CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health releases 2016 annual report

The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) is pleased to announce the publication of its 2016 annual report, detailing the accomplishments and developments of the fifth and final year of the program’s first phase. The report highlights research and results from 2016, including

• the successful expansion of aflasafe, a biocontrol product helping to fight aflatoxin contamination across Africa;
• the Stories of Change in Nutrition case study series, which shares experiences to help countries understand how an enabling environment can combine with policies and programs to drive nutritional improvement;
• the first Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy Week, held in Addis Ababa, which brought together more than 300 participants from around the world to present research and learn from one another;
• a randomized trial of an integrated nutrition-sensitive agriculture program in Burkina Faso; and
• an update on the ongoing impacts of biofortification, with more than 140 varieties of 10 crops released in over 30 countries.

While the activities and accomplishments of each research flagship are laid out, readers will also find a spotlight on A4NH projects and programs in Africa, as well as an update on work related to gender.

Download the report

 

Join our webinar! Designing projects for improving nutrition through animal source foods—Tomorrow, 4 May

ILRI Clippings

The following announcement comes from Jennie Lane,
animal health and livelihoods technical advisor for Land O’Lakes International Development.

Land O’Lakes International Development and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are pleased to announce a webinar option for their meeting tomorrow, 4 May, in Nairobi, Kenya, on Animal Source Foods for Nutrition Impact: Evidence and Good Practices for Informed Project Design. This one-day event will be held on the ILRI Nairobi campus from 8:30am to 5:00pm on Thu 4 May 2017. While the physical workshop is by invitation only due to space limitations, portions of the day’s presentations and discussions will be available as recordings later.  

Webinar invitation

Animal Source Foods for Nutrition Impact:

Evidence and Good Practices
for Informed Project Design

4 May 2017

Click here to register

The webinar will stream audio during the day from approximately 8:45am–5pm East Africa Time. A detailed agenda is available…

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New FAO report discusses options for influencing food environments for healthy diets

A man works in his vegetable field on the Barotse Floodplain, Zambia (photo credit: WorldFish/Anna Fawcus).

A new publication by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) focuses on influencing food environments for healthy diets through four areas: production of diversified food, food safety, food labelling and food-based dietary guidelines. FAO defines food environments as the settings with all the different types of food made available and accessible to people as they go about their daily lives.

The chapter on food safety was authored by Delia Grace, veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The chapter begins with an overview on foodborne diseases and the groups that are most vulnerable. It then goes on to discuss the health burden of—and trends in—foodborne diseases, the role of food safety in ensuring a healthy food environment and interventions that countries can take to improve food safety.

The recommendations put forward for improving food safety are:

• A ‘farm-to-fork’ approach is best for identifying control points
• Use risk-based approaches rather than hazard-based ones
• Where the informal sector predominates, professionalize rather than penalize
• Encourage the uptake of appropriate technology
• Improve food safety governance
• Take into account the costs of disease control
• Carry out holistic prioritization

The book was developed by FAO’s Nutrition and Food Systems Division as a follow-up activity to the Second International Conference on Nutrition held at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy on 19–21 November 2014.

Download the book

 

New Nutrition Knowledge Bank gives direct access to expert nutritional advice via mobile phones

ILRI news

Tanzanian woman on her cell phone (photo credit: CCAFS/Cecilia Schubert).

A new open-access Nutrition Knowledge Bank has been created as part of a GSMA mNutrition initiative to help tackle malnutrition in Africa and Asia. This collection of content on good nutritional practices includes factsheets and mobile messages for anyone to download and use. Funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the mNutrition project aims to deliver nutrition information to 3 million people in 12 developing countries.

Adequate nutrition is critical to the physical and mental development of children and to long-term human health, but one out of three people in developing countries suffers from micronutrient deficiency. Experts consider poor access to agricultural and health information a major barrier to the uptake of improved nutritional practises, particularly by women and vulnerable groups in marginalized areas.

mNutrition delivers content to people at risk of malnutrition in Bangladesh, Ghana…

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What stops greater consumption of meat, milk and eggs in low-income areas of Nairobi? Price, mostly

ILRI news

Kenyan boy drinking milk (photo credit: ILRI/Dave Elsworth).

A new research paper by scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partner organizations confirms that milk, meat and eggs are widely consumed by poor people in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi: these animal-source goods make up nearly 40% of the food budget and half of this is spent on dairy products.

Economic analysis revealed a high propensity to consume animal-source foods and elasticities showed that, if their prices could be lowered, consumption of animal-source foods would rocket, benefiting both the nutritional status of poor consumers and the livelihoods of small-scale livestock producers.

Abstract
‘Malnutrition, including undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies, is a chronic problem in most developing countries. Animal-source foods (ASFs) provide essential sources of proteins and micronutrients, yet little is known about ASF consumption patterns or household preferences towards animal-source products among low-income populations. This is particularly critical for malnourished children…

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Unpacking the tensions between the nutritional and economic goals of pro-poor livestock development

ILRI news

ILRI’s Delia Grace (left) and Shirley Tarawali (right), made two of the three presentations at the second of a four-part series of meetings-cum-webinars on enhancing nutrition through market-led livestock development in developing countries. This series is being organized by Land O’Lakes International Development and ILRI (photo credits: left, ILRI/Susan MacMillan, and right, ILRI).

On 17 Oct 2016, Land O’Lakes International Development and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) hosted a one-day meeting and webinar in Washington, DC, on the challenges of increasing consumption of meat, milk and eggs in poor rural and producer households in low-income countries through improved development of local, and largely informal, livestock markets.

While donors and implementing agencies continue to promote economic gains though market-led livestock programs, less is known about how these programs can maximize the potential for animal-source foods to improve nutrition and health while also contributing to sustainable and nutritious food systems.

Bearing…

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Open-access Knowledge Bank tackles malnutrition

Maarifa - Communications and Knowledge Management

Adequate nutrition, particularly in the first 1,000 days of life, is critical to both physical and mental development and long-term health. Poor access to agricultural and health information has been recognised as a major barrier in the uptake of improved nutritional practices, particularly for women and vulnerable groups in marginalised areas. Developed through the mNutrition Initiative, the Nutrition Knowledge Bank (going live on 25 October) aims to help bridge the gap between information providers and users by providing an open-access store of both nutrition-sensitive agricultural approaches and nutrition-specific health interventions.

Read the full news item

The GSMA mNutrition Initiative is a DFID-funded global project developing agriculture, health and nutrition messages to address knowledge gaps and promote behaviour change. The Global content partner consortium consists of BMJ, CABI, GAIN, ILRI and Oxfam. It partner with local organisations to produce localised content, which is then directly disseminated by service providers through mobile…

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World Water Week seminar highlights the role of livestock in sustainable agriculture

Fishermen and Sahelian goats by the Niger River, in Segou, Mali (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

World Water Week in Stockholm is organized annually by the Stockholm International Water Institute and brings together experts from around the world to discuss pertinent issues around water and development.

At the start of this year’s World Water Week, taking place from 28 August to 2 September 2016, the University of Gothenburg, the Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation convened a seminar on antimicrobial resistance and linkages between humans, livestock and water in peri-urban areas.

Among the speakers at the seminar was Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Her presentation was based on a report published in July 2016 by the Committee on World Food Security High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. Grace was a member of the project team that wrote the report.

The presentation begins with an overview of the key role of the livestock sector in sustainable agricultural development and the global rise in demand for animal-source food, a phenomenon dubbed the ‘Livestock Revolution’. Some agriculture-associated challenges of livestock production are then discussed; these include antimicrobial resistance, foodborne diseases and zoonoses. Cross-cutting and specific recommendations to address these challenges are then put forward.

View the presentation: Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition: what roles for livestock?

 

ILRI sponsors special journal issue on aflatoxins in eastern Africa

Aflatoxin-contaminated groundnut kernels from Mozambique (photo credit: IITA).

A special issue of the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND) published in July 2016 and sponsored by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) features 12 peer-reviewed scientific articles on aflatoxins in eastern Africa.

The three broad objectives of the special issue are to understand the health consequences of aflatoxins, characterize the extent of the problem and identify key elements to underpin the way forward to mitigation.

The papers, listed below, are all open access and the PDFs are freely available for download at the AJFAND website.

Editorial
Aflatoxins in East Africa: The importance of getting the full picture (http://hdl.handle.net/10568/76526)

Understanding the health impacts

• Assessing the impact of aflatoxin consumption on animal health and productivity (http://hdl.handle.net/10568/76497)
• Aflatoxin exposure among young children in urban low-income areas of Nairobi and association with child growth (http://hdl.handle.net/10568/76498)

Extent and location of the problem

• Aflatoxin B1 occurrence in millet, sorghum and maize from four agro-ecological zones in Kenya (http://hdl.handle.net/10568/76499)
• Prevalence of aflatoxin in feeds and cow milk from five counties in Kenya (http://hdl.handle.net/10568/76501)
• Survey of informal milk retailers in Nairobi, Kenya and prevalence of aflatoxin M1 in marketed milk (http://hdl.handle.net/10568/76502)
• Assessment of pre-harvest aflatoxin and fumonisin contamination of maize in Babati District, Tanzania
• Aflatoxin and fumonisin contamination of marketed maize and maize bran and maize used as animal feed in northern Tanzania
• Mapping aflatoxin risk from milk consumption using biophysical and socio-economic data: A case study of Kenya (http://hdl.handle.net/10568/76503)
• Examining environmental drivers of spatial variability in aflatoxin accumulation in Kenyan maize: Potential utility in risk prediction models

Finding the way forward to mitigation

• Farmer perception of moulds and mycotoxins within the Kenya dairy value chain: A gendered analysis (http://hdl.handle.net/10568/76495)
• A review of agricultural aflatoxin management strategies and emerging innovations in sub-Saharan Africa
• Potential of lactic acid fermentation in reducing aflatoxin B1 in Tanzania maize-based gruel

 

Aligned to improve nutrition and health: Announcing A4NH 2015 annual report

Herding sheep in Menz, Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Zerihun Sewunet).

With four successful years completed in 2015, the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) is excited to draw on important lessons from past years, continue building a strong evidence base and plan for new projects, expanded research areas and opportunities to scale. The A4NH 2015 annual report, which details our latest progress and plans, is now available.

Read more on the A4NH website.