Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Whenever I talk about food security and food choices in my mother tongue or national language, people have asked me “is food and nutrition a science or a cultural practice?”

Integrating nutrition into the curriculum would take the following into consideration:

1. Contents of teaching curricular be country or region-specific, in line with variations in climate, soils and ethno cultural food choices and practices. A country with varied climatic conditions will have a curricular content reflecting food advantages in the different climatic conditions, e.g. livestock products, marine foods, food crops, and the role of networks in the exchange of food items.
2. The curriculum to contain detailed information on all stages of the nutritional chain: food production, processing, storage, preparation, to consumption.
3. Where to delive content of the curriculum? The information could be sourced from extensive research on practices around food and nutrition - what is food to different communities and individuals at various life-stages, when and how people acquire food and nutritional habits, is it through socialization, formal institutions, extension workers? Then can we define an approach with the greatest impact in terms of behaviour change to embrace nutrition sensitive agriculture. The process is to help avoid situations where the curricular is miles apart from practice; practice of households where decisions on food are made.
4. To what extent will changes in curricular have an influence on agricultural practices, especially in rural Africa where agriculture is mostly small-scale and family oriented? I imagine that the integration of nutrition into the curriculum of higher training institutions would be more practical in societies with large-scale agricultural production, where the use of technological inputs demand reliance on college and university trained personnel. The approach more likely to succeed in rural Africa with family farms is incorporation of information on nutrition sensitive agriculture into curricular at all levels of informal and formal education.
5. What do we know about behavioural change? A suggested approach is awareness creation on interlinkages: good nutrition, costs at the household level in terms of ailments (diabetes, high blood pressures, heart diseases, some cancers) and money. People are more likely to buy into practices that help them avoid ill health and economic costs.
6. How relevant is the inclusion of nutrition-sensitive agriculture in the curricular of colleges and universities, especially in countries where extension services have been privatized? The emerging reality in most developing countries is that students graduating from agricultural colleges and universities are limited to working with large agricultural private farms; most of which are in agriculture as a business, where mono-cropping brings the most economic returns. In such situations, the trained personnel might not have a chance to convince the farm owners on the need to diversify crops for the benefit of people’s nutrition! Which is the best approach to work with the private sector on nutrition sensitive agriculture?

I thought Dr Gartuala expressed very well the potential tension between the formal curriculum in the college setting and the farmers' knowledge and perceptions in the social and workday landscape:

Especially in the rural communities the community-based informal education and curriculum-based formal education are two intersecting knowledge spheres, which can become imporant components to increase food literacy. Our study shows a negative correlation between these two knowledge spheres ....

Reconciling these two spheres seems to me to be an essential component of the college curriculum, enabling students to create bridges through dialogue and experience with the community, through which they learn as much as the community does.  This constructivist approach, "starting where people are" can use an agricultural metaphor:  before you plant, first know your soil and your microclimate!

Jane Sherman

Nutrition education consultant, FAO

>> English translation below <<

Merci pour la pertinence de  ce sujet

Intégrer la nutrition aux programmes d’études des établissements d’enseignement agricole

Un  nouveau contexte  de production agricole et alimentaire caractérise le monde actuel. Face au défi  permanent de la sécurité alimentaire, de la qualité nutritionnelle et organoleptique des aliments, il est important de développer des outils et des méthodes académiques plus adaptés.  Au Cameroun, comme dans la plupart des pays en développement l'une des priorités de la formation des travailleurs agricole porte sur les techniques d'accroissement de la production et de la productivité dans le but d'éradiquer la faim et la pauvreté du  secteur rural. Cependant, selon les rapports d'activités de terrain menées par le Centre pour la Communication et le développement durable (CECOSDA), les techniques d'amélioration de la qualité doivent de plus en plus être enseignées.

Au Cameroun par exemple la diversité ethnique et culturelle contribue énormément à la diversification du régime alimentaire (On dénombre plus de 280 ethnies aux habitudes alimentaires variées). En général, le type d'aliment cultivé varie selon les localités et les habitudes alimentaires.

Les programmes scolaires agricoles locaux apportent  la touche scientifique qui permet d'adapter les stratégies agricoles en fonction de la zone agro écologique du pays où se trouve le travailleur agricole.

Au vue de l'expérience du CECOSDA, je pense que le programme de formation agricole scolaire et universitaire est très important  et doit être renforcé par l'introduction des modules de formation sur :

1. Les techniques d'optimisation de la qualité ressources agropastorales 
   
   locales pour une meilleure santé des populations et une exploitation durable des sols. Méthodes d'exploitation des aliments locaux disponibles  pour le développement de régimes alimentaires équilibrés adaptés aux réalités locales ; 
2. Doter les apprenants des outils leur permettant de maîtriser les 
   
   propriétés physiques, chimiques et fonctionnelles, notamment des 
   
   micro-constituants des plantes alimentaires ;

Il est en réalité important que l'aspect nutrition soit de plus en plus   intégrer dans les institutions de formation agricole afin que le volet 

nutrition ne soit inconnu par les travailleur de ce secteur.

Intégrer la nutrition au programme au scolaire de formation agricole  c'est intégrer une nouvelle compétence permettant par exemple aux apprenants de dresser des tables de valeur nutritionnelle des plantes cultivé d'une  localité. A base de ces tables de valeur l'agriculteur pourra aussi 

élaborer des régimes alimentaires complets, riches et nutritifs pour les populations de sa zone agricole.

Thank you for the pertinence of this topic.

Integrating nutrition into the curricula of agriculture education institutions.

Today´s world is characterized by a new context of agricultural and food production.  Faced with the permanent challenge of food security, of the nutritional and organoleptic quality of food, it is important to develop the best adapted tools and academic methods.   In Cameroon, as in most developing countries, one of the priorities for training agricultural workers concerns the techniques for increasing production and productivity with the objective of eradicating hunger and poverty in rural areas. However, according to the reports on activities in the field carried out by the Centre pour la Communication et le Developpement Durable (CECOSDA) [Centre for Communication and Sustainable Development for All], techniques for quality improvement should be taught more and more.

In Cameroon for example, the ethnic and cultural diversity contributes enormously to the diversification of the food diet (more than 280 ethnicities have been recorded, each with different dietary customs).  In general, the type of food cultivated varies according to the location and eating habits.

The local agricultural teaching programs add a scientific touch which allows agricultural strategies to be adapted to the agro-ecological area of the country where the agricultural worker resides.

With regards to the experience of CECOSDA, I think that the school and university agricultural training program is very important and ought to be reinforced by the introduction of training modules on:

1. Techniques for optimizing the quality of local agro-pastoral resources for the improved health of the population and a sustainable use of the land. Methods of using the locally available food for the development of balanced food diets adapted to local conditions;
2. Providing students with the tools that will enable them to master the physical, chemical and functional properties, in particular the micro-components of food plants;

In reality it is important that the subject of nutrition is more and more integrated into agricultural training institutions so that the nutritional component is no longer unknown to the worker in the sector.

To include nutrition in the schools’ agricultural training program is to add a new skill enabling the students to tabulate the nutritional value of cultivated plants in a particular location. On the basis of these value tabulations the farmer could also produce comprehensive, rich and nutritious diets   for the inhabitants of his agricultural zone.

Dear all,

It is a nice idea and a lot of topics to be addressed. In many countries the nutrition goes to thorough knowledge as health science; but in the same time remains a part of food security. Promote the nutrition sensitive agriculture in agricultural HE institutions means to prepare a new class of policy makers and / or in-depth study of added value of the quality and range of agro-food goods in order to improve the awareness on diet and a better life style in terms of nutrition and wellbeing.

Dear Members,

First of all, I appreciate all your genuine ideas, experiences and views forwarded for online discussion on the aforementioned topics.

I have tried to go through with all your ideas and I am very happy to see almost all of you are supporting the ideas of integrating  nutrition in to the curricula of agricultural education institutions. I would like also to appreciate those of you who contributed supporting documents in the areas of nutrition agriculture linkage focusing on human resource development in the areas of nutrition sensitive agriculture.

I want to quote one of our colleagues' ideas mentioning the importance of integrating nutrition in the curricula of agriculture as "I think now it becomes clear that unless agriculture of a community is guided by its actual nutritional needs, it would be impossible to avoid either malnutrition or its inappropriate counterpart" [Lal Manavado]. I also strongly agree with this idea. This may answer questions of members who raise its worthiness to do so.

When we say integrating nutrition in the curricula of agriculture education we do not mean that all agricultural graduates will be nutritionist or agricultural professionals will not replace the role of nutritionist. We are saying that agricultural professionals should have basic nutrition knowledge so as to promote nutrition sensitive agriculture. We may not expect from agricultural professional to be competent with detail nutrition skills like those of nutritionist.

Let me share our experience of integrating nutrition in to the curricula of agricultural education. The most important activity that we have to do first  is that identifying nutrition core competencies that is relevant for agricultural professional.

Nutrition core competencies we identified for agriculture professionals are listed below: All the listed core competencies are described with their attributes in terms of knowledge, skill and attitude competency domains.  

1. Apply basic principles of human nutrition
2. Assist in a variety of agricultural food production and promote use of diversified/complementary foods
3. Promote safe handling of agricultural food products during storage, transportation and preservation
4. Promote nutrition through Behaviour Change Communication(BCC)  and use of technology
5. Utilize multi-sectoral collaboration and linkage
6. Plan manage, monitor and evaluate agriculture-related nutrition interventions
7. Apply professionalism and ethics

The challenge we faced at the beginning was how to integrate those nutrition core competencies in to the existing curricula of agricultural education. As we all know curriculum revision requires a great deal with decision makers and it needs long period of time. To escape these long process, add-on approach i.e integrating the identified nutrition core competencies within the existing potential curriculum of agriculture education was the first option that we followed. Throughout all these process, all the essential stakeholders like MOA, MOH, MOE and other stakeholders were consulted.

Is it possible to address those nutrition core competencies with add-on approach or with extra lecture hours? As it was raised by Jane Sherman [participant to the discussion], this is the most important point that should be answered. Of course, now the Ministry of Agriculture(MoA) endorsed nutrition to be one of Occupational Standard (OS) for mid-level agricultural graduates and we are also working with Ministry of Education (MoE) to do the same for university agricultural graduates.

Having said this much about our experiences, I would like to request members to share their experiences and thought with specific to each leading questions listed under the discussion topics.

Mebit Kebede

Jhpiego Ethiopia

Ethiopia 

I have found the discussion interesting and would like to take this opportunity to say few words. The issue here is incorporating nutrition education into the curricula of agricultural education institutes and increasing capacity of agriculture extension workers to provide better services to the clients. This is indeed a great way to increase dietary diversity among consumers while improving biodiversity on farm, which combinely called 'nutrition sensitive agriculture'.

Incorporating nutrition education in the curricula of agricultural colleges and higher education institutes is important, but it would not be enough to increase dietary diversity and improve nutrition security among farming families. Like functional literacy, the policy makers should pay attention to increase food literacy of farming communities. Food literacy is the understanding nutritional information and acting on the knowledge in ways consistent with promoting nutrtional goals and food wellbeing (Block et al., 2011).

Especially in the rural communities the community-based informal education and curriculum-based formal education are two intersecting knowledge spheres, which can become imporant components to increase food literacy. Our study shows a negative correlation between these two knowledge spheres, showing a potential to increase food literacy by integrating local knowledge on nutrition and agriculture (as we know this is the practice people have been practicing for generations) in the formal education sytem. Therefore, to increase food literacy and improve nutrition security, can we think of integrating and recognizing the knowledge of local people related to food in formal education system?

Thank you for the timely topic.

Integrating nutrition into the curricular of agriculture education institutions

My contribution starts from the last question on experience from incorporating new ideas into training curricular. I draw my experience from working with natural resources management NGOs based in Kenya with activities in Eastern and Southern Africa - one of the projects was coordinated by FAO in the 1990s and early 2000s.  

The activity focused on the introduction and incorporation of collaborative natural resources management into forestry training institutions (colleges and universities). The project resource consuming but the end result was worth the effort. The process involved analyzing existing curricular of the training institutions, which revealed a mostly plantation forestry orientation with scientific management processes and management practices of forest guards to keep intruders – too far apart from collaborative forest management which involves stakeholders (local communities, government departments, training institutions, industry, etc.).  We implemented community-based research to identify the reality on the ground. Then identified and involved trainers (lecturers) and decisions makers (administration) from forestry training institutions in field visits and informational sessions on benefits of collaborative management. Once the individuals bought into the idea, we facilitated sessions for representatives from training institutions, the Ministry in charge of forestry and the private sector.

The question of resources required to make revisions to an educational curricular came up – financial, human, publications and more. We created and strengthen networks at local and international levels, especially for the sharing of case studies and available training materials. Luckily for us, the FAO Coordinated FTPP programme was global, therefore easier to strengthen networks, especially with projects and training institutions in countries of Asia where community and collaborative forestry had taken route. The financial part involved the establishment of collaborative programs with colleges and universities and mobilizing financial resources for project implementation. We relied on our networks for field visits (by trainers from colleges and universities, government, private sectors and forest adjacent communities) for the purpose of learning from others. The result was a revised Forest Act in support of collaborative forest management, which indirectly required training institutions to make revisions to their curriculum, which was a manageable task for the trainers and decision-makers had been exposed to information and case studies on successful collaborative natural resources management projects. The lesson learnt was that the integration of new ideas into existing curricular involves awareness creation, sensitization on benefits of collaboration, mobilization of resources (financial, human, case studies, how-to-manuals)  and availability of supportive policy.

I have found the discussion so far very interesting and welcome the opportunity to give the point of view of an educator who has some experience of curriculum development and work-related learning.

It seems self-evident that agricultural officers and extension workers should know how to grow a good diet and be able to help others to do so. The potential impact of such capacities in the field has been described and so have the difficulties of achieving it (e.g. by Fanzo et al. 2013).  There are therefore moves to introduce nutrition into the pre-service curriculum of agricultural colleges and degree courses.  This seems to me to raise some important preliminary questions about the conditions necessary for successful work-related learning in this field.  

Question 1  Is it worth doing?  

Curriculum space is often jealously guarded and the status of a new subject may have to be fought for.  One danger is the offer often made to new entrants of “integration across the curriculum”, i.e. distribution across existing core subjects.  This generally means fragmentation, loss of coherence and importance, especially if the subject is not allowed its own staff, exams and assessments.   

Evidence of nutrition impact in normative agricultural extension activities is thin, hence it may be important to be able to produce evidence, cases and models of successful action, a strong rationale and a promotional plan (even plans for future assessment of impact) when arguing for a proper place for nutrition in the agriculture curriculum. 

 The evidence is important also in the curriculum itself.  If agricultural extension services (AES) are to carry advisory weight in their communities, staff and graduates need to believe in the value of action to promote good diet.

Question 2  What kind of syllabus should it be?

Nutrition learning for agricultural officers must be an applied subject if it is to have any effect on dietary practices.  The syllabus will certainly have a large knowledge component (topic-based), including understanding of the food environment and familiarity with the nutritional values of many foods.  However, since “nutrition” in the work of the AES largely refers to educational activities such as enquiring, communicating, explaining, advising and demonstrating, the syllabus must also aim to build working competences (task-based) relating to behaviour change and maintenance. 

Topic-based and task-based syllabuses have very different objectives, activities and assessments: for example, task-based learning requires considerable hands-on observation, practice and field application.  Many experts and institutions do not recognize the difference:  in nutrition, a common error is to assume that the syllabus (a) consists mainly of facts about nutrition, and (b) can therefore be delivered through a few extra lectures.  This cannot produce an effective change agent!  All those involved will therefore need to agree what kind of syllabus is needed, and may need to consider including specialists in work-related learning and nutrition education/behaviour change in the curriculum development team.

Question 3  Who else is involved? 

The team must ensure that all the players in the institutional environment are consulted and are active in support of the new initiative, for example, that

1. the MoA has adopted nutrition objectives in line with national nutrition aims and that the curriculum is in line with any national nutritional strategy.
2. AES services are prepared to collaborate in formative research into work practices, outlook and knowledge of extension practitioners
3. the institution has agreed to a curriculum review to incorporate nutrition and nutrition education objectives, and will allow time for field work
4. the institution and the AES agree to actions necessary to create a supportive service for nutrition-focused activities (e.g. training of supervisors, revision of TORs, adaptation of existing tasks)
5. the capacity is available to develop a curriculum which will be effective in helping to improve diets.   

There are plenty of other questions, but these three already seem to magnify the scope of the curriculum exercise considerably.  I would very much like to hear comments from participants in this forum, including institutions which are contemplating such a curriculum change.

Jane Sherman, Nutrition education consultant, FAO

Postharvest losses and food waste reduction has become a global issue, not only because food loss affects food security and income of smallholder farmers, but also because losses of food are a loss of nutrition for growers and consumers.  Food loss can be due to quality changes and lower nutritional status, for example when the loss of vitamins occurs during handling without any visual appearance changes.  Food loss can be related to food safety issues, for example, due to attack by pests and pathogens that are associated with aflatoxins, anti-nutritive agents or dangerous human pathogens.   Agricultural education curricula should include topics on how to 1) protect foods from damage and deterioration after the harvest, 2) prevent physical loss, loss of quality and nutritional value, and 3) protect foods from contamination and pests during the postharvest period (handling, storage, processing, marketing). 


 

Dr. Lisa Kitinoja

The Postharvest Education Foundation (PEF) 

USA

www.postharvest.org

Dear FSN Forum,

I thought this Brief form the World Bank could be useful for the current discussion. This is based on the recent research in 3 states in India.

Thanks,

Suresh Babu