Linking Agriculture, Nutrition, and Health: Updates from the Feed the Future Nutrition Innovation Labs

Woman mixing grains.

Event Information

To view a recording of this event, please click on the "webinar recording" link at right. Please note - we experienced technical difficulties at the end of the presentation by Shibani Ghosh and the beginning of the presentation by Jeffrey Griffiths. About five minutes of audio were lost during this period. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please enjoy this suite of informative presentations from our colleagues at the Nutrition Innovation Labs!

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Colleagues from the Feed the Future Nutrition Innovation Lab presented on their ongoing research in Nepal and Uganda, including some early findings from the first round of data collection in both countries. They touched on how gut biome, aflatoxin, water, and sanitation issues relate to their work on agriculture-nutrition programming.

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Nutrition is a USAID-funded program implemented by the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. The mission of the Nutrition Innovation Lab is to discover how integrated interventions of agriculture, nutrition and health can achieve large-scale improvements in maternal and child nutrition in Asia and Africa and enhance institutional and human research capacity around agriculture, health and nutrition in Africa and Asia through graduate level training (MS and PhD) and support for short courses and conferences.

Welcome and Introductions:

Rob Bertram, Director, Office of Agricultural Research and Policy, USAID Bureau for Food Security

Maura Mack, Nutrition Advisor, Office of Agricultural Research and Policy, USAID Bureau for Food Security

Presentations:

Patrick Webb, Tufts University

  • Nutrition Innovation Lab Research from Process to Impact

Eileen Kennedy, Tufts University

  • Unraveling the Puzzle of Agriculture-Nutrition Linkages

Shibani Ghosh, Tufts University

  • Animal-Source Protein and Links to Stunting

Jeffrey Griffiths, Tufts University

  • Links between Gut Biome, Aflatoxin, Water, Sanitation, and Nutrition

Jerry Shively, Purdue University

  • Agriculture Systems: Importance for Nutrition

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Acknowledgements: Thank you to IRG/Engility for providing the technical support to make this webinar possible.

Speakers

Patrick Webb

Tufts University

Patrick Webb is Dean for Academic Affairs at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston. He is currently Program Director for USAID’s Nutrition Collaborative Support Research Program – Asia, as well as Principal Investigator for the Food Aid Quality Review supported by the Office of Food for Peace. Until 2005, he worked for the United Nations World Food Programme in Rome as Chief of Nutrition. During that time he was part of the MDG Hunger Task Force reporting to Secretary General Kofi Annan. Earlier, Dr. Webb spent 9 years with the International Food Policy Research Institute, living in Ethiopia, Niger, and The Gambia, working on food and agriculture policies and nutrition interventions. He currently researches the design of food security interventions, national policies supportive of agriculture, and food aid formulation and policy issues.

Eileen Kennedy

Tufts University

Dr. Kennedy is Professor of Nutrition and former Dean of the Tufts University, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Prior to this, she was Adjunct Professor, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health. From 1994 to 2001 she served in senior positions in the Clinton Administration. She was the founding executive director of the USDA, Center for Nutrition Policy and Planning, the organization responsible for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Food Guide Pyramid. Dr. Kennedy was also Deputy Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. In that capacity she was responsible for overseeing the four technical agencies in USDA with budgets of $2.2 billion. Kennedy has served on the United Nations’ Advisory Group on Nutrition, the White House Biotechnology Council, IOM, Board on Global Health and other boards. She was the co-chair with the U.S. Surgeon General of the National Nutrition Summit. Her research focuses on the effects of governmental and non governmental policies and programs on health, nutrition, food security and welfare.

Shibani Ghosh

Tufts University

Shibani Ghosh, PhD is Senior Scientist at the Nevin Scrimshaw International Nutrition Foundation (INF) and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Dr. Ghosh is a nutritionist with over 10 years experience in the area of public health nutrition. Her research interests include effects of amino acids on health and nutrition in developing countries, improving complementary foods (fortification and bio-fortification) for prevention of malnutrition in children aged 6-24 months, translation of innovative basic and clinical sciences research into applied evidence based community interventions, nutrition and agriculture linkages and the role of nutrition within global agenda and issues related to capacity building. Dr. Ghosh has extensive experience working in the Middle East, West Africa and South Asia. Prior to joining the INF, she has worked as a Research Fellow at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Aleppo, Syria.

Jeffrey Griffiths

Tufts University

Jeffrey K. Griffiths MD MPH&TM, Director of USAID’s Innovation Laboratory for Nutrition - Africa, has worked at the intersection of health and nutrition for 30 years. Current projects are based in Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Malawi. He has also worked in Haïti, Bangladesh, and Ecuador. He is a Professor of Public Health and of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, and holds adjunct appointments at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the School of Engineering, and in Infectious Diseases and Global Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. By training he is a pediatrician, internist, and infectious diseases physician with expertise in infectious diseases and the influence of the environment on health. For many years he has been involved in US water policy and has thrice testified before the US Senate. He is the immediate past Chair of the Drinking Water Committee of the US EPA’s Science Advisory Board, and was a founding member of the interdisciplinary Water: Systems, Science and Society (WSSS) program at Tufts University. Dr. Griffiths was educated at Harvard College, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Yale-New Haven Hospital, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Tufts Medical Center.

Gerald Shively

Purdue University

Gerald Shively is a Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. He currently serves as Associate Department Head and Directorof the M.S. and Ph.D. programs in Agricultural Economics. He received his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1996. Working in collaboration with students and a world-wide network of colleagues, he conducts research on a range of topics related to poverty, economic development and the environment in developing regions of the world. He is the author of more than 60 peerreviewed journal articles and numerous other publications. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development and the World Bank. He has been designated a Purdue University Faculty Scholar, was the 2007 recipient of Purdue’s Agricultural Research Award, and received the 2012 Outstanding Graduate Educator award in Purdue’s College of Agriculture. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Agricultural Economics, the flagship journal of the International Association of Agricultural Economists and sits on the Editorial Policy Board of the journals Land Economics and Environment and Development Economics. In addition to these duties, he currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center and is actively involved in Purdue’s Center for Global Food Security.

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