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?
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?