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 91-100 of 100 results
Review of Agri-Food Value Chain Interventions Aimed at Enhancing Consumption of Nutritious Food by the Poor: India
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2016Efforts to give a pro-nutrition focus to agriculture to address the problem of undernutrition in developing countries have predominantly focused on boosting production and/or consumption of nutritious foods by farm households. While this is clearly appropriate in countries where a large proportion of the poor have agriculture as their main source of livelihood, as in South Asia, it is increasingly recognised that a majority of the poor derive some or all of their food through markets....Agriculture, nutrition and the green revolution in Bangladesh
Science Direct, 2016This paper explores agriculture and nutrition linkages in Bangladesh, a country that achieved rapid growth in rice productivity at a relatively late stage in Asia's Green Revolution, as well as unheralded progress against undernutrition. To do so, the authors first outline a simple conceptual model to identify the different impacts that productivity growth in a food staple(s) might have on child nutrition outcomes, with a particular focus on changes in diets at the household and child level....Review of Agri-Food Value Chain Interventions Aimed at Enhancing Consumption of Nutritious Food by the Poor: Pakistan
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2016How can agriculture play a more effective role in improving nutrition in countries with a high burden of hidden hunger and where an increasing proportion of the poor sources its food from the market? There is a need to understand how linkages between the farm and the consumer can be made to work for nutrition goals.This review paper examines the case of Pakistan, which has a relatively productive agricultural sector but which has experienced high and persistent rates of undernutrition....Reducing Anemia Prevalence in Afghanistan: Socioeconomic Correlates and the Particular Role of Agricultural Assets
PLoS ONE, 2016Anemia is a nutrition problem of global importance. Based on data from 107 countries worldwide, Stevens et al. [1] estimated that 29% of non-pregnant women (translating to 496 million non-pregnant women), 38% of pregnant women (translating to 32 million pregnant women) and 43% of children (translating to 273 million children) suffer from anemia.This research aims to examine the socio-economic correlates of anemia in women, and potential sources of iron in household diets in Afghanistan....Agriculture and nutrition in India: mapping evidence to pathways
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2014In India, progress against undernutrition has been slow. Given its importance for income generation, improving diets, care practices, and maternal health, the agriculture sector is widely regarded as playing an important role in accelerating the reduction in undernutrition. This paper comprehensively maps existing evidence along agriculture– nutrition pathways in India and assesses both the quality and coverage of the existing literature....Learning From the Past: Framing of Undernutrition in India Since Independence and Its Links to Agriculture
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2016Understanding policy debates from the past can help to explain and address the challenges of today. Agriculture can play an important role in the reduction of undernutrition in India. However, the nutrition-enhancing potential of agriculture remains underused. In order to understand the roots for the weak links between agriculture and nutrition in contemporary India, this paper follows the evolution of the policy debates on nutrition and agriculture from India’s Independence to the present. The frame analysis reveals several substantial shifts in the framing....Leveraging agriculture for nutrition in South Asia and East Africa: examining the enabling environment through stakeholder perceptions
Food Security, 2015South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are the two regions of the world with the highest concentration of undernutrition. The majority of the nutritionally vulnerable populations in both regions is dependent in some way upon agriculture as a primary source of livelihood. The agriculture sector and wider agri-food system is considered to be central to sustained progress in reducing undernutrition – and yet not enough is known about how to unleash this potential....Operationalizing the concept of farming system for nutrition through the promotion of nutrition-sensitive agriculture
Current Science, 2014Despite impressive gains in agricultural production and greater availability of food many people in India suffer from undernutrition. Improvements in agricultural production that lead to greater access to nutritious food could help combat undernutrition. This article in Current Science shares a new farming model to promote improved nutrition outcomes amongst vulnerable farming communities. Five villages in Wardha district of Maharashtra have been selected for the study to evaluate the effectiveness of the farming system for nutrition (FSN) approach....Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Production Diversity, and Nutrition: Evidence from Nepal
International Food Policy Research Institute, 2013It is increasingly recognised that agricultural growth and development do not necessarily translate into improved nutrition outcomes. Policymakers are increasingly grappling with how to design and implement agricultural policies and programmes that can also achieve nutritional objectives. Agriculture has direct links to nutrition in that it provides a source of food and nutrients and a broad-based source of income, as well as directly influencing food prices. Gender roles mediate these linkages, particularly in relation to increased food availability and increased income....Agriculture and nutrition in Pakistan: pathways and disconnects
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia, 2013This paper analyses the pathways and disconnects between agriculture and nutrition in the context of Pakistan, using a framework developed by theTackling the Agriculture-Nutrition Disconnect in India (TANDI) research programme....