USAID is seeking input on a draft guidance brief on nutrition-sensitive agriculture. This guidance will assist implementers in applying the new USAID Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy to agricultural development programs. Your input will help USAID shape its recommendations and requirements for...
Draft Guidance for USAID-Funded Nutrition-Sensitive Programming
Information:
Despite agriculture's vital link to nutrition, agricultural investments do not automatically improve the nutritional status of farming households. Recently, the term “nutrition-sensitive agriculture” has emerged as a way to define agriculture-focused programming that incorporates specific nutrition goals and actions. Several pathways have been identified to show how nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions can more directly impact nutrition and food security.
During this webinar, Richard Greene, senior deputy assistant administrator with USAID's Bureau for Food Security, shared a two-page draft guidance document that will assist implementers in applying the new USAID Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy to nutrition-sensitive agriculture programs. Greene also discussed his priorities and requested participant feedback. In addition, presenters shared two examples (from the Strengthening Partnerships, Results, and Innovations in Nutrition Globally Project and the Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services Project) of key opportunities for technical assistance to USAID Missions to improve nutrition-sensitive programming.
Featuring
Richard Greene
USAID Bureau for Food Security
Jeannie Harvey
USAID Bureau for Food Security
Sally Abbott
USAID Bureau for Food Security
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12/06/2014 - 5:27pm
I am very much looking forward to attending and actively participating in this webinar. In participating my biggest concern for diets and nutrition is how this relates to the work expected of people, particularly smallholder farmers. In a recent webinar on Monitoring and Evaluation the issue came up and I was very disappointed that it was summarily dismissed as not important in the nutritional assessment. My concern is the caloric base on which the nutrition analysis is based. I recently noted that IFPRI’s study on hunger was based on a diet of only 1800 kcal/day. Also, I noted that most nutrition studies are based on a basic metabolism requirement of 2000 kcal/day. This is appropriate for people enjoying a sedimentary lifestyle that are not expected to engage in heavy manual labor such as that associated with agronomic field work. I think if you expect someone to be heavily involved for a full day of agronomic field work the caloric requirements are in excess of 4000 kcal/day. I also have noted that the actual available of calories available to smallholders is not well reported, but looks like it is in the order of only 2000 kcal, barely representing enough for basic metabolism with very little energy for field work. The result is that the work day is often restricted to only 4 hours and one has to question how diligently this work is. If the day is so restricted by available diet, this will prolong the time required to get basic field activities completed, reduce the yield potential and limit food security. Thus the questions are “what it the caloric base for you nutritional evaluation for smallholder farmers”, and “what will be the higher priority for smallholders to get as many calories as possible to meet better meet work requirements, or balance the quality of the diet”. Sorry that could be some really tough choices.
Please review the following pages on the www.smallholderagriculture.com website:
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/DietPoster.pdf .
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/EthiopiaDiet.html .
Thank you,
Dick Tinsley
Permalink
12/15/2014 - 9:11am
I have been trynig to log in for the last 15 minutes and can't do it. Its very frustrating.
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