ICN2-The Influence of Agro-Food Policies and Programmes on the Availability, Affordability, Safety and Acceptability of Food
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•505 views
The Influence of Agro-Food Policies and Programmes on the Availability, Affordability, Safety and Acceptability of Food. Spencer Henson and John Humphrey Institute of Development Studies Brighton, UK
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to ICN2-The Influence of Agro-Food Policies and Programmes on the Availability, Affordability, Safety and Acceptability of Food
Similar to ICN2-The Influence of Agro-Food Policies and Programmes on the Availability, Affordability, Safety and Acceptability of Food (20)
More from FAO
More from FAO (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
ICN2-The Influence of Agro-Food Policies and Programmes on the Availability, Affordability, Safety and Acceptability of Food
- 1. The Influence of Agro-Food Policies and Programmes on the Availability, Affordability, Safety and Acceptability of Food Spencer Henson and John Humphrey Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK PREPARATORY TECHNICAL MEETING FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy 13-15 November 2013
- 2. Our choices • Focus on micronutrient undernourishment – hidden hunger • Food-based approaches • Post-farmgate, not on-farm consumption Urban households; non-farm rural households; farm households that buy food in markets, seasonally or year-round, etc. • Market-based approaches. Businesses of all types and sizes Enhancing the nutritional functioning of agri-food value chains
- 3. Food-based options for improving micronutrient intake Increasing dietary diversity Fortification of Staple Foods – oil, flour, etc. Targeted fortified foods: Foods with added nutrient packages – Shokti doi Complementary foods for children Lipid-based supplements for regular consumption Biofortification – orange fleshed sweet potato Agronomic biofortification – zinc-enhanced fertiliser
- 4. Essential outcomes for food-based approaches to nutrition Food is safe Food maintains nutritional quality and benefits up to the point of consumption Food is consumed by the populations whose nutritional deficits are being targeted by the intervention
- 5. Requirements for successfuly selling foods rich in micronutrients Nutrition awareness – buyers understand importance of foods Signalling – people believe foods have the claimed benefits. Nutrient content is often a ʺcredence characteristicʺ Acceptability – people are willing to prepare and eat the product Availability –physically availability in places where the target populations can purchase it Affordability – target populations must be able to purchase it Adapted from, Hawkes, C. and Ruel, M.T. 'Value Chains for Nutrition', paper presented at Conference ‘Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health’, New Delhi, February 2011
- 6. Business challenges for selling nutritious foods Meet the five requirements Capturing value: Credence good issues Risks and uncertainties of innovation Value chain integrity: food safety and quality issues
- 7. Minimise the challenges • Sidestep the acceptability challenge • Use existing distribution channels wherever possible, and avoid products that require careful handling and preservation • Avoid the signalling problem altogether – for example, compulsory fortification – or focusing on foods whose characteristics are more evident: fresh fruit and vegetables • Combat fraudulent claims through branding and certification and certification Dietary diversity Staples fortification Supplementary foods Biofortification Agronomic biofortification
- 8. Policy initiatives: offset costs or defray risks • Nutrition awareness programmes and demand promotion • Use of public distribution: feeding programmes • Advance commitments to enable companies to get to scale • Support for value chain integrity, particularly for food safety at the farm level
- 9. Concluding remarkss • What role for the informal sector Consider more focus on improving quality and safety of informal sector provision of nutrient-rich food • Keep it simple. Minimise the challenges • Efficacy and cost-effectiveness of business-promoting interventions is varied and requires more impact assessment
Editor's Notes
- First, a focus on micronutrient undernourishment. Hidden hunger, if you wish.. Therefore, not considering in this presentation or the paper the issue of overnourishment in any of its forms. Micronutrient undernutrition has particular challenges. Second, in line with the title, considering food-based approaches. Third, interested in food after it leaves the farm. We call this post-farmgate. This means focusing on how food moves out of farms and towards other households. These might be urban households, the households of landless people in rural areas, non-farm rural households, and, importantly, the many farm households in rural areas that purchase foods seasonally, or even throughout the year. Fourth, within this, market-based approaches Therefore, businesses of all types, formal/informal, large small, domestic international. In the end, the big question is CLICK Is there is unrealised potential to mobilise business for combating micronutrient deficiencies amongst the poor?
- Actually, a variety of ways of increasing quantities of essential vitamins and minerals to the diets of people or groups that need them. Here are five: The most straightforward, increasing dietary diversity. Really important. Can be expensive for households buying food. WFP in Moz. Fortification of Staple Foods – oil, flour, etc. Fortif. Foods that are targeted at particular groups: Foods with added nutrients – Grameen Danone’s shokti oi yoghurt is a current example. Yoghurt but with added vits and mins. Complementary foods for children. May be fortified Lipid-based supplements for regular consumption Biofortification – orange fleshed sweet potato is probably the best known. Agronomic biofortification: for example zinc-enhanced fertiliser to get more zinc into rice. If people consume these products, then their nut status tends to improve. The efficacy test. But the challenge is to get these products to people in ways that mean that they can and will consume them. This is not so easy. Evidence that many nutrient-rich foods are inaccessible to the poor Hence our paper puts the emphasis on food markets that serve, or fail to serve the poor: How they work in practice How and why fail the poor Identify different strategies for overcoming these failures. Three very daunting sets of challenges. In markets;
- If we are concerned about overcoming nutritional deficiencies in particular populations through food-based approaches , any food-based approaches, Then the essential outcomes of any intervention have to be: The food supplied is safe That the nutritional benefits in the food, the vitamins and minerals, are kept intact up to the point of consumption That the food reaches the target populations with nutritional deficiencies These conditions would apply for any type of food, whether delivered through markets or not. But market-based systems have some further requirements
- In a market-based systems, people have to be prepared to buy the product. This raises five distinct issues: Nutrition awareness – buyers understand importance of foods Signalling – people believe foods have the claimed benefits. Nutrient content is often a ʺcredence characteristicʺ. In other words, consumers cannot tell prior to purchase or during consumption whether the food really contains the nutrients it claims to have. Therefore, there has to be some mechanism to signal to consumers, or convince them, that they are buying something worthwhile. Brands is one way that this is managed. Endorsement by government, or by certification bodies are others. Acceptability – there are no barriers to preparing and eating the product. How it cooks, how it needs to be stored, cultural acceptability, etc. You know this. Availability –physically availability in places where the target populations can purchase it -- no point if too far away to purchase Affordability – target populations must be able to purchase it. This could be seen in absolute terms, but equally it may be about willingness to pay and one food in the context of other possible purchases, food and non-food. These are big challenges. It is often the case that meeting the availability criterion, by developing distribution systems that deliver product to rural areas and places where the poor live, makes the product less affordable. The fact is, there are many nutrient rich foods available in developing countries. The problem is the poor very often cannot afford them, or even gain access to them.
- From a business perspective, there are other challenges: Five preconditions in the previous slide have to be met – not very easy at all. But firms also have to capture value so that they gain returns on their investments. Otherwise, no business The credence good question is a problem here. As well as the costs of developing brands, there is the problem of copies, fakes and fraudulent claims First movers face problems with the risks and uncertainties of innovation And in order to ensure food safety and quality, some degree of control over food value chains is required. This is why businesses develop dedicated supply chains.
- All pretty daunting. Is it possible at all to deliver safe, nutrient-rich foods to the poor through market mechanisms? Well, it certainly doesn’t appear to be easy, but we can think of ways in which the difficulties can be reduced and managed. These vary according to the four types of food strategies CLICK The four listed earlier. These five CLICK (TO REMOVE) Try to avoid foods that are not very similar to existing acceptable foods. This avoids the acceptability problem. Use existing distribution channels wherever possible, and avoid products that require careful handling and preservation Avoid the signalling problem altogether – for example, compulsory fortification Reduce the incidence of fraudulent claims through branding and certification – but trying not to add to much in the way of costs.
- But in the end, the potential for businesses without any state support to be delivering nutritious foods to the poor through market mechanisms seems extremely unlikely Offset costs or defray risks Nutrition awareness programmes and demand promotion Use of public distribution: feeding programmes Advance commitments to enable companies to get to scale Support for value chain integrity, particularly for food safety at the farm level
- And consider different strategies: Consider more focus on improving quality and safety of informal sector provision of nutrient-rich food. A lot of it, variable in quality and safety, but close to the undernourished and cheap. Keep it simple. Why fortification is easier. Do as little as possible by way of interventions But, we conclude that the efficacy and cost-effectiveness interventions largely unproven, highly varied and requires more impact assessment.