Produced for the

27 February – 4 March 2016

Linking Agriculture to Nutrition: The Role of Nutrition Education in Bean Seed System Development in

southern Africa..

Rodah M Zulu1, Enock K Maereka2, Kumbukani Munthali3, Luisa Penicela4 and Nancy Kaenga5

1,2CIAT-PABRA, Chitedze Agricultural Research Station, P. O. Box 158, Lilongwe, Malawi. 3Mzuzu CADECOM, P. O Box 543, Mzuzu, Malawi. 4Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique (IIAM) P O Box 3658, Maputo Mozambique

5Ministry of Agriculture, District Agricultural Coordinator’s Office, P. O. Box 510407, Chipata, Zambia

5Ministry of Agriculture, Chipata District Coordinator’s Office, P. O. Box 510407, Chipata, Zambia Undernutrition continues to be a major concern for mostSouthern African (SA) countries, more so in rural farmingcommunities compared to urban areas. Nutrition sensitiveagriculture that incorporates nutrition promotion and educationbuilding on existing knowledge, is one of the key programmingprinciples for improving nutrition along the food production-to-consumption pathway. Efforts towards this strategy are oftenlimited by shortages of seed of nutritious food crops, includinglegumes. This work seeks to share the results of using apreviously untested nutrition education strategy to disseminatebean varieties in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.

Focus group discussions (FGDs) involving young parents andolder parents (a) to identify nutrition problems andconsumption patterns of families and small children; (b) toidentify the gaps in nutrition knowledge and altitude andnegative practices.

Nutrition education programmes were designed based oninformation collected from the FGDs to conform to country-context dietary guidelines; six food groups for Malawi, fourfood groups for Mozambique and the food pyramid forZambia.

The modules covered some of the following (a) malnutrition,causes, extent and consequences, (b) the role of commonbean in the human diet, (c) the role of beans incomplementary feeding and beyond, (d) food diversificationand complementarity and (e) food safety and hygiene.

The nutrition education was followed by participatorycooking demonstration and recipe adaptation using the foodbasket approach to select food combinations (Figure 1)

Interest groups were trained in bean seed production

Contact: r.m.zulu@cigar.org

Participatory documentation of recipes with farmers, localcaterers and extension personnel (Figure 2).

In response to increased local demand for bean grain, farmerswere trained for context-based seed production giving rise tothree main lessons on capacities of small scale bean farmers:

(a) to rapidly build seed stock from small start-upvolumes of seed (Malawi),

(b) to produce seed that meets quality assurancestandards (Mozambique) and

(c) to establish local catering businesses with bean-baseddishes.

In Zambia, the inclusion of bean dishes under a multi-sectorialapproach to nutrition (Scaling Up Nutrition initiative) furtherunlocked the demand for bean varieties

The demand for seed also triggered interest of seed companies,resulting their involvement in cost-sharing early generation seedproduction with the public sector

Local agrodealers also responded by stocking locally producedseed and selling it in different pack sizes (Figure 3)

• Nutrition education demonstrated potential to stimulate demand for quality seed of improved bean varieties to which country-specific delivery models responded.

• There is a ‘causal-effect’ relationship between nutrition sensitive agriculture and seed systems development.

• Seed and nutrition sensitive agriculture need to be co-promoted

Nutrition education

• Training on diverse preparation methods

• Development of bean-based dishes and products using the food basket approach

Seed production

• Training in community seed production

• Cost-sharing model for eliminating breeders’ seed bottlenecks

• Engagement of multiple private seed companies

Crop production and utilization

• ICM technologies for improving productivity

• Home-industry processing

• Commercialization

Introduction Results

Methods

Conclusion

Figure 1: Nutrition education approach

Figure 2: Recipe books on bean-based dishes

Figure 3: Various seed pack sizes stocked by local agrodealers