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NENA Regional Network on Nutrition-sensitive Food System

Empowering women and ensuring gender equality in agri-food systems to achieve better nutrition - Technical brief










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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
    Making extension and advisory services nutrition-sensitive
    The link between agriculture and human nutrition
    2021
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    Human nutrition is vital for agriculture. Many smallholder farmers are food-insecure and suffer chronic or acute forms of malnutrition. This can permanently harm the physical and cognitive growth of children, while reducing productivity as household members are less able to carry out agricultural work. Agriculture is vital for human nutrition. Nutrition has long been considered mostly a health issue. However, agriculture plays an essential role in ensuring nutritional wellbeing not only for rural populations, but also for society as a whole. Beyond producing food in sufficient quantity, agri-food systems should also:
    • provide diversified, safe and nutritious foods;
    • improve rural incomes and resilience, and thus enhance access to healthy diets;
    • make foods that contribute to healthy diets available and accessible at national and sub-national levels.
    To this end, we must build the capacities of farmers, agriculture extensionists, consumers and others, encourage innovation, investments and enabling policies, and address gender issues. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) uses a food-based approach to agricultural development to make the global food system produce better nutritional outcomes.
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    Women’s empowerment and gender equality in agrifood value chains in SIDS 2023
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    Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are among the most vulnerable countries impacted by food insecurity and malnutrition. Their reliance on remote markets for their food supplies threatens their economies and health. Due to climate change, SIDS are increasingly under pressure and facing challenges which undermine their capacities to produce safe and high-quality food at a reasonable price. An essential part of the solution to improve nutrition and respond to the climate crises is the transformation of agrifood systems in SIDS. As food producers, processors and traders, women and girls in SIDS are central to poverty eradication, climate-change-resilience and national economic growth. Yet, they face massive constraints in their access to assets, resources, leadership and decision-making due to deep-rooted gender inequalities. They often work in the less profitable activities in the agrifood value chain and in small-scale businesses, with limited capital and opportunities for digital innovation and growth, especially in the present context of economic downturns.
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    Nutrition-sensitive Farmer Field Schools in Kenya’s Kalobeyei settlement
    Strengthening the capacity of refugees and host communities to produce, process and consume nutritious food in Turkana County
    2020
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    Agriculture is the main livelihood for the majority of Kenyans, contributing 26 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In rural areas, more than 70 percent of informal employment comes from agriculture. However, in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs), recurring droughts and erratic weather patterns have resulted in low productivity, food shortages and price increases, presenting significant roadblocks to nutrition. Despite progress in recent years, one in every four children under five years old (26 percent of children) in Kenya is impacted by chronic malnutrition, while acute child malnutrition rates remain high in the ASALs. Displacement and conflict have further exacerbated malnutrition and food insecurity. Kenya is host to 494 585 refugees and asylum seekers, mainly from South Sudan and Somalia. Among those, 186 000 live in Turkana County, for the most part divided between Kakuma refugee camp and Kalobeyei settlement. Interventions focusing solely on increasing agricultural production have not necessarily translated to improved nutrition or diet. Against that backdrop, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has promoted nutrition-sensitive Farmer Field Schools (FFS) providing community-facilitated training sessions on crop production and livestock, with additional one‑month nutrition modules on producing, processing, preserving and culinary preparation of foods with a high-nutrient content.

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