Gender, Agriculture, and Nutrition Linkages

TOPS Food Security MeetingMaputo

September 2011

Nutrition and GDP

2

Nutrition and food consumption issues are critical to sustainably reduce poverty and decrease maternal and child mortality.

Up to 3% GDP LOSSES due to undernutrition $

$World Bank 2006

What Supports Child Nutrition?

Access to water/

sanitation/hygiene and basic

health services

Improvedmaternal and child-

care practices

Access to food

HumanCapital

Agriculturalprocessing

Mealpreparation

Nutritional status

Kept forhousehold

Sold at market

Non-foodcash crops

Livestock, fish, non-

timber forestproducts

Foodcrops

Income

Care

Dietary Intake

Agriculture and Nutrition Pathways

Food

Assets & ResourcesInternational Center for Research on Women

Health

REACH, Sierra Leone

NUTRITION-SENSITIVE AGRICULTURE

PRINCIPLES

• Agriculture affects nutrition outcomes indirectly It works through effects on the underlying causes of undernutrition: access to food and food production, health and care, and most directly through the effects of income and prices on household food security

• Nutrition is both an input for and an outcome of agricultural productivity

• The appropriate actions will be identified through an analysis of determinants of food insecurity/ undernutrition

• Plan multisectorally and implement sectorally

What is USAID doing to link Agriculture and Nutrition?

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Agriculture Programs

Health Services

Feed the Future Global Health Initiative

Nutrition

Improved access to diverse and quality foods

Improved nutrition-related

behaviors

Improved utilization of maternal and

child health and nutrition servicesincluding hygiene

Key Linkages: Gender, Nutrition, and Agriculture

Focus on women because of their role as care givers, producers, processors of food

Nutrition and health protocols: Customs detrimental to child health and development

Gender approach: involving men

Empowerment of women withknowledge and skills to prevent or

reverse malnutrition, capacity to carefor their children, access to technicalresources to improve food production

and/or food processing.

• Increase year-round supply of nutrient rich foods • Address gaps in sector-specific efforts, such as production or

income gains that fail to translate into improved nutritional status. • Reduce women’s resource constraints by improving their access

to productive technologies such as seeds and extension services; • Identify characteristics of different crop varieties that may be

preferred more by men or women• Provide extension support to enhance uptake of the preferred

varieties• Focus on developing technologies that increase productivity in

parts of the food chain that fall largely within women’s domain

Women’s Role Insight Interventions

Food producer Women and men equally contribute to household food supply and availability

•women’s participation in nutrition-oriented agricultural technology development• enhancing production systems associated with women• addressing production and post-production constraints

Income-earning farmers Women significantly (re)invest their income in food and nutrition

•Gender-responsive market chain development•agri-food value chain development to include nutrition • entrepreneurship and business development for high-nutrition value chains

Health/nutrition caretakers

Women are key decision-makers and stewards of household food and nutrition security

•Introducing agri-food strategies within broader nutrition interventions

Nutritionally vulnerable group

Women’s nutritional status determines their productive and reproductive roles, and affects intra-household nutrition/health

•developing agriculture innovations targeting nutritional issues affecting women• Introducing strategies for enhanced access to healthcare and education services

As partners with men Household and community dynamics require social learning and collective action by men and women

Understanding and overcoming social norms and political economies of agri-nutrition systems