Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

I'm a member of LANSA's advisory group.

This blog (Secure Nutrition, Ed.) is very clear about progress made in FOUR areas that link ag to nutrition: 1. f and v gardens; 2. livestock (poultry); 3. bio- fortification; and 4. cash crops (where they increase income).

1-3 are direct links where and when production is for subsistence (as well as for market).

All 1-4 are indirect links in conditions where marketed surplus results in a) higher incomes which lead to b) better quality food expenditure.

Both those links needs substantiating (This was done by IFPRI and others in the late 1970s and 80s; but exchange conditions have greatly changed since then).

However I am surprised you haven't mentioned other indirect links - and maybe this is where research should be developed.

5. Income-> nutrition - via agricultural labour. Research on agriculture wages, incomes and food expenditure.

6. Malnutrition in children  - >'agriculture plus'. Look at sanitation. Alan has worked on this. It has got to be related (even if normatively) to agriculture.

Research needed on human waste and other biodegradable wastes; manure and recycling to agriculture; and on human waste, disease and nutrition (which may neutralise the beneficial effects of ag for nutrition).  

(I have just returned from first-hand field research on the social relations of waste in and around a small town so I am very aware of the present costs of liquid and solid pollution and the catastrophe that is in the making.)

7. Nutrition and women -> research on the gendered control of food production-distribution-consumption-waste-reconstitution. (Again lots in the 1980s – though not fully systemic - what has happened to it?)

8. Interested that organic ag and SRI aren’t in the frame. Perhaps there’s another indirect link between agriculture, gaseous pollution and long term conditions of soil, water, energy economy, livelihoods and health.

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/resources-greenhouse-gases-technology-and-jobs-indias-informal-economy-case-rice

All best,

Barbara

Barbara Harriss-White: Senior Research Fellow, Area Studies,  Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, Oxford University, Co-ordinator, South Asia Research Cluster, Wolfson College, Oxford

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/resources-greenhouse-gases-technology-and-jobs-indias-informal-economy-case-rice