Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Re: Integrating nutrition into the curricula of agriculture education institutions: Strengthening human capacity to promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture

Good point to discuss and learn.

The first is that when the Ministry f Agriculture publish the annual food security, the focus is only on creal with some point on tubers while in the country, there some vegetale and animals productions as well as forest products.

For me it means that all the curricula of agriculture eductaion focus more in cereals and tubers production. The impacts of this curricula in the field is so clear. In Burkina Faso and Togo where we operate also, it's common to see the AGricuture Extension Agents and the Ingenieur with limited knowledge on agriculture deversification and nutrition. So the agriculture colleges or institutions should review theirs curricula by including nutrition understanding in the common language, the crop diversification and the combination of differents food to improve nutrition status, the strategy to promote nutrition sensitive agriculture in the field and according the agro ecological ou climatic zone. This curruluca should clearly show the link between agriculture (crop, animal, forest, fish productions) and nutrition improvement.

For me the purpose is to change the mindset or the social considerations of the communities around agriculture and nutrition and to show the close interdependance of nutrition to agriculture. To do that, the development workers need to have a basic knowledge and skills on the links between agriculture and nutrition and also the local behaviours on some food consumption like meats, eggs, forest products, etc..

In the projects we implemented in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo, the projects managers realised that the Agricultural Extension Agents are very weak on nutrition promotion while they lead the farmers training on agriculture in a projects with food security and nutrion. We due to link with Health Services to support with nutrition aspects but they are also weak in Agriculture so they don't know how to encourage farmers to produce diversified agriculture production and the aim to improve their nutrition. So we found that it's better to train the Technician on nutrion sensitive agriculture and now we have some good achievements in the field.

This exampek is to show if these agents have had the knowledge from colleges, it would improve their work in the field.

Many thanks

Georges