Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

On behalf of the Nutrition Working Group of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services, I’m writing to build on other contributions that have mentioned the roles that Rural Advisory Services (RAS, also known as Agricultural Extension) can make to more nutritious value chains. As they directly interface with farmers and other value chain actors, RAS often play a major role in informing farmers’ decisions. These decisions are key to realizing more nutrition-sensitive value chains. At present, however, RAS typically have limited familiarity with nutrition or the recommendations they could make to support better nutrition in their local contexts.

Our nascent working group serves to bring attention to the role that RAS can play in supporting more nutritious value chains and food systems, and to develop a research agenda for outstanding questions of how to best leverage RAS for these ends. We will soon unveil a repository of training materials and other information on how to integrate nutrition within extension and advisory services, and disseminate new information and networking opportunities via a participatory listserv.  

For more information, and to join our listserv, please visit: http://www.g-fras.org/en/community/working-groups/nutrition-working-group.html

Continuing on the theme of how Value Chains (VCs) can enhance farmer income, I am citing a well-known Indian example of Amul (a dairy cooperative). The cooperative aggregated small livestock holder and provided access to all segment of markets (premium, mass level and varied geographical regions of India) by producing huge range of product like packaged milk, ice-creams, butter, milk powders etc. Initiatives on food safety, support for animal husbandry, efficient collection structure, professional management and persistent brand development has sustained the business for more than 5 decades.  

Usually, in the want of higher value for products the lower economic section of society is often neglected as a target for nutritious food. Under the research theme - what public and private actions are needed to strengthen the impacts of agri-food value chains on nutrition? at LANSA, we reviewed 40 agri-food interventions that indicated strategies or potential to address undernutrition. Amulspray was chosen for detailed case study, as an example of a business driven agri-food value chain of a fortified naturally nutrient-dense food for children. Amulspray is an AMUL product that has enhanced accessibility to milk for poor as it sells in affordable packets and the use of components of traditional and modern VCs to reach rural and urban locations. Such VCs may play an important role in enhancing nutritional intake by vulnerable groups.

We will be discussing more cases from the South Asian region during the e-discussion on 25th and 26th of April. Interested participants can write us at [email protected] for registration.  

What public and private actions are needed to strengthen the impacts of agri-food value chains on nutrition? is one of the themes that the research programme consortium LANSA has been working on. Following up from the very engaging discussion at this forum, there is an e-discussion forthcoming next week on 25-26 April to discuss the effectiveness of markets and post-farm gate value chains in delivering nutritious food in different contexts, based on case studies in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as part of LANSA research.  Interested participants are requested to send in request for registration to [email protected] 

A major challenge in the context of markets for nutrition is how to make the private sector agri-food players see addressing the problem of malnutrition as a corporate responsibility, as important as shareholder satisfaction and market share. The processed food industry for instance has immense potential to address specific micrinutrient deficiencies like iron and vitamin A. There are many examples of pilot initiatives that have worked. For instance, in India, there is the example of Britannia, GAIN and the Naandi Foundation coming together to promote high fortified iron biscuits under supervised consumptino to address iron deficiency anaemia. The company, Britannia Industries, also introduced a low iron fortified variant in its commercial line. The direction given by senior management is very important for the private sector to retain this kind of focus., unless it is ingrained in the corporate philosophy of the business entity and comes naturally. The other possibility is mandatory fortification, like iodisation of salt and vitamin A fortification of edible oils, both of which are current in India. But then there are also a large number of players in developing countries who are in the informal unorganised sector. For poor and vulnerable low income households, it is the latter that is more accessible. There are issues of accessibility and affordability that come up. Packaging in small quantities priced affordably is one of the aspects to be taken care of in consciously addressing low income households.  

The state becomes a major player in the value chain for nutrition in developing countries with a large population that is malnourished. In India for instance, the supplementary nutrition programme under the ICDS  targets 0-6 years children, and pregnant and lactating women in a focussed manner. There is scope for the private sector to partner with the state in these food value chains as a businesss proposition and many such instances exist.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment. The paragraphs below correspond to each question.

1. There are inherent tensions already described in the paper in adapting a value chain approach for nutrition-sensitive agriculture. Identifying entry points for nutrition in value chains can provide win-win opportunities for private sector actors and the public than deliver benefits beyond the narrow interests of business.

2.  (2.2) SPRING has used an adapted value chain approach that follows more closely the steps taken by development actors - from value chain selection, to end market and value chain analysis, identification and assessment of market-based solutions, and implementation of market facilitation activities. We have seen that adapting the approach can help identify convergence areas for value chains and nutrition.

3. The framework presented in the discussion paper assumes that nutrition-sensitive agriculture can only be achieved through a food-based approach, or the supply and demand of nutritious foods through the income, own production and food market pathways. As already mentioned in Paragraph 10 of the paper, women’s empowerment and gender equality are critical, however they are important not only as mediators in these pathways, but on their own they have a direct effect on underlying drivers of nutrition in terms of time, energy and resources available for care of self and child. Since agricultural value chains provide employment and livelihoods, value chains influence whether mothers have control over these nutrition-sensitive resources.  In addition, commercial agricultural value chains typically introduce risks to environmental safety that can directly affect health status. A more comprehensive framework is needed that includes these critical operational elements, among others.

4. The value chain approach is scalable however the question is whether value chains are sufficient to deliver high quality diets and population-level nutrition impacts when implemented on their own. A food system approach that takes in multiple food value chains, coordinated and integrated with other sectors that are also important for nutrition, such as social protection and water and sanitation, among many others, will be important to deliver results for nutrition at scale.

Additional: Entry points for nutrition in value chains can be at multiple functions – input supply (e.g., seeds, irrigation, technology), service provision (buying down risk for new inputs), all the way to end market consumers (nutrition awareness, demand promotion). Cost-effective solutions will depend on the binding constraints identified through a nutrition-sensitive value chain analysis.  

Can Good Reasons of Habit Give Place to Better?

My apologies to Cæsar for taking liberties with something he is supposed have said. In the current discussion, I think we ought to have taken a more careful look at what we mean by value in the present context. Unless we have a very clear and correct notion of value involved, it is difficult to see how we can develop a sound set of criteria to select locally successful projects with a view to supporting them on a larger scale.

Supporting such field operations will be worthwhile only if they are sustainable without degrading the environment, and could produce the ingredients necessary for a varied, balanced and wholesome diet. What is wholesome, balanced and varied is not something that should be imposed on the people by outsiders, but should be ascertained with reference to their own food culture. This seems to be the only reasonable path away from the continuing diminution of bio-diversity in agriculture and animal husbandry.

I postulate that even the local success of a project cannot be meaningfully ascertained just in monetary terms; rather its success should be measured in terms of the number of country’s people whom it enables to procure a sustainable, wholesome, balanced and varied diet. After all, this is what we all are trying to achieve by SDG-2. In my previous submission to this discussion, I have identified our fundamental need of nutrition as what gives food its high value while intermediate systems between a food producer and an end-user gain their service value because food they store, transport, sell, etc., is valuable. Had we had no need of food, no part of a food system could have a rational value.

Having said this, I do not deny the usefulness of money as a tool to procure food, because fewer and fewer people take up agriculture or animal husbandry as their livelihood. However, it is also undeniable that in many rural areas of developing countries, malnutrition is rife even among the food producers themselves. There are two main reasons for this:

1. Poor soil, lack of water, know-how, appropriate implements and equipment, seeds, or breeding stock, etc.
2. For some reason, food producers in an area cannot produce the minimum output needed to provide a community a wholesome, balanced and varied diet. If 1 above is not the cause of the problem, it could be a geographic or a climatic reason, which allows people to produce even an abundance of some food, but not varied enough to provide them a balanced diet. This might also result from faulty planning, lack of know-how, commercial inducements, etc. Example consequences of both of these are incidence of deficiency diseases like night blindness and Beriberi associated with a diet mostly consisting of rice.

If we agree that the second factor above is reasonable, then the surplus rice will have less value to the producing community than what it requires for its own needs. But to a neighbouring community short of rice, that surplus will have the same value as the rice the producing community requires for its own needs. Supposing that neighbouring community has excess fish, and then a cooperative mechanism may enable the two to exchange fish for rice at commensurable values so that both communities may move a step closer to achieving our objective, viz., a wholesome, and varied and a balanced diet for all.

From a global perspective, it is the obvious desirability of this objective that gives a value to agriculture, animal husbandry, and fisheries. The intermediate systems including selling therefore gain their service value from how effective and efficient they are as channels of making available to  the end-users a sustainable supply of affordable, wholesome and varied food stuffs. I think it would repay to build the proposed framework upon this value foundation.

Best wishes!

Lal Manavado.

Hi everyone.

In my opinion, value chains is knew as a way to prolong and widen scale and level of derivative products from original product. From that, it accumulates and creates new values.

In case of food and nutrition, it should be based on criteria and dimensions of FAO on food security and nutrition (Availability, Access, Utilization and Stable). Under this overview, value chain will support and improve every stage and every process of Availability, Access, Utilization and Stable.

For example, under science and technology development, utilization of food and nutrition is so improved in/through value chains (quality and quantity). Then, this is strengthening Availability, Access and Stable to food and nutrition to every stakeholders in society and community.

For Availability,

For Access,

For Stable,

We also see shape in value chain to improve nutrition

Best regards,

KIEN

In my country Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean with a population of just above half a million people, with 80% of the population on subsistence to semi-subsistence agriculture encountering a drastically changing food systems as a result of changing lifestyle due to preferences to imported foods. All too often, the negative effects of introduced foods rather than traditional ones are usually learned too late when disease caused by such food were diagnosed.

Education probably would be the best way to address this ignorance. Sometimes people are aware of the significance of nutrient-sensitive value chain but just ignore it because of the convenience of introduced foods in their preparation. Nutritious foods are not always available in the house when the occupants are hungry whereas the low nutritious foods are readily available because they are cheap and could be stored longer.

There are many examples of good practices or investments for healthy food systems such as storing nutritious foods in the house by processing methods which I think will be very expensive and time consuming unless they are commercialised. The thing I am referring to is the point on our traditional foods, that of storing them as a result a result of preservation methods. One example I can think of is the noodles from the shop which are very cheap and easy to prepare than our local nutritious foods.

Governance is very important in shaping value chain in developing economies like Pakistan. Private sector is working hard to develop an effective value chain system in Pakistan. Role of multinational companies is also valuable contribution. Market leaders are dominating value chain and there is little room for new entries.

Farmers interest groups are the basic unit by which Farmers producer organization is to be formed in regional level for effective value chain management to ensure quality farm produce. This is the only way by small and marginal farmers can market their farm produce with good quality.  By this way grading of farm produces based on the quality is possible by small farmers.

More over location specific varieties of the crop to be cultivated and to be marketed in the region itself. So that the quality of farm produce can not be degraded. Value chain management is easier for small farmers when they clubbed together to market their various farm produce.