1. I am a little intrigued by the choice of food crops - I would have expected millets to be included, as a climate resilient crop, besides this being the International Year of Millets. Likewise, I am surprised to see oil palm under commercial crops, given that the negative environmental impact of the crop is well known.
2. Thrust on local enterprises and value chains I feel should be highlighted more strongly in the Results Framework. Their relevance was clearly demonstrated during the COVID pandemic.
3. Impact of nature positive methods improving soil health and thereby plant health and supply of nutritious food may be more explicitly stated.
4. In terms of scaling up, I was part of a Farming System for Nutrition Feasibility Study under the consortium research programme on Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA).
Starting with a cluster of seven villages in the state of Odisha, India, based on the evidence generated, funding was obtained from the state government to replicate the approach across an entire Panchayat (covering 25 villages). The state government also included support for nutrition sensitive agriculture in its agriculture budget.
Sharing the evidence with the Indian Council for Agricultural Research led to the approach being demonstrated by Krishi Vigyan Kendras (farm science centres), for wider outreach. (See http://59.160.153.187/blog/taking-farming-system-nutrition-approach-sca…)
5. Sharing research evidence with both the community and policy makers at both subnational and national levels is important for uptake (See http://59.160.153.187/voices-of-change; http://59.160.153.187/content/wardha-district-collector-meets-mssrf-lan…; http://59.160.153.187/sites/default/files/NITIAayog-MSSRF_Copy%20of%20F…).
Dr. Bhavani R Vaidyanathan