The process of developing a nutrition-sensitive agriculture intervention a multi-site experience
Nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) interventions are of increasing
interest to those working in global health and nutrition. However NSA is
a broad concept, and there are numerous candidate NSA interventions
that could be implemented in any given setting. While most agriculture
interventions can be made “nutrition-sensitive”, there are few
guidelines for helping to decide what agriculture component should be
tried in an NSA intervention. Based on previous models, we developed a
framework with explicit questions about community factors (agricultural
production, diets, power and gender), project factors (team capacity,
budget, timelines) and external factors that helped our team of
agriculture scientists, nutritionists and local officials identify NSA
interventions that may be feasibly implemented with a reasonable chance
of having positive agricultural and nutritional impacts. We applied this
framework to two settings in upland Vietnam, and one setting in upland
Thailand. From an initial list of nineteen interventions that have been
tried elsewhere, or may reasonably be expected to be appropriate for
NSA, five or six candidate interventions were chosen per site. Based on
the criteria, three to four interventions were selected per site and are
being implemented. Poultry rearing and home gardening were selected in
each site. They and the other selected interventions, hold promise for
capitalizing on underused agricultural potential to improve diets, while
working with (or improving) existing gender relationships and power
structures. The process for identifying NSA interventions was thorough
and identified reasonable candidates, but it was very time consuming.
Further efforts should focus on streamlining the process, so that
promising and appropriate NSA interventions can be identified quickly
and reliably.
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