Generation Nutrition is a global civil society campaign to end child deaths from malnutrition. As part of a series exploring ways of preventing child undernutrition, Cesvi and its Generation Nutrition partners produced the fact sheet: “The Role of Agriculture: Producing Food to Nourish People?”. It explains how agricultural programmes in developing countries can have a bigger impact in reducing undernutrition and, in doing so, fulfil one of the sector’s main roles: to provide people with the nutritious food they need for a healthy and productive life.
The fact sheet finds that the majority of agricultural programmes have thus far not been able to prove their impact on improving families’ diets and reducing undernutrition, and makes six key recommendations:
1. Incorporate explicit nutrition objectives and indicators in the design of agricultural policies and programmes.
2. Increase the funding available for nutrition-sensitive approaches in agriculture.
3. Focus on tackling recurring food shortages in the months preceding the harvest.
4. Ensure that efforts to improve dietary practices become a standard part of food security-oriented agricultural programmes.
5. Monitor and seek to avoid any potentially negative impact of agricultural programmes on gender equality.
6. Integrate aid for agriculture with other actions tackling the multi-sectoral causes of undernutrition.
We believe taking these steps will help maximize the nutritional impact of agriculture programmes in developing countries and encourage you to read the full fact sheet and strive to implement these recommendations in your work.
You can read the fact sheet here.
Photo: Fulvio Zubiani