Changes in household and children dietary diversity in AGP intervention areas

1. Changes in household and children dietary diversity
in AGP intervention areas
Tadesse Kuma
Policy Studies Institute
Addis Ababa | December 12, 2019

2. 1. Introduction
• Despite progress, high stunting levels remain in Ethiopia
 Agricultural sector is a key player in source of income and livelihood for most of the rural
communities through production and consumption of nutritious food
• The Government of Ethiopia has made nutrition a priority agenda. The high-level
commitment to nutrition was reflected in the second Growth and Transformation Plan
(GTP 2016-2020)
• In support of the second National Nutrition Program, the AGP-2 (2015-2020) integrates
a focus on increased production of nutritious foods, increased households’ dietary
diversity
• A Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture Strategy was validated in 2017
• The National Food and Nutrition Policy, validated in 2019, promotes also access to
adequate food and a diversified diet
2

3. Nutrition sensitive AGP-2 interventions
Farmer training centers bring training on
• Awareness about nutrient dense crops, fruits and vegetables
• Post-harvest handling
• Dietary diversity
• Cooking demonstrations that aims at increasing dietary diversity of households and
household members
Demonstration of nutrition sensitive technologies
• Improved seeds (of ground nut, haricot bean, protein dense (quality protein) maize,
orange flesh, tomato, sweet potato, beans, soya bean, and others)
• Cattle fattening
• Food preparation techniques
• Crop diversification activities
• Introducing improved breeds of cattle, cattle forage & quick livestock production
technology
• Integration of poultry, fish and horticulture production and construction of poultry house
fish ponds
Focus to include participation of women and youth in these trainings
3

4. 2. Household Diet Diversity: changes in proportion of households who
consumed various food groups in last 24 hours (AGP II MTR)
97
27
73
12
3
13
5
56
37
80
98
39
89
18
13
25
8
77
48
89
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Cereals
Roots & tubers
Vegetables
Fruits
Meat
Milk / milk products
Egg
Legume
Sweets
Condiment
2019 2017
• Large increase in
consumption of
legumes (21%) and
vegetables (16%)
• Important increase in
consumption of roots
and tubers,
• milk(12%) products and
meat (10%)
• increased consumption
of sweets (11%)

5. 3. Child Diet Diversity: Changes in consumption of food groups of
children in AGP beneficiary HH between 2017 and 2019
91
6
23
56
14
6
2
9
31
92
3
26
69
19
8
4
12
49
0 50 100
Breast milk
Infant formula
Milk/milk products
Grains, roots & tubers
Vitamin A rich fruits & veg.
Other fruits & veg.
Meat
Egg
Pulses
2019 2017
• A high number of children
are breastfed
• Relatively large increase in
consumption of pulses (17%)
and grains, roots and tubers
(14%)
• Modest increase in
consumption of eggs, meat,
fruits and vegetables and
milk products
• Small decrease in use of
infant formula
5

6. Minimum Diet Diversity : AGP beneficiary HHs and children
Households diet diversity
Clear improvements in number of
households that consume 4 food groups or
more
• In 2019, 19% points more HH
consumed a minimum of 4 and
more food groups compared to
2017
Children diet diversity
• Despite clear improvements
between 2017 and 2019, only few
children eat the minimum number
of 4 and food groups
Low Child Dietary Diversity observed
compared to Household DD
4.6
65
8.9
84
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
% of children who
consumed 4 or more food
groups
% of HH who consumed 4
or more food groups
Minimum diet diversity for AGP beneficiary HH
and children
2017 2019 6

7. Some factors contributed for progress in HH DD
o Promotion of increased production diversity and demonstration of new
crops/vegetables/fruits
o Fruit and vegetable nursery sites
o Increased participation of women and youth farmers at grassroots level
o Awareness creation about and dissemination of seeds on nutrition-
dense crops, food preparation techniques and crop storage facilities
have been effective
o Use consultative meeting and experience sharing visits to share
experiences and observe how activities are being implemented at
grassroots levels.
o Establishment of strong collaboration and networks among stakeholders
which led to learn from each other, information exchange, and to scaling
up process
7

8. 4. Challenges
89 86 85 83 80 77 76 76 80 84 88 87
8 10 11 12 15 18 19 19 15 12 9 10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Primary sources of food for HHs (2019)
Own production Purchased Transfers, aid or others
o High dependency on household own production
8

9. Challenges (con’td)
o Improvements at household level not translated adequately for
children diets
o Difficulty to get improved seeds of fruits, vegetables and nutritious
crops
o Absence of nutrition expert in the different layers of the government
institutional arrangement
o Limited water access to plant vegetables & fruits
o Vegetable diseases
o Rising cost of nutritious food
o Increased consumption of sweets
o Limited source of non-farm income, awareness, production diversity
9

10. 5. Concluding remarks
 Although there are progresses, Ethiopia has long
way to travel to ensure nutrition diversity
 More action needed :
• Invest more on nutrition sensitive agriculture
• Scaling up successful initiatives
• Further expand collaborative efforts with other
stakeholders and sectors to improve DD
• children’s dietary diversity is remains critical
national concern

11. 11