Presentation by Andrea Bohn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from the INGENAES Bangladesh Symposium in Dhaka, March 2017.

1. Opportunities for
Scaling out Nutrition
Integration in
Agricultural Extension
UIUCAndrea Bohn

2. It takes concerted action by multiple players to
improve nutrition!
Opportunities for Scaling out NUTRITION
Integration in Agricultural Extension ?

3. 3 Determinants of NUTRITION status
Food
Health
Care
CONSUMPTION of Sufficient (but
not too much!), Diverse & Nutritious
(micronutrients, protein!), & Safe diets
UTILIZATION of food consumed:
Capacity to metabolize food
properly depends on health status
(improve access to health services, reduce
pathogens & contaminants in the environment;
improve water quality, sanitation, air quality)
Care, support and feeding practices,
cognitive stimulation (especially
children, pregnant mothers, elderly, sick)

4. Availability
Consumption
Supply Access
Support STABLE availability, accessibility, consumption &
utilization of sufficient, diverse, nutritious, and safe foods

5. Where do farmers get advice? Example of
(private sector) reinforcement of good nutrition
WHAT: Agricultural Inputs Project published
11,000 nutrition posters.
• Nutrition posters are displayed in AIRN accredited
retailers’ shops as well as women grantees’.
• 50% were distributed to USAID/AIN and USAID/AVC
project
• 40% were distributed among AIRN retailers
(2000+accredited members) and during Agro-Tech Fair
• Less than 5% were distributed to governmental upazila
level information centers (AICC), community clinics
(operated by government), and high schools (grade 6-
10)
• 500+ posters still available for new AIRN members,
women grantees, other stakeholders.
During training this poster is widely used as a tool for the
topic of “nutritious crops”.

6. Where do farmers get advice? Example of
(private sector) reinforcement of good nutrition
Hafiza Khatun, a grantee of AIP sells quality seeds to a
female farmer in Chuadanga. © CNFA, 2016
Saiful Islam, an AIRN member, arranges a meeting with
agriculture officers in his shop to advise farmers in
Kaliganj, Jhinaidah. © CNFA, 2016
SO WHAT?
• Due to attractive colour and clear pictorial message, people
frequently ask question to retailers about the content and
key message of the posters (Mst. Salina, a women grantee,
Barisal)
• According to AIRN retailers it is an easy pictorial reference
tool to help farmer customers understand that nutritious
crops and fishes are available within their door steps and
affordable. (Rupa Khatun, a women grantee, Khulna and 6
others male retailers of Khulna, Jessore)
• AIRN retailers including women grantees who mainly sell
seeds said that this poster has boosted their sales of
vegetables seeds as they referred/ motivated farmers by
drawing their attention to AIP’s nutrition poster (displayed in
their shops). It was a common trend that a farmer who
intended to buy only rice seed, also randomly bought seeds
of water spinach and red amaranth as they were motivated
by reading /observing the poster’s pictorial messages.
• Other retailers who sale pesticide and fertilizer also
frequently use this poster for starting a discussion with
farmer customers before selling inputs.

7. NOW What?
Objectives of this symposium
• The policy agendas, frameworks,
studies, approaches you will hear
about today and tomorrow are
intended to promote learning and
inspire action
• What should / can other actors in the
system do? 25/10 crowdsourcing
• What can I do? Commitment to 15%
solution - action
+ networking!

8. Disclaimer and License
This presentation was made possible by the generous support of the American people through
the United States Agency for International Development, USAID. The contents are the
responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the
United States Government.
All work by INGENAES is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

9. Photo:DanQuinn,HorticultureInnovationLab
Integrating
Gender and
Nutrition within
Agricultural
Extension
Services
IN
GE
N
A
E
S
Introducing INGENAES

10. Why INGENAES? Need to address these issues:
• Many agricultural development efforts
and extension services systematically fail
to target women farmers with services,
or utilize approaches that make it
difficult for women farmers to engage
• Many extension services have a topic
bias towards trainings on staple crop
production and new seed varieties and
practices, not topics that are particularly
relevant for women (top down instead of
needs based)
• Significant capacity constraints (human
& institutional) along with social factors
Young woman preparing potatoes.
© K. Colverson. Nepal, 12/2015.

11. • Established infrastructure
• Reach
• Community trust
• Cultural awareness
• Empathy and understanding
• Focus on “Food Based Approaches”
Fanzo (2015). GFRAS Global Good Practice Note # 9
STRENGTHS of Engaging Extension

12. Food Based Approaches for
Extension to focus on
1. Promote diversification of production and livelihoods for better
nutrient mix and to reduce seasonality of food-insecurity
2. Increase production of nutrient-dense foods, particularly locally-
adapted varieties rich in micronutrients and protein
a. Horticultural crops
b. Animal-source foods
c. Legumes
d. Biofortification
e. Nutritious underutilized and indigenous foods
f. Staple crop and cash crops: be careful
3. Reduce post-harvest losses and improve processing
4. Increase market access and opportunities to improve smallholder
incomes (especially for women)

13. Food Based Approaches
Derived from: J. Fanzo (2015)
 Promote nutrient-rich crops and their
cultivation at the farm level (diversification,
biofortification, indigenous crops)
 Support livestock production and good animal
husbandry (sanitation!)
 Strengthen linkages of farmers to markets and
value chains to sell and buy nutritious foods at
the farm gate level

14. Food Based Approaches
 Advise on better utilization of foods available to the
household through home production or purchase
 Engage in nutrition messaging and education geared
towards behaviour change at the individual level
 Advise on how to reduce post harvest losses and
improve storage
 Educate on improve food safety (in consumption,
storage and selling of previously stored or processed
food)
Derived from: J. Fanzo (2015)

15. Non-Food Based Approaches
 Identify tools, technologies, practices that reduce
especially women’s work and time burden
 Support income generating activities, e.g., through
dairy, livestock, poultry, aquaculture, value added
plant/animal based products, but using sanitary
husbandry practices, assuring food safety,  likely
reduce incidence of environmental enteropathy
 Promote good agricultural practices
 Safe use of chemicals and IPM
 Safe irrigation
Derived from: J. Fanzo (2015)

16. Examples of Delivery Channels & Methods
 On-farm demonstrations
 Farmer field schools or study groups with
integrated nutrition components
 Homestead gardening
 Support nutrition education in schools, school
gardens
 Collaborate with public health platforms,
WASH programs

17. WEAKNESSES of Engaging Extension
 Nutrition: yet one more domain for extension! Expected to be “superwomen”
 There is limited understanding of nutrition within EAS. Lack even the basics.
 The agriculture and nutrition sectors speak different ‘languages’. Coming from
different disciplines, agriculturalists, and nutritionists use different language,
priorities, and terms, which constrains integration. (“Dominance of SUN and
ENHA”)
Source: J. Fanzo (2015)
 There needs to be a discussion across sectors to clarify the
role of each sector in addressing nutrition, and to decide
how to mobilize resources and create a budget for nutrition
interventions for EAS specifically.
 There is a lack of joint planning and dialogue at all levels.
Coordination of planning and dialogue among the relevant
agriculture, nutrition and health actors does not happen.
 identify and leverage existing mechanisms and avenues
for collaboration.