In the 1st lead article in our new K4D dossier on “Improving nutrition outcomes”, Kimberley Keeton and John McDermott, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, describe the complex interplay between the determinants of malnutrition and themulti-sectoral policy and programme responses related to agriculture’s role in the provision of healthy diets. They discuss options e.g.; (i) bio-fortification of commonly-consumed staple foods as a possible cost-effective strategy for reducing micronutrient deficiency, (ii) enhancing postharvest and food safety knowledge and, (iii) improving household productivity of nutritious foods.
In the 2nd lead article, Jan Meerman, FAO and Noora-Lisa Aberman, IFPRI explain the key factors that make nutrition a consistently marginalised issue in national policy making, and suggest potential avenues for governments to build cross-sector capacity and coordination. They see the challenge as being able “to activate and sustain a nutrition mandate within government agencies whose performances are evaluated on non-nutrition-oriented activities”.
CTA, in attempting to identify intervention points for addressing policy issues for reducing postharvest losses, commissioned case studies on the postharvest knowledge systems. These were led by ACP postharvest specialists. Three synthesis reports; on cassava,pumpkin and rice are presented in this newsletter. What is clearly demonstrated is that reducing postharvest losses requires in-country knowledge and expertise, a sound evidence base and a good understanding of the types of losses and the exact points in the chains where intervention provides “the best bang for the buck” in terms of economic value and nutritional / quality benefits. If substantive impact is to be made, countries should start with priority commodities of economic significance and in collaboration with the experts, economic actors /industry stakeholders and governments, plan and implement intervention strategies for reducing postharvest losses. The CTA studies demonstrate that there can be “no one size fits all”. Seasonal effects, varietal differences, markets, customer preferences, ability and willingness to pay for the fresh or processed product, packaging, and transportation and communication systems all play a role in postharvest losses. Economic agents will manage the process to the best of their abilities and the prevailing conditions and will only make the investments as markets grow and returns on investment are assured and so too will governments.
This issue of the K4D newsletter also provides links to other valuable resources e.g. (i) Bio-availability of iron, zinc, and pro-vitamin A carotenoids in bio-fortified staple crops by Michael R. La Frano, UC Davis; (ii) Local markets for global health technologies: lessons learned from advancing six new products by Dipika Mathur Matthias and colleagues, PATH, USA; (iii)Agriculture for improved nutrition: The current research landscape by Rachel Turner, LCIRAH, UK and; (iv) Indigenous leafy vegetables in South Africa: Unexplored source of nutrients and antioxidants by Collise Njume and colleagues, Walter Sisulu University, South Africa.
We invite you to visit http://knowledge.cta.int/en, click on the dropdown menus and explore all the resources available on the K4D website. Please also share the newsletter with your colleagues and invite them to send a blank email to join-knowledge-en@lists.cta.int. You can also connect with us via Twitter or Facebook! We now have over 5,000 twitter followers and several are tweeting interesting information. For example, the British Ecological Society (BES@britishEcolSoc) recently shared “Decoding the EU Science Policy”.
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