Question 1 – If you were designing an agricultural investment program, what are the top five (5) things you would do to maximize its impact on nutrition?
The following are five (5) points that can be put in place when implementing an Agriculture Investment Program to maximize its impact on nutrition:
1. Nutrition Awareness: One of the major factors that can either impede or catapult the success of a program as it regards to maximizing nutrition is Awareness. It doesn’t matter if the project will lead to substantial strides in improving greater life expectancy in individuals etc, without proper awareness, the target groups will never know about the essence of a program. A point to note, is that the target groups are pregnant woman and young children (from two (2) months to twelve (12) years) and Guyana has placed significant effort in making sure that those target groups are aware of the benefits of a healthy and nutritious diet. Moreover, in order to target those groups the following should be used, namely; advertising through the media and other forms such as: one on one discussion with nutrition specialist or through call in programs, secondly, newspapers, posters and billboards- sensitizing individuals on eating a nutritious meal every day. Thirdly, implement education awareness program targeting school children; this can take the form of guest lectures and discussion at pre- natal clinic for pregnant women. Fourthly, there is need to modify the school curriculum, in that emphasis should be placed in teaching a course in nutrition, to toward enlighten children on all the issues surrounding the area of nutrition.
2 Food availability – It is vital that governments ensure that farmers have sufficient market and/or non-market incentives to produce food (particularly, whole foods that are essential for balanced diets). Further, the expansion of farmer field schools, increase access to more affordable fertilizer and the expansion of cold and dry storage facilities all will ensure that food remains available so that they maybe consumed within their appropriate dietary amounts. Guyana has taken initiatives such as the grow more food campaign to ensure that Guyana is in a position to combat rising food prices and to secure the availability of foods within our economy. There’s room for improvement however, as the campaign could be more specific about which crops to grow and could use the opportunity to advocate for the return of Orphan Crops: primarily those traditional crops that are too often neglected and rich in nutritional content.
3 Food Access – Governments must ensure that they upgrade their physical supportive infrastructure in both remote and populated regions within their jurisdictions. This is to assure access to food by all sections of the population in all areas of the country irrespective of incomes and general development. Monetary access to food is essential to ensure that sufficient incentives exist for families to want to eat healthier diets. Various food price policy programs could be erected along with voucher programs based on a means tested approach. Of course, there is no substitute for employment creation and this is always a good place to start to secure monetary access to food. To have a fully national program of nutrition improvement, the government could ensure that supermarkets, fast food outlets and restaurant chains sign a joint agreement with the government as it relates to the preparation and sale of foods that are balance in terms of nutritional requirements (fats, carbohydrates and proteins).
4 Food Stability – The gains of consuming affordable foods in their proper dietary proportions could be eroded by the volatile supply of food and the mere instability of its supply could cause people to cut back on certain staples due to the accompanying price fluctuations. The development of seed banks and the establishment of emergency reserve stocks could reduce the volatility of food supply during the course of a year. The development of climate change mitigation strategies and the use of flood resistant crops would all aid in ensuring food security by less food fluctuations. It is of the utmost importance to say that any farming practice must be done in an environmentally sustainable way, failure to do this would inevitably undermine the argument for ensuring the stability of food supply.
5 Proper Utilization- This point deals with changing the individual’s mindset as it relates to a healthy diet. If affordable food is available, there’s little guarantee that they will be consumed in the right amounts. This could be because of the lack of knowledge, and points to an obvious place of policy intervention. Rampant educational campaigns and advocates need to emerge so as to sensitize the populace about proper nutrition consumption. Governments should collaborate with stakeholders, agronomist, ago-economist and other professionals from the agriculture sector in order to make better decisions on nutritional policy and programs. Governments should be able to incorporate support actions into agriculture programs to create markets incentives for farmers and consumers as it regards the proper utilization of foods.
Question 2 - Tosupport the design and implementation of this programme, where would you like to see more research done, and why?
Too often we place great emphasis on the design phases of a project and with the help of donor agencies we have come to master the art of policy design and concept notes. Consequently, the efficacy of these projects suffers due to insufficient emphasis on the implementation phase, which too often lacks any clear and measurable targets and benchmarks. Guyana has drafted a food and nutrition strategy for 2010-2020 that delineates its policy positions and even identifies constraints that need to be removed to achieve food security along the lines of a healthy and balanced diet. Thus, much research needs to be in the area of developing comparable indicators to ensure we could consistently/accurately measure success or failure of projects. Research in the area of institutional design that is best for the assurance of the proper implementation of projects are vital, since many developing countries suffer from high levels of rent seeking and corruption. It is important that we equip these countries with the best institutional structures so as to secure sustained funding from donor and international agencies. Research in these areas is vital and become even more essential as Guyana begins to draft its food and nutrition action plan, which is primarily the implementation phase of its strategy. Finally, research within the area of nutrition and men since much of the research focuses primarily on women and children. For instance the Basic Nutrition Program in Guyana focuses mainly on women and child nutrition.
Question 3 - What can our institutions do to help country governments commit to action around your recommendations, and to help ensure implementation will be effective?
International agencies need to incorporate the five points we had identified (as essential to ensure proper nutrition within the context of an agricultural program) within their global policy framework on agriculture food and nutrition. Further, they need to ensure that member countries of FAO and other organizations sign on to the global policy framework on agriculture food and nutrition with clear targets and appropriate indicators and measurements. These are sure ways of ensuring governments commit to action around our recommendations. Alternatively, we could have a global summit to discuss these essentials for food security and proper nutrition and have countries sign on to commitments and programs to ensure the successful achievement of these. These global organizations could also ensure quality assurance with regards to the implementation phases of these projects by having progress reports done by governments and international agencies. These reports should be comprehensive and have an overall aim of determining the effectiveness of the implementation phase.
Question 1 – If you were designing an agricultural investment program, what are the top five (5) things you would do to maximize its impact on nutrition?
The following are five (5) points that can be put in place when implementing an Agriculture Investment Program to maximize its impact on nutrition:
1. Nutrition Awareness: One of the major factors that can either impede or catapult the success of a program as it regards to maximizing nutrition is Awareness. It doesn’t matter if the project will lead to substantial strides in improving greater life expectancy in individuals etc, without proper awareness, the target groups will never know about the essence of a program. A point to note, is that the target groups are pregnant woman and young children (from two (2) months to twelve (12) years) and Guyana has placed significant effort in making sure that those target groups are aware of the benefits of a healthy and nutritious diet. Moreover, in order to target those groups the following should be used, namely; advertising through the media and other forms such as: one on one discussion with nutrition specialist or through call in programs, secondly, newspapers, posters and billboards- sensitizing individuals on eating a nutritious meal every day. Thirdly, implement education awareness program targeting school children; this can take the form of guest lectures and discussion at pre- natal clinic for pregnant women. Fourthly, there is need to modify the school curriculum, in that emphasis should be placed in teaching a course in nutrition, to toward enlighten children on all the issues surrounding the area of nutrition.
2 Food availability – It is vital that governments ensure that farmers have sufficient market and/or non-market incentives to produce food (particularly, whole foods that are essential for balanced diets). Further, the expansion of farmer field schools, increase access to more affordable fertilizer and the expansion of cold and dry storage facilities all will ensure that food remains available so that they maybe consumed within their appropriate dietary amounts. Guyana has taken initiatives such as the grow more food campaign to ensure that Guyana is in a position to combat rising food prices and to secure the availability of foods within our economy. There’s room for improvement however, as the campaign could be more specific about which crops to grow and could use the opportunity to advocate for the return of Orphan Crops: primarily those traditional crops that are too often neglected and rich in nutritional content.
3 Food Access – Governments must ensure that they upgrade their physical supportive infrastructure in both remote and populated regions within their jurisdictions. This is to assure access to food by all sections of the population in all areas of the country irrespective of incomes and general development. Monetary access to food is essential to ensure that sufficient incentives exist for families to want to eat healthier diets. Various food price policy programs could be erected along with voucher programs based on a means tested approach. Of course, there is no substitute for employment creation and this is always a good place to start to secure monetary access to food. To have a fully national program of nutrition improvement, the government could ensure that supermarkets, fast food outlets and restaurant chains sign a joint agreement with the government as it relates to the preparation and sale of foods that are balance in terms of nutritional requirements (fats, carbohydrates and proteins).
4 Food Stability – The gains of consuming affordable foods in their proper dietary proportions could be eroded by the volatile supply of food and the mere instability of its supply could cause people to cut back on certain staples due to the accompanying price fluctuations. The development of seed banks and the establishment of emergency reserve stocks could reduce the volatility of food supply during the course of a year. The development of climate change mitigation strategies and the use of flood resistant crops would all aid in ensuring food security by less food fluctuations. It is of the utmost importance to say that any farming practice must be done in an environmentally sustainable way, failure to do this would inevitably undermine the argument for ensuring the stability of food supply.
5 Proper Utilization- This point deals with changing the individual’s mindset as it relates to a healthy diet. If affordable food is available, there’s little guarantee that they will be consumed in the right amounts. This could be because of the lack of knowledge, and points to an obvious place of policy intervention. Rampant educational campaigns and advocates need to emerge so as to sensitize the populace about proper nutrition consumption. Governments should collaborate with stakeholders, agronomist, ago-economist and other professionals from the agriculture sector in order to make better decisions on nutritional policy and programs. Governments should be able to incorporate support actions into agriculture programs to create markets incentives for farmers and consumers as it regards the proper utilization of foods.
Question 2 - To support the design and implementation of this programme, where would you like to see more research done, and why?
Too often we place great emphasis on the design phases of a project and with the help of donor agencies we have come to master the art of policy design and concept notes. Consequently, the efficacy of these projects suffers due to insufficient emphasis on the implementation phase, which too often lacks any clear and measurable targets and benchmarks. Guyana has drafted a food and nutrition strategy for 2010-2020 that delineates its policy positions and even identifies constraints that need to be removed to achieve food security along the lines of a healthy and balanced diet. Thus, much research needs to be in the area of developing comparable indicators to ensure we could consistently/accurately measure success or failure of projects. Research in the area of institutional design that is best for the assurance of the proper implementation of projects are vital, since many developing countries suffer from high levels of rent seeking and corruption. It is important that we equip these countries with the best institutional structures so as to secure sustained funding from donor and international agencies. Research in these areas is vital and become even more essential as Guyana begins to draft its food and nutrition action plan, which is primarily the implementation phase of its strategy. Finally, research within the area of nutrition and men since much of the research focuses primarily on women and children. For instance the Basic Nutrition Program in Guyana focuses mainly on women and child nutrition.
Question 3 - What can our institutions do to help country governments commit to action around your recommendations, and to help ensure implementation will be effective?
International agencies need to incorporate the five points we had identified (as essential to ensure proper nutrition within the context of an agricultural program) within their global policy framework on agriculture food and nutrition. Further, they need to ensure that member countries of FAO and other organizations sign on to the global policy framework on agriculture food and nutrition with clear targets and appropriate indicators and measurements. These are sure ways of ensuring governments commit to action around our recommendations. Alternatively, we could have a global summit to discuss these essentials for food security and proper nutrition and have countries sign on to commitments and programs to ensure the successful achievement of these. These global organizations could also ensure quality assurance with regards to the implementation phases of these projects by having progress reports done by governments and international agencies. These reports should be comprehensive and have an overall aim of determining the effectiveness of the implementation phase.