From my own observation in Ethiopia, the following points are the major peculiar causes but not given the required attention from the development actors for food security and nutrition inequalities particularly in rural areas
a. Poor awareness among the community members on nutrition friendly dietary practices: The odd thing is event the surplus produced areas in agricultural products are found less nutritionally poor/low nutritional status than the food shortage areas. This is not an availability of food issue but it is gap of food utilization which lacks to maintain balanced diet. Therefore, this requires a tailored awareness creation on keeping balanced diets to reduce nutrition inequalities. Hence, this report should include nutrition awareness program would reduce nutrition inequalities.
b. Insufficient supply of agricultural labor at the right time of agricultural activities: The female headed households and the poor households are highly affected with the lack of labor at the required time since most of them could not afford to pay for labor cost and/or could not handle the reciprocal labor arrangement. Therefore, they usually harvest poor agricultural production in terms of quantity and quality. Therefore, this draft report should assess the impact as well as propose the workable recommendation.
c. Limited awareness on the wild edible plants food security and nutrition effect: There are wild edible plants which are nutritionally rich , but not yet explored in comprehensive manner, have different utilization in different areas. In some areas, they serve as supplementary food for instance. Moringa (stenopetela) for the whole year while in other they are used only for compound fencing or shed. Therefore, this needs an effort to make awareness, promotion and demonstration. This is particularly useful for moisture stress areas. Therefore, this report should include the potentials of wild edible plants as a means for filling the gap of food security and nutrition inequalities.
d. Mono-cropping Crop Production System: This production system is one of the causes for nutrition inequalities in some areas particularly where accesses to market of other agricultural products are limited and/or high transaction costs due to long value chain from source of production.
e. Consumption seasonality pattern: The consumption pattern of rural areas in Ethiopia varies across seasons for some food items. In relative terms, in the harvest seasons there is a tendency of consumption of diversified foods while in the non-harvest seasons the consumption is keeping up with the limited food items which have less nutritional value. Therefore, this report should at least suggest how food stocks can reverse the food security and nutrition inequalities.
Mr. Shirega Minuye