AGRINUTS

The development of a timely and robust tool to analyze relations that link crop and livestock diversity and income to nutrition in poor rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Undernutrition is a worldwide problem. Advances in agricultural technologies have enormously increased food production worldwide, however, still 854 million of people remain chronically underfed. Addressing the links between agriculture and nutrition is crucial to translate agricultural successes into nutrition outcomes. The project will develop a practical and timely tool to carry out in-depth assessment studies of the relations that link crop and livestock diversity and income to nutrition in poor rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. This tool will be developed by integrating a multidisciplinary data set of the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) and related literature into a simulation model. The MVP dataset allows exploration of many factors that affect the relationships between crop and livestock diversity, income and nutrition. Using this model the hypotheses that crop and livestock diversity and income increase enhance nutrition will be evaluated and factors that affect these relations will be identified. In-situ collection of additional data as well as the use of the extensive dataset and scientific findings of the Consortium of Improving Agriculture based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) will significantly strengthen the robustness of the model. During this project, a highly qualified scientist with strong research experience as bioengineer and PhD scholar in tropical agriculture will be trained by two excellent hosts to cross scientific disciplines within society-oriented research. The combination of the candidate and this project offers an opportunity to provide a cross-disciplinary trained highly qualified scientist in the domain of rural development. With the European Union as biggest provider of developmental aid worldwide, this project will strengthen the EU utilization and management of developmental funds through providing strong supporting research.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

There is an urgent need to develop tools that crosslink agriculture with nutritional needs in Africa, where hunger and malnutrition is still common. The Agrinuts EU project is coming up with a solution.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

While significant steps have been taken in the last couple of decades to reduce hunger in the world and increase agricultural productivity, over 1 billion people are still chronically underfed. In addition, over 3 billion people have some kind of nutritional deficiency that must be addressed.

To understand the causes of hunger and tackle it, researchers must examine the many causes of malnutrition at the home, community, and regional levels. They must develop solutions and implement policies specifically targeted at vulnerable populations.

The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) and the Consortium of Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) are two unique projects supporting rural development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Building on these initiatives, the EU-funded Agrinuts project is developing tools to study and strengthen linkages between the agriculture and human nutrition sector.

It is gathering and cross-referencing biophysical and socio-economic data, based on field and literature research, to build conclusions and recommendations. Agrinuts will then examine how feasible and synergistic these initiatives and interventions are in supporting undernourished and malnourished populations.

The project is also exploring ecological tools and knowledge to address the nutritional diversity of the agricultural system. Data on agro-biodiversity were collected for farming in three MVP sites in sub-Saharan Africa alongside food and nutrition indicators. This helps assess the cropping system for its diversity of nutrients essential for human life. The developed tool is able to identify low and high redundancy of nutrient groups in the system as well as crop species that could increase or decrease nutritional diversity of the system. The tool helps to assess agricultural systems beyond conventional indicators such as yield and the economic cost/benefit ratio.

In addition, a global food systems conference on assessing global agriculture was hosted at the Earth Institute in 2009. Over 100 experts described means to evaluate practices to grow and distribute enough food for a population of 9 billion people, as projected in 2050. The workshop resulted in consensus among the participants on the need for a major paradigm shift in the way we assess agriculture, considering all social, economic and environmental impacts. The project partners are currently contributing to this endeavour and ideas are being further elaborated. If the emerging ideas and recommendations are exploited, this modest project could change the way we feed the world, and for the better.