المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Dear Moderator, for the case of Uganda,

For effective investment, I would look at the following;

1. For example, in 2008, Uganda crafted a Food and Nutrition Security policy that details practical interventions for arresting food insecurity, undernourishment and over nourishment. It will be interesting to audit the state of policy implementation. As far as I can recall, there was a clash of mandate on which ministry was to take lead in implementation- i.e. The Ministry of Health or The Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries? Was it resolved? Is implementation process on rail? Are we achieving results?
2. The other aspect is about education and information on nutrition. Are households (rural, peri-urban and urban) exposed to ferment of information on nutrition? Take the example of Bushenyi district in western Uganda-  it is one of the highest milk producers in Uganda  with the highest level of undernourished children! Reason? All milk is sold out and less /none is left for children. Can we strike a balance between what goes to the market and what is served on the table?
3. Related to the above- with information and little bit of nudging from local authorities- surely every household in Uganda- save for slum-urban dwellers can have a small kitchen/back yard garden of vegetables/ fruits etc. Its’ possible to have this culture here? Yes- it is possible if we invest in information and efficacy of local governments.
4. Uganda should put in place- a one milk cow for every household policy. Why?  One-Milk will be available for families.  Two- Manure (compost) to make other crops (variety) work. The contention is on the right breed and balancing inputs and outputs and context of a given household.
5. Make fortified and drought resistant seeds accessible for areas facing undernourishment and stunted children in Uganda (drought prone and conflict areas).

Regards,

Morrison Rwakakamba

Chief Executive Officer

Agency for Transformation (AfT)

If you were designing an agricultural investment programme, what are the top 5 things you would do to maximize its impact on nutrition?

Answer:

1. I would first look at the population and its characteristics in terms of gender, age, disease burden so as to identify nutrition needs. I would also consider socio-economic status as that in the end determines whether there’s a market and whether government involvement is needed;

2. I would then look at the agricultural production capacity of the country, given the political context, trade context, climate, environment …and other potential factors that predetermine the feasibility of the particular investment that is considered;

3. I would make sure that part of the investment is channelled to reducing food waste along the food supply chain from producers, to consumers, in transport, and the various stages in between;

4. I would invest in education programmes, television commercials etc. that would show how the food item in question is good for you, and how it should be consumed to maximise its impact;

5. I would pay attention to price developments (in view of the strong food price volatility observed in the last couple of years and the impacts this has on producers and consumers) and invest in storage facilities so as to avoid food going to waste.

To support the design and implementation of this programme, where would you like to see more research done, and why?

Answer:

1. More research is needed in the area of food waste, where it appears and to what extent, how it can be reduced or prevented altogether. There’s limited data on global food waste and so little research done on potential impacts if we were to reduce it;

2. More research is needed in the area of interrelationships between agriculture, nutrition and health and economy-wide impacts and feedback effects (healthier labour force that is able to work longer and more productively, lower health care costs, improved well-being). This is largely due to these sciences operating largely independently from each other. It is changing, but slowly. Important questions are:

a. What are impacts of changes in trade policies in bilateral or multilateral context or other economic policies and/or shocks on nutrition and health? Are there tradeoffs (e.g. between potential economic gains/losses and health gains/losses) and how do we deal with those?

b. Or vice versa, if we were to eat healthily, what would this imply for our agriculture/production system? Trade? And again what are the economy -wide impacts?

3. More research is needed in the area of food and nutrition security in relation to food price volatility

4. More research is needed in the role of women in securing household food and nutrition security

What can our institutions do to help country governments commit to action around your recommendations, and to help ensure implementation will be effective?

Answer:

1. It should provide a platform for all stakeholders and stimulate them to come together and push for ways forward

2. Provide technical assistance where needed

3. Make available statistics on food and especially nutrition security for use in research

If you were designing an agricultural investment programme, what are the top 5 things you would do to maximize its impact on nutrition? Answer: 1. I would first look at the population and its characteristics in terms of gender, age, disease burden so as to identify nutrition needs. I would also consider socio-economic status as that in the end determines whether there’s a market and whether government involvement is needed; 2. I would then look at the agricultural production capacity of the country, given the political context, trade context, climate, environment …and other potential factors that predetermine the feasibility of the particular investment that is considered; 3. I would make sure that part of the investment is channelled to reducing food waste along the food supply chain from producers, to consumers, in transport, and the various stages in between; 4. I would invest in education programmes, television commercials etc. that would show how the food item in question is good for you, and how it should be consumed to maximise its impact; 5. I would pay attention to price developments (in view of the strong food price volatility observed in the last couple of years and the impacts this has on producers and consumers) and invest in storage facilities so as to avoid food going to waste. To support the design and implementation of this programme, where would you like to see more research done, and why? Answer: 1. More research is needed in the area of food waste, where it appears and to what extent, how it can be reduced or prevented altogether. There’s limited data on global food waste and so little research done on potential impacts if we were to reduce it; 2. More research is needed in the area of interrelationships between agriculture, nutrition and health and economy-wide impacts and feedback effects (healthier labour force that is able to work longer and more productively, lower health care costs, improved well-being). This is largely due to these sciences operating largely independently from each other. It is changing, but slowly. Important questions are: a. What are impacts of changes in trade policies in bilateral or multilateral context or other economic policies and/or shocks on nutrition and health? Are there tradeoffs (e.g. between potential economic gains/losses and health gains/losses) and how do we deal with those? b. Or vice versa, if we were to eat healthily, what would this imply for our agriculture/production system? Trade? And again what are the economy -wide impacts? 3. More research is needed in the area of food and nutrition security in relation to food price volatility 4. More research is needed in the role of women in securing household food and nutrition security What can our institutions do to help country governments commit to action around your recommendations, and to help ensure implementation will be effective? Answer: 1. It should provide a platform for all stakeholders and stimulate them to come together and push for ways forward 2. Provide technical assistance where needed 3. Make available statistics on food and especially nutrition security for use in research

Je commencerai par dire que mon expérience de terrain me permet d'affirmer que dans les pays d'Afrique subsaharienne et particulièrement au Cameroun, le lien n'est pas fait de façon claire entre l'agriculture et la nutrition.

Sur le plan institutionnel, l'agriculture est rattachée au ministère de l'agriculture tandis que la nutrition relève du Ministère de la santé .

Cette organisation administrative n'est pas anodine; en effet, la nutrition est évoquée généralement en terme de "carences" et donc d'apports nutritionnels , et la solution aux problèmes de nutrition semblent relever de thérapie beaucoup plus de "politiques d'investissement dans l'agriculture" .

Si donc je devais élaborer un programme d'investissement agricole, les 5 principales mesures que j'adopterais pour en maximiser l'impact sur la nutrition seraient:

1. une vision de l'agriculture axée sur l'homme, son alimentation pour être en bonne santé et respectueuse de l'environnement

2.la promotion et la protection de l'agriculture familiale paysanne

3. des modes de production à faible utilisation de fertilisants et pesticides chimiques

4. l'accompagnement des petits producteurs et productrices en matière de production d'engrais vert

5.la valorisation des marchés de proximité

Les domaines de recherche à intensifier pour cela:

- les modes de consommation des ménages

- les modes de production

- les modes de vie des populations d'une communauté donnée (locale, nationale)

- l'impact des prix des denrées agricoles sur la consommation et la nutrition

Ce que les institutions peuvent faire au niveau des pays:

- s'assurer que les pays respectent leurs engagements sur la nutrition et la sécurité alimentaire et en matière de financement de l'agriculture: les y accompagner

- promouvoir la collaboration entre tous les acteurs impliqués dans les actions de sécurité alimentaire et de nutrition

- être transparent en matière ce conseils donnés aux gouvernements en matière de programmes agricoles en communiquant sur les orientations proposées et en les mettant en débat parmi tous les acteurs

 

Dear Facilitators,

Thanks for brining this extremely important and timely issue for discuusion. With the growing need for feeding more people around the world,coupled with effect of climate change and natural disasters, agriculture sector is becoming extremely important to address food security and nutrition issues accross the world. Though the theoretical relationship between agriculture, food security and nutrition is well recognized by the development community, the linkages between these 3 are often weak or even do not exist in practice. There are several reasons why agriculture fails to demonstrate optimum benefits to improve nutrition. I am trying to highlight some of those below with possible soulutions:

(1) First of all there is a huge communitation gap between academicians, researchers and practitioners. There are ample of evidences that demonstrate the positive relationship betgween agruiculture, food security and nutrition, but very few attempt has made to translate those into practice, making sure that those knowledge are being used during, design implementation and monitoring evaluation of ariculture projects/programs. In many many cases, practitioners are not even aware of the body of knowledge available in this sector or the various pathways that can link agricuture to improve nutrition.

(2) In many cases agriculture projects are heavily focused on increasing production and productivity while totally ignoring the social and cultural factors that prevent some vlunerable and marginaliged groups (especially women and children) to be fully benefitted from increased production and productivity

(3) Due to lack of awareness or in some cases lack of political committememt, agricultiure projects often are not designed with a nutrtion objective in mind. In some cases even if it does have a nutrition objective, due to limited understanding about the relationship between agriculture and nutrition and/or the overall complexity and undrerlying causes of malnutrtion, the proejct fails to take a holistic approach, that in turn fails to significanlty contribute to nutrition. On top of these, due to lack of proper handling, processing,and storage,in many cases the nutritive value of crops, vegetables, milk or milk products are diminished or lost.

(4) The monitoring and evaluation system of agriculture projects/program often do not have appropriate or adequate indicators to capture and demonstrate projects's contribution to food security and nutrition.

So some of my suggestions would be to include:

(1) Strenghten collaborations, communications and coordinations between researchers and practitioner, policy makers in agriculture, food and nutrition sectors

(2) Design agriculture projects with nutrition objectives and include some essential direct nutrition interventions such as nutrition education with especial focus on infant and young child feeding, promoting appropriate health hygiene and nutrition behaviour and practices, production of vitamin and minerals rich crops and vegetables, etc either through adding direct interventions or by linking agriculture projects with existing government or others health and nutrition projects/programs

(3) Design and implement monitoring and evaluation system of agriculture projects to capture nutrtion benefits (include and operationalize appropriate food security and nutrition indicators)

(4) Take into consideration of social and cultural factors, address issues around social exclusions/discriminations, and promote women empowerment to achieve sustainable and larger impact especially on women and child nutrition.

Colleagues,

Investment in nutrition needs stealth to succeed

Thinking differently

To make investments in nutrition work for nutrition – you have to dress ‘nutrition’ in different clothes. Nutrition is really difficult to sell at face value; the mover-shakers of the mainly donor-funded development world need to be attracted into investing in some other way – and you also have to encourage recipients to think differently. Would you rather have a high dam, a new capital city or a national nutrition programme if you ran the government? How do you want to be remembered?

Reading some of the original contributions a first easy-to-make assessment is that there are simply too many nutritionists involved with the debate, and insufficient (may be none-at-all) contributors from the politico-financial and commercial sectors. When you have a firm viewpoint, and particularly where it has a platform that is >100% morally sound, it is hard to step back and see the ‘trees in the forest’; that ‘forest ‘is simply too large. But this is exactly what needs to be done.

Of course nutrition, human health, equality of choice, gender issues and similar are all deserving of investment. And, if your country is rich enough and has the right kind of leadership, the social issues/investments of the day will continue to play a role in national development. You, representing the public, will ensure that this is the case. (Well, in an ideal world that is).

But what do you do if you cannot get access to sufficient public funding because, for example, you live in a poor country, you come from an isolated community, your people are not represented in government and so on (and this not forgetting the >60% of humanity who are illiterate, female, handicapped, elderly, young, unemployed and more – and frequently double or triple disadvantaged). You have to mobilize resources as best you can; and you have to promote, badger, provoke, encourage those better placed to take an interest. In short you have to use stealth, cunning, ingenuity and brilliance - to dress up your nutrition proposals (and others) within a guise that will ‘sell’.

You have to advertise and sell your ideas. And if the recipient public sector where you live is not interested, then you have to sell into the donor community and/or the private sector (and, for best, both at the same time). Which means finding out what interests these sectors, and tailoring your proposals to meet their investment requirements. You need to get to know these people.

Allied to this is the need to ‘think differently’ – to put yourselves into the shoes/offices/Landcruisers of the people whom you need to meet; those whom you need to persuade to your point-of-view.

Access to funds

Earlier this year those of us in the development industries were presented with findings from a number of sources that showed of the order US$21T (i.e. $21,000,000,000,000 - say it slowly) was currently held off-shore in the international tax havens by the so-called ‘super-rich’. Even this staggering figure may be substantially under-estimated, and it could be as high as US$35T. Off-shore funds come from a number of sources – typically countries with mineral, oil and gas resources and, crucially, those that are controlled by minority cliques for which there is no redress at the ballot box. So, things are unlikely to change any time soon. These countries are led by Russia, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, respectively, with estimates of US$800B, US$340B & US$340B shifted off-shore during the past 20 years or so. The key issue here is simple to understand – once off-shore - these funds are no longer available for use within the country of origin.

So, what’s this got to do with nutrition and the FSN debate? Hang-on, we’re getting there, but you can probably already catch the drift of this particular contribution.

Ethiopia

Here is a short digression. Just on five years back I was involved with a food security project in Ethiopia – providing management from an office in Addis Ababa, working with the communities involved in the Northern Shoa and around Mekelle and generally trying to ensure delivery of socio-techno-economic packages for the estimated 90,000 target people involved. We had a budget of the order US$4.2M; and it was the largest project of its kind with the agency of the day. We did reasonably well, and follow-on activities continue to the present with new management, more communities, similar objectives and more – more funds too.

We undertook nutritional surveys of selected communities to help determine delivery and success with meeting objectives, etc. Summarizing findings in isolated hill country in what is one of the poorest countries on Africa, nutritional determinants were of the order 47%, 11% & 43%, respectively, for stunting, wasting & underweight for kids <5 years old. Terrible health/emergency results that we were able to target with our budgetary support for local investment – food, schools, sanitation, energy, clean water and more. Equally, we used our network of contacts to promote the project and its needs within our local donor community; no good being successful in the field if those in the capital city remain unaware of things. (This means networking, people, publications & promotion.)

We also looked sideways into private sector investment, for example, exploring wool production & sales with the largest blanket manufacturer in the country (who manufactured mainly on the basis of imported used fibres), use of fuel ethanol as an alternative to manure, baby-food production, dairy-cow/milk industries and foreign tourism – a day’s travel from Addis and the country provided pre-historic pristine walking opportunities (and the Ethiopian wolf Canis simensis); all it needed was a new rest house with clean beds and hot showers. And other opportunities.

Messages? You cannot sell the nutritional needs of your community easily when there are 80 million others in the country – most of whom face similar challenges. You cannot always plan on national-scale. But, all that said, Ethiopia country-wide has represented a success story for Africa during the past 10 years.

Country investment

But what if you need to plan nationally? Take a hypothetical country in West Africa - hypothetical remember. Consider an indigenous population of estimated 170M people with population increases of the order 2.5% pa and projected to be 475M by 2050 – already the issues are looking daunting. National planning is underway – always – and we know that GDP is rising of the order 7% annually (so, reasonable) on the basis of sector developments of which ‘agriculture’ dominates, but continues to trail manufacturing, services, oil&gas and others as a recipient of investment – yet estimated 70% of the population continue to depend upon agriculture for a living; and, coincident – coincident - 65% of the national population remains in ‘abject’ poverty – so, not just poor, but really poor (and this definitive sector is growing 5% annually).

Did someone mention ‘oil&gas’? Responsible for 19% of GDP, the sector provides 95% of foreign exchange and >80% of budgetary resources in support of a complicated national management structure that encompasses 36 state governments and one federal government. What options for those budgetary resources filtering down to the man/woman in the bush/street? The commercial sector, by contrast, impacts on just about everyone. Sure, people make profits by participating – sometimes really useful profits – from cement, telecom, banking, manufacturing and, of course, oil&gas. In our hypothetical country all these sectors have made money. Could these entrepreneurs with their assets and advisors shift into agriculture, agro-industries and agro-services? Some have done so already.

Investing in agriculture

But their investment is piecemeal, relatively low-key and sometimes high risk. Further, industrialization of agricultural production means investment in technologies, equipment, structures, water, etc. and, crucially, limited numbers of high quality people. What of the masses in the country that are already poor, imprisoned in rural subsistence systems and with little or no hope of change, but occupying that same land that is needed for larger-scale investment?

From here-on you can shift into the smallholder/organized agricultural production models or the larger-scale plantation models that carry less financial risk (but the much more difficult socio-economic risks of landless people migrating). And, the key element of this particular contribution? Here-in is the wardrobe of clothes required of nutrition development.

You shift into national, regional and zonal development that channel blocks of investment across the focus land areas; this is land-linked to producer-zones-linked to agro-industrial-parks-linked to markets-linked to towns, cities and/or ports. Sure, this has objectives to boost agro-production, improve socio-economic performance, rural well-being and just about everything else required of people; but you don’t bring nutrition in until the middle-game, when you need to count the number of school gardens, the number of kids attending secondary school, the number of buses linking producers to markets, the number of new jobs in the community and so on.

And if the title of the debate ‘Agriculture working for nutrition’ is too obvious – just think; with urbanization continuing apace worldwide that first generation born in the city will, like the majority of people everywhere see ‘agriculture at the supermarket’ – and then it simply becomes that much more challenging to convince kids (and their parents) that nutrition and dietary patterns begins with crops, livestock, fisheries and the rest of the natural world.

Get the point?

Key words: Private sector investment.

PS. And that off-shore money to which reference was made earlier? Governments in the countries concerned are unlikely to change over-night and thus the complexity and challenges of sharing national resources within the mass population will continue; but you can’t abuse, channel, cream and/or lose funds of this magnitude with agriculture as easily as you can with a ‘pump-it-and-shift-it’ industries like oil&gas. Don’t lose sight of the key role of agro-production & agro-industrialization in the race to boost nutrition.

Peter Steele

Consultant

Rome

20 September 2012

1. Si usted estuviera diseñando un programa de inversión agrícola, ¿cuáles son las cinco cosas principales que haría para maximizar su impacto en la nutrición?

I.-    Los cinco puntos principales que tomaría en cuenta son los siguientes:

1.-  Me enfocaría en los pequeños productores, en los más rezagados (mujeres, discapacitados, indígenas, pobres) ,  pues son ellos los que son más sensibles a sufrir  hambre si sus logros no son los adecuados.

2.-  Buscaría diversificar la producción, de tal manera que incluya diferentes tipos de alimentos, tanto vegetales como animales.

3.- Trabajaría con objetivos comunes, que hagan deseable  el asociarse para los productores, pues solo por medio de agrupaciones se puede llegar a alcanzar la escala necesaria para poder participar en un momento dado en el mercado.

4.-  Pondría mucho énfasis en la elaboración de proyectos que contemplen un esquema completo de negocios, que incluya el consumo local y la venta de excedentes, que tome en cuenta los aspectos socioculturales y medioambientales de la operación y que opere con fondos a largo plazo, que permitan el correcto establecimiento y desarrollo de las operaciones.

5.-   Buscaría obtener siempre productos terminados, no materias primas, por lo que la integración sería clave para obtener tanto el valor agregado en el aspecto económico como el aporte de nutrientes dado por productos de buena calidad.

2. Para apoyar el diseño e implementación de este programa, ¿dónde le gustaría ver que se investiga más y por qué?

II.- Sería básica la investigación para desarrollar tecnologías que los mismos productores puedan después replicar. El desarrollo de variedades agrícolas o cruzas animales con las que no dependan de otros para poder sembrarlas o criarlas sería básico. Sin embargo, yo considero que la mayor deficiencia no está en la falta de investigación, si no en la falta de difusión de esta investigación. El poner la información al alcance real de los pequeños productores es lo que en  mi opinión tendría realmente la capacidad de hacer la diferencia.

3. ¿Qué pueden hacer nuestras instituciones para ayudar a que los gobiernos nacionales se comprometan a actuar siguiendo sus recomendaciones, y para garantizar  que la aplicación sea efectiva?

Al revisar las aportaciones hechas a el actual tema o a cualquiera de los anteriores que se han tratado en este foro,  queda claro que de alguna manera hay un gran consenso acerca de lo que se considera correcto hacer para mejorar la agricultura desde diversos ángulos y que es urgente e importante tomar medidas para frenar el hambre y la desnutrición en el mundo. Sin embargo, esto es bastante claro en el ámbito académico pero no ocurre lo mismo en el sector comercial y en las esferas gubernamentales, en donde los intereses comerciales y políticos siguen prevaleciendo ampliamente sobre el interés de la sociedad.

En mi opinión, para lograr que los gobiernos atiendan realmente las recomendaciones hechas por la FAO y demás instituciones, es necesario que su voz tenga una resonancia mucho mayor. En la  medida en que la sociedad toda esté realmente informada de lo que ocurre en el mundo en el aspecto nutricional y sepa qué es lo que se tiene que hacer para corregirlo, podrá presionar para que se den los pasos en la dirección correcta.

El conocimiento compartido en este foro debe verterse ampliamente hacia la sociedad, no poco a poco, para que pueda influir en la toma de decisiones. No quiero mencionar ningún nombre, porque forzosamente omitiría a alguien, pero he leído comentarios demasiado valiosos que yo quisiera que escucharan mis autoridades.    

Difundir   la información por todos los medios posibles (Congresos regionales, Conferencias, Publicación y difusión de libros y revistas, blogs, etc.) sería la manera de poner los temas de este foro en la agenda propia de las instituciones nacionales, de manera que realmente se aborden localmente y se logre la inclusión de todos los actores necesarios para su discusión  e implementación (Autoridades, académicos, productores, periodistas, investigadores, comerciantes, ONGs, etc.).   

Saludos desde México

Moisés Gómez Porchini

Dear All:

 

Thanks for the good discussion. As part of the anniversary of the UN High Level Meeting on Non-communicable Diseases, yesterday the ONE blog published a short piece on agriculture and food security (http://www.one.org/blog/2012/09/19/food-is-linked-to-ncds-and-producers-...) that urges a broader understanding of food security. This was much debated in the last FSN discussion [Coming to terms with terminology, ed.], but here we are making the point that the formal definition is not lacking so much as the interpretation for programming purposes of what real food security is – including avoidance of excess calories without nutrition. Achieving that goal requires substantial changes in agriculture and food systems as my report details.

 

You asked what research needs to be done to narrow the gap between agriculture and good nutrition. Here are a few suggestions.

 

Improve understanding of causal links among agriculture, nutrition, and various health outcomes

Develop “mutual metrics” that are understood and endorsed by all sectors to they can work together on common objectives

Produce a generalizable measure of food diversity

Improve understanding of what influences consumer behavior to consume healthy food

Understand how to implement and measure the impacts of policy choices across sectors

 

Thanks.

 

rachel

______________________________________________________________

Rachel A. Nugent, Ph.D. | Director

Disease Control Priorities Network | Department of Global Health

University of Washington | Seattle, WA 98104

Malnutrition, both from the perspective of under and overnourishment, is complex and likely involves, in part, the globalization of trade, resource scarcity, and the nutritional translation from wholesome food products to those often processed containing high levels of salt, sugar, calories, saturated and trans fats, amongst others. In agreement with Mr. Kent´s comment, local agricultural production has a great potential to impact nutrition. Building capacity of smallholder producers in countries which export a large proportion of their products, may in turn, increase the national supply of food for consumers, perhaps at a more affordable cost.

An example of such, is the Food Acquisition Program in Brazil (PAA), where, by law, a minimum of 30% of food products provided to public schools must be purchased directly from smallholder farmers. This program has helped to serve children suffering both from chronic undernourishment, as well as those with obesity, consume healthy foods required for growth and development. Additionally, the program has given smallholder farmers more stability and security in their lives and rewards agricultural practices which benefit the environment.

Secondly, shifting the focus to include the quality of food, as opposed to merely quantity, is important as obesity and associated non-communicable diseases are affecting countries worldwide. Institutions can help facilitate the implementation of policies which promote the holistic, community-based objective of agriculture, thereby enabling families to consume healthy diets, balanced in calories and other essential nutrients. In addition to promoting the intake of healthy foods, complete, honest, and comprehendible labelling of products may further generate awareness of which types of foods should be avoided. Campaigns which distribute information to the public, for example Elige Vivir Sano in Chile (Choose to Live Healthily: http://www.eligevivirsano.cl/), may additionally discourage the intake of foods which lead to overnutrition.

I wish people had more love to the next, that access to good food and quality were more democratized, also, the institutions of my Nation State, would look more to the poor and poverty therefore feel throughout Latin America persists drama of social exclusion and nutritional deficiencies especially the Amazon logo, brief and narrow delta of the Amazon, where it has indece local population with low human development, problems that involve the absence of State