Integration of Agriculture and Nutrition

Moderator: Penny Anderson, Food Security Director, Mercy Corps

Content: Strengthening agricultural productivity, livelihoods, and improving household nutrition are all common objectives of Title II programs and essential for reducing food insecurity. Yet programs are sometimes challenged to integrate these approaches effectively, with technical experts in agriculture and nutrition implementing activities separately even when working in the same communities.

Discussion: Following a brief presentation by the moderator on the inter-related nature of health/nutrition on agriculture productivity and of agriculture on health/nutrition outcomes, participants worked in small groups on a case study designed to highlight opportunities for improved results through coordinated programming. Participants were asked to take into consideration four factors in the case:  an area with high levels of stunting, little dietary diversity, agriculture as the main source of income, and high post-harvest losses.

The exercise itself broke down barriers and helped raise mutual understanding between agriculture and nutrition specialists. Discussions focused on specific interventions to address the multiple factors at play in the case study, but also identified where coordinated interventions addressed both nutrition and agriculture:  training of staff and of beneficiaries, formative research, and social and behavioral change programs. Some participants noted that joint program design, planning, and implementation would pose difficulties in their organizations given stove-piped project structures. 

 

The Way Forward:  Participants made recommendations in four areas:

  Training / Tools and resources

• Cross train both agriculture and nutrition staff, including extension staff and community workers.  Focus can be on how both can support the other.
• Develop training module or guidance on complementary feeding. It’s a prime entry point for integrating agriculture and nutrition.
• Develop simple tools for determining the optimal diet available from local foods.
• Manual or a guide for integration during program development and implementation.

Processes

• Identify dual purpose crops – high nutrient value plus potential for income generation.
• Discussion of what ‘integration’ of agriculture and nutrition means. Does it mean every activity is integrated? Or that the program has integrated objectives? Or that the community mobilization approach is integrated?
• Development of common indicators

Information Sharing

• Disseminate more info on how reducing women’s workload can improve household nutrition
• Look for examples of family based approaches and barriers to going to scale.
• Literature review on anemia and productivity in farmers
• Learn from organizations who have done unified agriculture and nutrition training and share lessons learned
• Case history contest among PVOs for best success stories on integrated agriculture and nutrition. Offer prize.
• Establish a community of practice – or country/ regional forums or working groups. These should include representation from all sectors
• Create venues/events for more face-to-face interaction between agriculture and nutrition practitioners for in-depth exchange on good practices and mistakes to avoid.
• Web portal for sharing reports, evaluations, documentation of approaches tried and lessons learned.

Donor Practice and Policy

• Education for donors on integrated approach.
• Change guidance to reflect more integrated agriculture and nutrition. FFP may need to look at its proposal guidelines and integrate agriculture and nutrition into one section. Currently these two objectives are separate sections that often leads to separate or stovepiped activities – not integrated.