Nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems in practice: Options for intervention
This publication (PDF) by FAO provides a list of food system-based intervention to improve nutrition and a set concrete entry points to maximize the impact of each intervention. While there is a call to make agriculture and food security efforts more “nutrition-sensitive”, there is a lack of capacity for designing nutrition-sensitive food and agriculture policies and programmes. In addition there are no operational tools to assist professionals and policy makers to effectively integrate nutrition in their work. This publication provides guidance in this with 10 principles to increase positive impact on nutrition. Among these are: including nutrition objectives and indicators into design; assessing the local context; collaborating with other sectors; empowerment of women; and promoting the production of nutrient-dense crops. The suggested interventions are organized according to four key functions of the food system (food production; food handling, storage and processing; food trade and marketing; and consumer demand and preferences) and as cross-cutting issues. For each intervention, information is provided on: what the intervention includes; why it has the potential to improve nutrition, how it could be made more nutrition-sensitive, which conditions are required to create an enabling environment and key references. Examples of interventions are biofortification; nutrition-sensitive post-harvest handling, storage and processing; and food price policies for promoting healthy diets.
This publication is part of the FAO Toolkit for nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems, which includes the Key recommendations for improving nutrition through agriculture and food systems (PDF), the Designing nutrition-sensitive agriculture investments: Checklist and guidance for programme formulation (PDF) and the Compendium of indicators for nutrition-sensitive agriculture (PDF).