Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture For Food And Nutrition Security

Introduction

One of the major causes of malnutrition in Africa is the lack of basic knowledge on nutrition and lack of food security to provide the nutrients. Nutrition sensitive agriculture (NSA) is the integration of nutrition and agriculture to achieve food and nutrition security. These knowledge impacted on households and communities through training on nutrition sensitive agriculture will assist to reduce and prevent the effects of poverty which lead to hunger, disease and death. It has become clear that there is no nutrition-education without agriculture and no agricultural-education without nutrition as they both complement each other in addressing food and nutrition insecurity. Training communities on NSA will impact knowledge and skills on the rural communities to strengthen their livelihoods through adoption of sustainable agricultural practices that maximize on resources.

In order to improve the nutritional statures in the community there is need for sustainable food production at the household level with the optimal use of resources such as space, water and other inputs while considering the environment in the areas of waste management. These therefore calls for trainings in the areas of food production, food storage, nutritional requirements, food preparation, food preservation, and food safety.  These will ensure food diversity, food availability and food accessibility in order to achieve food and nutrition security.

Duration

5 Days

Course outline

Module 1: Importance of Nutrition to the Communities

·        Overview of the relationship between agriculture and nutrition

·        key concepts of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions

·        Benefits of healthy eating

·        Principles of nutrition (Micro and Macro nutrients)

·        Guide to healthy eating

·        Nutrients

·        Nutrition and health (Nutritional Disorders)

·        Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions

Module 2: Food production

·        How does agriculture affect nutrition

·        Ways to improve nutrition through Agriculture

·        Land preparation

·        Planting methods

·        Management practice

·        Crop protection practices

·         Fertilizer Management

·         Irrigation water management

·        Harvesting

·        Basic Nutrition Diets

·        Basic of food safety (handling, storage.)

Module 3: Food safety Meal planning and Management

·        Food preparation

·        Energy saving technologies

Module 4: Nutrition in the life cycle

·        Diet and nutrition changes during Childhood

·        Diet and nutrition changes during Puberty

·        Diet and nutrition changes in Late Adolescence

·        Diet and nutrition changes in Young Adulthood

·        Diet and nutrition changes in Middle Age

·        Diet and nutrition changes in the Older Adult Years

Module 5: Value addition

·        Understanding Nutritive- Sensitive Value Chain approaches (e.g  biofortification, nutrient-preserving storage and transport, and nutrition signalling and labelling).

·        Case study on a real-life example of a nutrition-sensitive agriculture program