and reducing meat consumption are among the changes that are needed across the food system to achieve zero hunger by 2030.More extreme weather and a global temperature rise will likely force farmers in south and east Africa to switch from maize to sorghum, millet, and traditional vegetables.

The Women’s Empowerment Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a measure meant to capture women’s inclusion in the agricultural sector. This webinar discussed the creation of the WEAI and the importance of women’s empowerment in integrating gender into agricultural programs. The speakers also detailed opportunities to use and test the index.

The impact of agriculture investments on nutrition was shared in this research-to-practice seminar featuring the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Nutrition. Presenters discussed their key research questions from Africa and Asia. These include whether the pathways by which agriculture achieves measurable impacts on nutrition can be empirically demonstrated, how neglected biological mechanisms impact nutrition in ways that can be modified through a nutrition-sensitive agriculture lens, and whether the quality of nutrition governance at national and sub-national levels to improve impacts can be measured and influenced.

Social protection offers a potential link between agricultural programs and nutrition. This online discussion focuses on ongoing programs exploring linkages and synergies between social protection and nutrition. The forum also discusses a brief which proposes recommendations  that allow planners to maximize nutritional impact through social protection programs. The brief was also at the core of an online discussion on ongoing programs.