Background
On April 1, 2023, the Food and Agriculture Research Discussion Forum (FARDF) convened a meeting to discuss Jaya Jumrani's research, “Agricultural Production Diversity and Women's Nutrition: Evidence from Rural Bangladesh,” which analyzed data from IFPRI's Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS). Among other points, this research concluded that, while poverty reduction and rice production have improved, diets still lack diversity and essential micronutrients. Agriculture can be leveraged to address this issue. In particular, diverse farming systems, including livestock and fisheries, can improve women's nutrient intake and dietary diversity, but the environmental impact of these farming systems must be carefully considered.
IFPRI Senior Project Manager Aklima Parvin participated as a discussant, focusing on the parallels between and lessons learned from the IFPRI-designed Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) pilot project.
Leveraging IFPRI’s BIHS Data for Improving Agriculture-Nutrition-Gender Nexus
In her remarks, Parvin stressed the value of IFPRI’s BIHS. As the most comprehensive rural household survey conducted in Bangladesh to date, it has collected a wide range of data such as individual dietary intake and height and weight measurements of all household members, plot-level agricultural production practices, and data to estimate the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI). Additionally, the BIHS surveys collected sex-disaggregated data where applicable, providing a better understanding of the impact on girls and women to target interventions better.
ANGeL project
IFPRI researchers analyzed data from the 2011/12 first round BIHS, and found synergies between agricultural diversity, dietary diversity, and women’s empowerment.
Motivated by these linkages, IFPRI designed ANGeL as a randomized controlled trial to identify the most effective combination of interventions to enhance gender- and nutrition-sensitive agriculture. The interventions consisted of four different training combinations, which were provided to farm households – husbands and wives – together in rural Bangladesh. The interventions included nutrition behavior change communication only, agriculture production training only, nutrition and agriculture combined, and combining agriculture, nutrition, and gender together.
Parvin highlighted ANGeL’s remarkable impacts. Husbands and wives who were trained together on agriculture production, nutrition knowledge, and gender sensitization were better off compared to before joining the project. Farm households that only participated in agricultural production training increased production diversity, with greater production of fruits, vegetables, eggs, dairy, and fish. However, trainings that focused on both agriculture and nutrition had the largest impacts on diet quality, with evidence indicating that households receiving both types of trainings also significantly increased consumption out of homestead production.
Current Initiatives to Enhance Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture in Bangladesh
Parvin pointed to a few ongoing efforts in Bangladesh to improve nutrition- and gender-sensitive agriculture, emphasizing the importance of gender in various aspects of food systems, including production, distribution, and consumption.
For example, the Government of Bangladesh has highlighted the importance of diverse farming systems and nutrition-sensitive agriculture in various policy frameworks and approved ANGeL for nationwide scale-up.
Additionally, CGIAR’s Regional Initiative on Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA) is building off of ANGeL's lessons learned to improve the connection between agriculture and nutrition by establishing 16 "living laboratories" to test diverse cropping systems based on their village's agricultural production, climate, marketing, gender, and nutrition.
Concluding Thoughts
Parvin closed by highlighting how the findings from Jumrani's research paper aligned with ANGeL's results in several aspects – namely, the potential of agriculture to improve nutrition and the significance of diverse farming systems on income, women's empowerment, and nutrition.
Resources
- For more information on the ANGeL project, please visit the official project page.
- For more information on CGIAR’s Regional Initiative for Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA), please visit the official website.