Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

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Huevos: aprovechar su potencial para luchar contra el hambre y la malnutrición

Estimados miembros del Foro FSN,

A pesar de la creciente prevalencia de la obesidad y las enfermedades no transmisibles, la desnutrición continúa siendo un grave problema para muchos de los países más pobres del mundo. En África oriental y austral, África occidental y central y Asia meridional, más de un tercio de la población infantil padece retraso del crecimiento. De hecho, casi 151 millones de niños menores de cinco años aún sufrían esta falta del crecimiento en 2017. Para muchos de estos niños, este problema que arruinará toda su vida se inició en el útero de sus madres. Los alimentos de mala calidad son uno de los principales factores que contribuyen a la falta de crecimiento tanto en el útero como en los primeros años de vida, cuando los niños son especialmente vulnerables. ¿Qué alimentos deberíamos promover para cambiar estas cifras? ¿Y qué debemos hacer para facilitar el acceso de las poblaciones más pobres del mundo a los alimentos más nutritivos?

Un alimento humilde como el huevo parece ofrecer cada vez más una oportunidad práctica y eficaz para abordar estos problemas. Los huevos son casi proteína pura, de muy alta calidad. También proporcionan prácticamente toda la ingesta necesaria de vitamina B12 y colina para la población infantil. El contenido de ácidos grasos esenciales de los huevos puede ser de especial importancia durante el embarazo. A casi todo el mundo -con la excepción destacada del cinturón vegetariano de la India- le gusta comer huevos, y pueden producirse a precios que los hacen accesibles incluso para la población que vive en la pobreza moderada.

Desde que se publicó un estudio de referencia el año pasado (Iannotti, 2017), sabemos que la ingesta diaria de huevos puede mejorar notablemente el crecimiento lineal de los niños pequeños. La revista Maternal and Child Nutrition ha publicado un suplemento especial, que recopila abundante información adicional sobre el valor nutricional de los huevos y diversas maneras viables de aumentar el acceso a éstos.

El primer artículo incluido en el suplemento proporciona una descripción general del papel de los huevos en la nutrición materna e infantil así como datos actualizados sobre su consumo (Lutter et al., 2018), mientras que el segundo artículo resume cómo se utilizó el marketing social en un ensayo controlado aleatorio sobre la ingesta de huevos en una fase temprana del período de alimentación complementaria, para fomentar el cumplir la recomendación de consumir un huevo diario, así como para empoderar a los participantes y modificar las políticas en Ecuador (Gallegos-Riofrio et al., 2018).

El tercer y cuarto artículo analizan el impacto de una intervención controlada para fomentar la producción avícola en la diversidad alimentaria y al estado nutricional de la población infantil en Ghana (Marquis et al., 2018) y Zambia (Dumas et al., 2018), mientras que el quinto artículo recoge los éxitos y las lecciones aprendidas de un proyecto sobre la producción avícola en pequeña escala para aumentar la producción de huevos y su ingesta en el hogar en cuatro contextos africanos diferentes (Nordhagen y Klemn, 2018).

En el sexto artículo (Bartter et al., 2018) se presenta un enfoque novedoso consistente en utilizar las cáscaras de los huevos de las gallinas para mejorar la ingesta de calcio en las zonas rurales del África subsahariana, mientras que el séptimo describe modelos de negocio para la producción avícola en África oriental y la India (Beesathuni et al., 2018).

Las numerosas funciones, sistemas, desafíos y opciones para la producción avícola sostenible se analizan en el octavo artículo (Alders et al., 2018) bajo una perspectiva centrada en la salud del planeta y el suplemento se cierra con un artículo sobre cómo lograr el acceso universal a los huevos a través de la producción avícola a gran escala (Morris et al., 2018).

Aprovechando estos últimos estudios, nos gustaría invitarle a participar en una discusión sobre este importante tema. Su experiencia y conocimientos serán de gran valor para poner en práctica las conclusiones y sensibilizar a la población sobre el papel que pueden desempeñar los huevos en la lucha contra el hambre y la malnutrición.

  1. Para aumentar el acceso de las poblaciones más pobres del mundo a los huevos, ¿cuál debería ser el equilibrio adecuado entre producción en pequeña escala, producción comercial a gran escala y comercio a larga distancia? Si los países tienden progresivamente a la producción a gran escala, ¿cómo equilibramos el objetivo de mejorar la nutrición con la preocupación por los medios de vida de los pequeños agricultores?
  2. ¿Además de aumentar su disponibilidad y reducir su precio, cómo podríamos incrementar la demanda de huevos? ¿Podría proporcionar algunos ejemplos de iniciativas exitosas?
  3. ¿Cómo podemos mitigar las posibles consecuencias negativas de la producción de huevos a gran escala para el bienestar animal y las emisiones de carbono?
  4. ¿Qué deben hacer las diferentes partes interesadas (gobiernos, sector privado, mundo académico, organismos normativos) para acelerar el acceso a los huevos en las comunidades pobres?

Confiamos en que este tema le resulte interesante y esperamos recibir sus reflexiones y comentarios.

Con nuestros mejores deseos,

Saul Morris

Tim Lambert

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Dear All,

Dwelling on the prevailing discussion "increase access to eggs for the world’s poorer populations, what should be the right balance between small-scale production, large-scale commercial production. what is the way forward to achieve increase in egg production for better nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)'

Constraints to increased Egg production for Better Nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

Eggs are a highly nutritious food, rich in Eessential Fatty Acids, vitamins A and B12, and bioavailable iron, zinc, and iodine. The protein in the albumen is abundant, digestible, and complete, and the whole food is naturally “packaged” in a protective “container.” With a few notable exceptions, it is a acceptable that almost all human populations enjoy eating them. They are uniquely positioned to advance the second of the world's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture (United Nations, 2015).

Consumption of eggs, however, falls far below optimal levels among mothers and children living in poorer countries especially in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The level of production in this region is not adequate to provide needed nutrition for everybody especially the children and the mothers.  Eggs are cheap, relatively available, and frequently consumed by young children in high-and middle-income countries. However, they are expensive, scarce, and rarely consumed by children in much of Africa and South Asia.

Major barrier to increased egg production for better nutrition in SSA include the following

 (i) Low production

 (ii) Disease

 (iii) Nutrition, Housing and Incidence of Predation

(iv)Veterinary and intensive systems

Low Production: When considered the  conventional measures of productivity commonly used in the commercial poultry sector in both aspect of egg  and meat production,  such as feed conversion ratios or daily weight gain, local chicken breeds are low and slow producers of eggs and meat. This contributes to their low productivity when compared with the production in the commercialized poultry production setting.

Disease: The most common cause of the high mortality rates observed in Small -Scale Poultry (SSP) flocks, particularly in tropical countries, is Newcastle disease (ND) and Avian Influenza (AI).  The emergence of and response to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), the H5N1 strain of avian influenza caused millions of birds to be culled after emerging in Africa in 2006-2008, and many countries in Africa have lost a large proportion of their egg production industry. This placed a heavy burden on SSP producers, directly, by the virtue of increased loss of birds, and indirectly, as initial control measures resulted in massive depopulation, often with inadequate or no compensation especially in the developing nations.

Nutrition, Housing and Incidence of Predation: Inability to provide adequate nutrition and presence of environmental stress coupled with the incidence of loss of chicks to predation are other notable factors that can contribute to reduction in the production of poultry products (especially eggs) in the SSA

Veterinary and Extension Services: Smallholder poultry farmers do not or have limited access to information on the “state of health” of their birds and how to cope with clinical signs and symptoms of diseases on their farm. This includes issues of adequate biosecurity practices, which is a major concern for small-scale intensive poultry producers. Inadequate essential resources and infrastructural facilities can result in limited veterinary and extension services.

Possible way forward

Establishment of “Egg Hubs” (Beesabathuni et al., 2018; Ymeri et al., 2017)

This is an innovation in which smallholder poultry (egg) farmers are organized into groups to facilitate input supply and better reap economies of scale. In this model, groups of five smallholder farmers constitute one group and are trained to operate a small‐scale farm with 5,000 birds, thereby simplifying supply chain coordination of inputs to the farm while also ensuring minimal losses in the transport of eggs to a market closest to the community.

Each farmer group has access to credit, building materials, cages, start‐up flock and relevant materials, biosecurity measures, protective clothing, and training in best practices. Several of these farms can be managed together as a hub. The hub acts as the aggregator of inputs and provides training, insurance, and credit to the farmer groups. For countries with large rural land areas, which, as we have seen, would require more than 200 hubs to ensure an egg for everyone, creating incentives for private companies to set up the hubs is the likely accelerated pathway to scale.

Eggs are one of our best tools to help end hunger, achieve food security, and improve nutrition. In order to reap the benefits of this opportunity, it is crucial that aggressive action be taken to increase and improve their availability and affordability in SSA. This can only be done by investing heavily in production systems that can bring down prices significantly across the entire economy, rather than focusing effort on limited benefits for individual farmers.

 

References

Ymeri, P., Sahiti, F., Musliu, A., Shaqiri, F., & Pllana, M. (2017). The effect of farm size on profitability of laying poultry farms in Kosovo. Bulgarian Journal of Agricultural Science, 23, 376–380.

Beesabathuni, K., Lingala, S., & Kraemer, K. (2018). Increasing egg availability through smallholder business models in East Africa and India. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 14(Suppl 3), e12667. https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12667

United Nations (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development (General Assembly Resolution A/70/L.1). Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations.

Hello Moderator.

Thank you for recognizing the need to discuss the egg as a powerful tool for mitigating poverty and malnutrition among the poor communities of the world.

I grew up in rural eastern Kenya where the egg was generally accepted as a currency.

Our parents would send us to the market to 'buy' basic household utilities; mostly salt, sugar, soap, kerosene, cooking oil and onions using eggs as currency.

At school we later came to learn about barter trade, though it wasn't the case here. Essentially eggs were treated as currency because the shopkeepers never used to cook and eat the eggs that they collected from us as it would have been the case in a true barter trade situation.

It's possible to bring the egg back to its rightful economic position in rural livelihoods not as a currency anymore but as a means of addressing malnutrition, unemployment and generating income for rural and urban even development.

This is achievable through the use of research based egg production systems with a corresponding creation of demand for the eggs through innovative and affordable food formulations. For example, the infusion of eggs into traditional dishes would go a long way in achieving this.

The challenge of generating green house gases would be addressed through the small-scale egg production approach which would disperse the the impact of the gases over a wide geographical area.

Above all this, there's urgent need to educate and sensitize the involved communities about the importance of the egg and its 'newly acquired socio-economic status' so that they don't end up selling eggs to buy low nutritional value food commodities as we did in the 1960s and 70s. 

We should work together towards making the egg to occupy it's rightful place among communities as a generator of currency and good health but never again as a currency itself.

Lawrence Matolo,

Machakos County,

Eastern Kenya.

Dear all, 

Responding to topic "Response on the different ways that we could increase demand for eggs, other than increasing availability and reducing price? What are some examples of successful initiatives?"

The consumption of eggs in Uganda has increased of recent because of formalising of "Rolex" in tourism industry as Peterson Kato Kikomeko noted . However, egg consumption is likely to drop because of the 'Fake eggs' that were found being sold on Ugandan markets . A case to mentions is chinese company that  was found selling fake eggs made from yet to be established chemicals by Uganda Government Analytitical Lababalary.  Unless quality standards of eggs in the markets are streamlined, fake eggs  will explode  the market since they are artificially made and sold at cheaper prices compared to normal eggs  and can sustainably meet the increasing demand of eggs by the local population.

Response on the different ways that we could increase demand for eggs, other than increasing availability and reducing price? What are some examples of successful initiatives?

1. Increase public awareness of the nutrition benefits of eggs. If more people know the nutrition benefits of eggs, the likelihood of consuming eggs are higher.

2. Promote consumption of egg-based dishes/meals; in Uganda, the government is promoting consumption of the "Rolex" which is basically an egg omelet wrapped in a chapati as part of the food tourism. This is indirectly increasing egg consumption

Thank you for the opportunity to co-facilitate this discussion and for your thoughtful contributions to date. Your comments have been great to read through.

Many of you have raised the issue of education, not only on the benefits of eggs, but also in the area of food skills. Although, as Dr. Hélène Delisle points out, scientific evidence has now proven that eggs do not increase the risk for CVD, there remains an important opportunity to educate governments, health professionals and consumers in this area, and to highlight the many nutritional benefits and high quality protein of eggs.

The examples given by Rabiu Auwalu Yakasai of the FEED program and the stories shared by Teopista Mutesi of the FAO poultry project illustrate the powerful impact that skills development and knowledge transfer can have on improving nutritional status. Please continue to share your success stories and lessons learned towards similar projects.

The International Egg Foundation, in partnership with local communities, seeks to increase both egg production and consumption. One example is the work with Heart for Africa, where a newly-constructed egg farm in Swaziland is adding a sustainable source of protein to more than 888,000 meals per year. In Uganda, a local contact works with children to develop the skills to care for hens and later build the skills to manage a small business. The project provides families with a sustainable source of protein and the opportunity to expand their efforts.

Much like these projects there is an opportunity to share knowledge and evident-based research to strengthen farming practices. For example, in Canada, Codes of Practice and nationally developed guidelines serve the foundation for ensuring hens are cared for using practices that promote animal health and welfare. There are also a number of well documented research studies that discuss a host of welfare factors in egg production. Forum participants may like to refer to the Wageningen University and Research Institute’s LayWel study, or the Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply study that analysed animal health and well-being, food safety and quality, environment, worker health and safety, and food affordability.

On the topic of sustainable egg production, researchers in both Europe and North America are helping producers make sustainability improvements. These studies offer important information that reduce the environmental footprint of egg production, while producing more eggs with fewer resources. These tools deliver practical and impactful opportunities to tackle environmental challenges. While these results are positive, there remains an important opportunity to share these insights more widely. I am very interested in your thoughts on new areas to explore when it comes to sustainable egg production.

I look forward to reading through more contributions highlighting ongoing projects, successes and challenges with making eggs more accessible. Thank you again for your thoughts.

Dr. Akhila Vasan

GMA Science and Education Foundation
Estados Unidos de América

Eggs (similar to milk) are nutritionally dense and can be affordable, thus supporting the goal of reducing food security.

1. Food Safety is a fundamental basis for ensuring access to safe eggs, so having proper procedures in place to prevent avian diseases as well as bacterial contamination should be addressed.

From the perspective of increasing access:

1. Both small holder farms/household farms as well as large scale in country producers can support access to eggs. With small scale and household farms, this can be a means of women's empowerment, and thus lead to a continuous resource. For large scale production, the government working together with private sector can produce subsidized eggs for those in need. Furthermore, children can gain access to eggs as a nutritionally dense food at mid-day meals or similar programs. This could also be an added benefit where children are more likely to attend school due to access to food (most likely their only meal for the day). In terms of trade, the political environment in the region will also need to be considered before developing the egg supply chain. An example of how the balance between large and small scale production can work, can be borrowed from the dairy industry. Small holders continue to produce milk but supply the milk to bulk tanks, and a similar model can also be used for eggs to support both small holder and larger scale operations. That would also ensure sustainability of the larger operations thus ensuring continued interest. If the model is not self-sustaining, it will fail.

2. To increase demand for eggs, incorporating cultural and flavor preferences and using the community (elders/leaders/religious heads) to support the initiative will help. Let's face it, eggs while nutritionally dense, can also be a blank slate for flavors.

3. Having different players at the table (PPP), and involving government, academia/NGOs/religious institutions, and industry (egg producers, chicken feed, etc.) to build the solution together will help ensure buy in. Initial seed funding, along with support from different stakeholders helps to ensure that the solution works for everyone AND is addressing the problem.

Eggs indeed are relatively cheaper and ready-to-use high quality food for all ages. Consumption of eggs in rural population however, has decreased over last 3-4 decades, implying that 3/4th of world population has now limited access to this high quality food 'Capsule'. This decrease in consumption of egg can be attributed to:

i. Significant drop in backyard poultry farming- many of the rural poultry breeds have become extinct over time.

ii. Displacement of rural poultry by commercial farming.

iii. Lack of aesthetic taste in commercial eggs viz a viz backyard poultry eggs

iv. Cost of commercial eggs, as compared to 'home-grown' eggs- backyard farming produce

On the other hand, consumption of eggs has increased in urban settings, because of inter alia:

i. Readily available commercial eggs at relatively cheaper price, compared to backyard farming produce, which fetch higher price because of its aesthetic values (both taste and color).

ii. Use of eggs in multiple dishes and baking products.

Given that 3/4th of world population resides in rural areas, and that egg consumption has dropped in these areas, it could be one of the contributory factors towards growing malnutrition and consequent upon increased stunting among developing regions of the world.

'An egg a day' campaign in Schools and egg-based daily food supplementation for pregnant and lactating mothers can help improve the nutritional health especially of women and children.

Promotion of Good Poultry Husbandry Practices and value chain & SPS management can help contain the health risks associated with egg consumption.

Value chain development in egg sector can help reduce the cost of egg products, and increase in its consumption.

Manipulation of poultry feeding- through informed nutrition can help in mitigation of GHGs emission from factory poultry farming.

In Tamil Nadu, India, mid-day meal is provided to kids, especially those from poor families, in government schools. In this scheme, one egg is provided to each child every day on school days (Monday to Friday only). It has been found the health of the children taking eggs in mid-day meals has proved significantly. Eggs can rove nutrition of poor kids and their parents, if they can afford them. To keep the access of eggs to the poor, the price of egges must be as low as possible. 

To keep the price of eggs low, the feed cost must be either kept low by innovative methods (e.g., converting food wastes into poultry feed) or egg price must be subsidized by local governments to improve the nutrition of the poor. Afterall, the food and nutrition security of people, especially the poor, is a key responsibility of the local and or national governments.   

Teopista Mutesi

FAO
Rwanda

Dear FSN moderator,

Thank you for this forum which I believe is very relevant as regards to ending malnutrition.

As a communications officer who have been to the field where FAO has implemented the poultry  project in Rwanda, I have heard amazing testimonies of families with malnourished children who have been  fed on eggs and the results have been impressive.

Kindly find links to some of the stories I have covered touching also on the benefits of eating eggs  for children with malnutrition.

STORY 1: Victor Gashema has been providing eggs to the health centre in his area and has seen many malnourished children coming out the red line. The subtitle on eggs is towards the end of this article: https://bit.ly/2CSefD2

STORY 2: Annociata Benimana had a malnourished child but after joining FAO's poultry project she fed the child on eggs and the status improved.

“I had gone for a mandatory child nutrition test at the health centre, when I was told that my child exhibited signs of stunting,” says Benimana Annociata, a mother of five children. The story is on page 5: bit.ly/2HPdrya

Thank you,

Teopista