Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia
Nutrition
How to design agriculture and food-related policies, programmes and interventions to improve nutrition.
Nutrition
In much of South Asia, women make up a majority of the agricultural workforce, but what effect does working in agriculture have on the nutrition of these women and their children?
Nutrition
Harnessing the farm-to-market value chain to deliver nutritious foods to those who need it most
The Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) research programme consortium aims to enhance the impact of agriculture on maternal and child nutrition in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
Nearly half the children in South Asian are chronically undernourished (stunted) and despite agriculture being the main livelihood for nearly half the population in the region, its potential for reducing undernutrition has not yet been realised.
The LANSA international research partnership focused on policies, interventions and strategies that can enhance agriculture to improve the nutritional status of children in South Asia.
This collection of LANSA publications describes our innovative research to discover how agriculture and food-related policies, programmes and interventions can be better designed to improve nutrition.
Image credit: Harvested Bell Peppers | IFPRI-IMAGES | Flickr | CC BY NC ND 2.0
In this collection
Showing 61-70 of 100 results
Public distribution system in Tamil Nadu: Implications for household consumption
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2018Food and nutrition insecurity is a reality for a large number of people in India. Social safety nets to ensure food security of the poor and vulnerable become important in such a scenario. The Public Distribution System (PDS) in India is an example of one such safety measure. PDS distributes essential cereals such as rice and wheat as well as sugar and kerosene to people at subsidised prices through a network of fair price shops (FPS), popularly referred to as ration shops....Gendered time, seasonality and nutrition: insights from two Indian districts: Research Brief
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2017There has been considerable attention to women’s work in nutritional studies, given women’s central role in child-bearing, child-care and child-rearing. Similarly, employment data indicates women’s high work-participation in agriculture – a phenomenon commonly known as the feminisation of agriculture, albeit as labourers and unpaid family workers, rather than independent cultivators. It is therefore surprising that there are relatively few studies that make the link between women’s work in agriculture, their household and care responsibilities, and nutritional outcomes....Explaining cross-state disparities in child nutrition in rural India
Elsevier, 2015What drives the large disparities in height-for-age distributions among Indian states - variation in observed nutrition-related endowments, such as wealth or maternal education, or differential strengths of relationships across states between endowments and height-for-age? We explore this question by comparing a set of states with poor nutrition outcomes with the benchmark of Tamil Nadu, a good performer.Applying counterfactual decomposition methods to National Family Health Survey data, we find that surprisingly modest proportions of HAZ differences are attributable to endowment differences....Markets for Nutrition
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2015Making safe, nutrient-rich foods more accessible to people on low-incomes is one way to reduce micronutrient undernutrition (the lack of essential nutrients and minerals required by the body for healthy development). Efforts to integrate better agriculture and nutrition are focused on this goal, and many initiatives target low-income farm households....Agriculture, nutrition and gender in India
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2016The South Asian region has one of the highest rates of child and maternal undernutrition in the world. Undernutrition is widespread and persistent even in India despite its relatively strong economic performance and is particularly high in rural areas and among those in agriculture based livelihoods. Though agriculture has the enormous potential to contribute to improvements in undernutrition, the evidence so far in the Indian context demonstrates weak linkages between agriculture and nutrition ....Gender, agriculture, and nutrition in South Asia: conceptualising the links
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2017Even with higher economic growth and an overall reduction in poverty, there exists child undernutrition, maternal undernutrition and diverse forms of micro nutrient deficiencies – a phenomenon labelled as the South Asian Paradox. Eradicating undernutrition requires a dedicated effort to alleviating child undernutrition, as South Asia accounts for forty percent of the world’s undernourished children....Women agricultural workers and nutrition in Pakistan
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2017Pakistan has high rates of child undernutrition (both stunting and wasting). The country’s agricultural sector is a source of livelihood for over 40 per cent of the workforce. The LANSA Evidence Review for Pakistan found that there had been steady feminisation of the agricultural workforce as men moved out of the sector and women remained. LANSA researchers resolved to examine these issues through a formative study of the impact of women’s agricultural work on their own health and the health and nutrition of their children....Gendered time, seasonality and nutrition: insights from two Indian districts
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2017Relatively few studies explore the links between women’s work in agriculture and nutritional outcomes. Using time use data from two Indian districts, this paper seeks to fill this gap....Implementation of the ICDS in Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh (India): a systemic study
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2017The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme – India’s flagship social welfare prescription for children (0–6 years) has achieved mixed implementation success. Considerable inter-state variation in the quality and reach of programme services remain. This study examines processes in ICDS implementation from research in two states – the densely populated Uttar Pradesh, and the newly created Chhattisgarh in central India....Strengthening fruit and vegetable supply-chain policies and programmes in India
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2017India currently has one of the highest numbers of malnourished children in the world – 8% stunted, 43% underweight, and 20% overweight and obese. This distressing public health scenario is further exacerbated by a high prevalence of multiple micronutrient deficiencies among these children – such as iron deficiency anaemia and Vitamin A deficiency....