Building food and nutrition sensitive landscapes

Many Dutch organizations are addressing Food and Nutrition Security (FNS), while at the same time they are investing in landscape approaches. There are commonalities in each domain: spatial considerations play a role in FNS dialogues, while landscape approaches fundamentally seek to improve the food security situations within landscapes. But, are we missing synergies between the two? And, can we strengthen our approaches towards food and nutrition sensitive landscapes by joining topics and dialogues? These questions were addressed during the NLandscape meeting on February 28, 2018, in Amsterdam.

The report from the NLandscape session on “Food and Nutrition Sensitive Landscapes” is now available here.

Natalia Estrada Carmona from Bioversity shared experiences from the Nutrition Sensitive Landscape approach in their action research programme in Zambia. This programme focuses on the relation between agriculture and food production in wide landscapes. Already in the analysis the team looked at the different functions of the landscape and the impacts of the strong seasonality of food production and consumption in the region. After exploring and implementing action with the inhabitants, scenarios and models were developed to design more effective intervention crops with higher nutritional value. This model was linked to landscape level changes such as infrastructure disclosure, land use change, subsidy programmes and national policies.

In the afternoon four cases were discussed from SPAR/WUR in South Africa, from Solidaridad/PBL in Honduras, from CARE/WWF in Tanzania, and from Hivos in Zambia. The cases showed that attention and knowledge on Food and Nutrition Security within the landscape cases is not self-evident. While there are commonalities, integration needs conscious planning and the integration of FNS knowledge and indicators in the design of landscape programmes.

Please find the more detailed report, including elaborated case description and outcomes, here.

The Food & Knowledge Business Platform is supporting NLandscape, an informal network of over 20 Dutch environmental and developmental organizations who apply integrated landscape approaches and thinking to complement and strengthen their project design and implementation. Learn more and join up at: www.nlandscape.nl