GAIN Snapshot Report Agriculture Nutrition FINAL

8/10/2019 GAIN Snapshot Report Agriculture Nutrition FINAL

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CultivatingNutritious

Food Systems:

Bonnie McClaffertywith Jocelyn C. Zuckerman

A Snapshot Report


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By 2050, the worlds population could reach 9 billion. In order to live healthy and productive lives, all will need nutritious diets. Despite theintrinsic relationship between the food we grow and the food we eat, the agriculture and nutrition sectors are only just now beginningto overcome decades of mutual isolation. The high rates of malnutrition among farming communities are a stark reminder that the linkbetween agriculture and nutrition is broken.

The world produces enough food for everyone. And yet more than 800 million go to bed hungry, and 3 million children under the age of 5will die this year as a result of malnutrition. At the same time, 1.4 billion of us now are classied as overweight or obese. And we throw away astaggering 1.3 billion tons of food each year.

To make the most of the opportunities we have for improving nutrition, reforming this broken food system through better and dif ferentinvestments in agriculture is our best bet. In its most recent report, the OECD estimated that 61 percent of ofcial development assistance, orODA, for Food and Nutrition Security had been allocated to agriculture, compared to a paltry 3 percent on nutrition.

In this, the rst in a series of GAIN Snapshot Reports, we highlight some of the exciting innovations where nutrition is being woven into theagricultural value chain. Some of these stories illustrate bold and long-standing efforts to diversify and enrich the diet. Others are still in theexploratory stages. Some are poised to go to scale; others are just getting off the ground.

Our stories reect the agricultural value chain itselffrom seeds and soil through to harvest and post-harvest, and culminating in themoment that food reaches the consumers mouth. We meet farmers and researchers struggling to give weight to the under investedvegetable. We go inside the laboratories, classrooms and factories where others are directing their efforts toward stemming theoverwhelming tide of fruit and vegetable waste. We learn from creative entrepreneurs who are generating markets for nutritious foods inrapidly expanding cities. And, nally, we explore some of the innovative nancial mechanisms serving as workarounds to business-as-usuallendingin the form of support for the missing middle, those nutritious-food enterprises that are too small for commercial loans yet toolarge for traditional micronance schemes.

We also confront some challenges. Where are the blockages when it comes to producing better and more nut ritious seed? And, crucially,

why is it so hard to measure whether nutrition interventions incorporating agriculture are having the desired impacts? We journey to eldsand laboratories in East Africa and South Asia, and we stroll the halls of Washington, D.C. and Ibadan, Nigeria, where policy makers arestruggling to keep nutrition and food security on an agenda already overburdened with such pressing issues as climate, water, disease andnational security.

We are building the evidence base on farmer nutrition to better understand what farming families are eating, how adequate that dietis and most importantly where the farmer is sourcing food. Surprisingly to some, most food is coming from the market. Even farmers arenet purchasers of food and most importantly, when they transition from breastfeeding, nearly everything being fed to infants and youngchildren is being purchased in local markets.

We are developing an understanding of best-practice for shaping markets for nutritious foods, including an understanding of where theobstacles are along the value chain and where we can either include nutrition or mitigate the loss of nutrients as food moves off the farm.

Our Snapshot Reports are designed to shine a light on the positive things we are seeing on the ground, and to point to the models which

can have real impact if scaled up as part of the new Sustainable Development Goals. Diversifying diets and improving the health andlivelihoods of some one billion poor and undernourishedmany of them women farmers and their childrenare achievable, but not easytasks. All the more necessary then to applaud those who are getting it right, and to study their achievements closely in order to understandhow to build better programs and policies based on this evidence.

Marc Van AmeringenExecutive DirectorGlobal Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)

Foreword


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12 15

Soil

02 07

Introduction

16 19

Post-HarvestLoss

32 35

Workingthrough Public

Institutions

28 31

Innovatingwith the

Private Sector

46 47

MeasuringImpact

40 45

Policy

24 27

ShapingMarkets

20 23

Post-HarvestEnrichment

36 39

ConsumerBehaviorChange

48 49

Conclusion

08 11

Seeds


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Climate change, they wrote, will have a profound, and increasinglynegative, impact on global hunger. More frequent and formidabledroughts and ooding will interfere with planting and harvestingcycles and, in some cases, wipe out crops altogether. Thecompromised availability of foods will drive up prices, resultingin increased food insecurity. But the focus of the article alsoconrmed what a few of us true agriculture geeks had suspected.

The steady rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will wreaksilent havoc on the nutritional quality of our foods. By 2050, Myerssaid upon publication of the article, a big chunk of the worldscaloric intake will have lost a signicant amount of nutrients likezinc and iron that are very important for human nu trition.

Already, some 2 billion people suffer from vitamin and mineraldeciencies. The results run the gamut from shattered immunesystems to physically and developmentally stunted children andhigher numbers of women dying during childbirth. Malnutrition, infact, is the lead underlying cause of the global burden of disease.

And yet, somewhere along the line, we lost the connectionbetween our food and our health. Despite the sensibility thatthe agriculture and nutrition sectors must work together, thepractitioners of those two camps scarcely wave at one another

as they pass on opposite sides of the street. In the face of anincreasingly erratic climate, linking improved agriculture to betterhuman nutrition is a vital task. But it is not an easy one.

In September, I had a conversation with someone at the helm ofa prominent international agricultural development organization.

I have at my disposal thousands of agricultural professionals,

he told me, and enough money to have an impact. Tell me whatagriculturalists need to grow for an optimal diet, and we will do it.

I have worked at the nexus of agriculture and nutrition for nearlytwo decades, but I will confess to you that I did not have an answer.

It depends, was the best I could offer.

Most nutritionists are trained under the sort of medical model thatholds randomized controlled trials like those for pharmacologicalproducts as the denitive proof of concept. But in nutrition, itsnot just trial methodology that matters; the subjects do, too.Hence, it depends.

The nutritionist knows that a body requires a multitude of nutrients,

some more intensively at various stages of the life cycle. Iron isimportant throughout life, but it is particularly critical during therst 1,000 days (the time from conception until a child turns two),as well as during pregnancy and childbirth. Vitamin A is importantfor immunity and eye health always. Selenium is more essentialfor mens health than it is for womens. Vitamin D, while alwaysimportant, becomes even more so as one ages, as old skin isless efcient at processing sunlight. Further, in an optimal diet,the non-nutrient and nutrient components of food are delicatelybalanced and regulate themselves. Absorption of iron from cerealsor vegetables, for example, likely is inhibited by the caffeine in

In the spring of this year, Dr. Samuel Myers and colleaguesat the Harvard School of Public Health published an articlein Nature suggesting something that many of us had

feared for some time.

Malnutrition is theleading cause of the global

burden of disease

Cultivating Nutritious Food Systems:A Snapshot Report

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coffee and the phytates in pulses and whole grains. Inulin in onionspromotes the same iron absorption as does the citric acid in fruit

juice. In other words, it s complicated. So it all depends.

And yet, its the rare nutritionist who has any idea what it takesto grow a successful crop, much less how agriculture affects thenutritional quality of foods. By the same token, agriculturalists

mostly dont have a clue about the nutritional prole of theirbounty. To complicate matters further, all nutritionists know andhave been shouting for years that food availability is only one partof the equation. A healthy environment and sound caregiving playan equally essential role. If a child lives without clean water and isleft alone so that her parent can go of f to earn a wage, nutritiousfood will never be enough.

But the challenge isnt insurmountable. Initiatives across the worldare bringing agriculture and nutrition together in creative andsuccessful ways. In this document, we pay tribute to many of them.

Just as agriculture moves along a value chainfrom seed toharvest and on to storage, transport, wholesale, retail and,

ultimately, the plateso have we organized our report. We beginby looking at those working with seeds, whether they are breedingnutrients into them through a procedure known as biofortication,upping the efciency of Africas traditional crops using the latest ingenetics, or advocating for increased investment in the importantvegetable-seed industry. Seeds, however, can be only as effectiveas the soil they are grown in.

The Green Revolution taught us that fertilizer can play an importantrole in raising productivity. Now we are nding that it can also playa role in human nutrition. By adding micronutrients to the standardnitrogen-phosphorous-potassium recipe, we can deliver morenutrition to the crop, and potentially to the people that eventuallyeat it. It is also through interventions at the soil level that we canaddress the scourge of aatoxin (a naturally occurring toxin

Worldwide, approximately

1.4billion

tons of food is lost after

leaving the farmJust as agriculture moves along a

value chainfrom seed to harvest andon to storage, transport, wholesale,retail and, ultimately, the plateso

have we organized our report

02 | 03

Introduction Post-Harvest Loss Innovating with the Private Sector Policy

Seeds Post-Harvest Enrichment Working through Public Institutions Measuring Impact

Soil Shaping Markets Consumer Behavior Change Conclusion


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produced by a fungi, and a known carcinogen), thereby puttinga dent in the stunting that has been shown to result from it.

Beyond the eld, post-harvest loss is arguably the area ofthe value chain where nutrition-oriented agriculture shouldconcentrate its energies. Worldwide, approximately 1.4 billion tonsof food is lost after leaving the farm. Unlike in the developed world,

where most of this loss occurs at the retail level or in the home,loss in the developing world happens every step of the wayaresult, mainly, of the lack of in frastructure. Here we explore thelatter and capture lessons from the transport and cold-storageindustries working to bring perishable and nutritious foods tothose living in both rural areas and the rapidly expanding citiesof the developing world. We see innovations in packaging andprocessing that prolong shelf life, and in package sizes geared tolow-income consumers who lack refrigeration.

While we work to reduce food waste at the post-harvest stage, wecan also improve the nutritional value at this point. Diversity, ofcourse, is among the key components of a healthful diet; however,it is directly linked to income. Those at the bottom of the pyramid

tend not to have the means to purchase from the food groupscontaining essential vitamins and minerals. Upwards of 80 percentof the diet among the poor is composed of starchy staples thaton their own simply dont have the complements of nutrients thebody needs. Food fortication, whether of whole grains, wheatour, vegetable oil or milk, has been shown to be among the mostcost-effective nutrition interventions. We look at various establishedprograms striving to take such initiatives to scale. In addition, wevisit a formative research program in Bangladesh that is looking tofortify rice by modications made during the milling process.

Once the food has been processed and reached the level ofwholesalers and retailers, its all about reliabilityof both product

and market. We consider some of the ways entrepreneurs aroundthe world are shaping markets and, too, some of the innovationshappening in the nancial world to enable these business ownersto get their nutritious products to a larger public.

Public institutions can play a dual role, both helping to bringbetter nutrition to their citizens while also helping to ensure markets

for farmers and food suppliers. More than 300 million childrenenjoy a meal at school every day, making these educationalinstitutions ideal delivery points for better nutrition. The ultra-pooralso are served by government and public-feeding programsin hospitals and other institutions. And yet, no one knows the insand outs of effective food delivery like the private sector. Flushwith resources, private enterpriseeverything from multinational

Upwards of

80%of the diet among the poor

is composed ofnutrient-decient starchy staples

Objective: Leveraging agriculture to improve the affordability, accessibility and consumption of nutrient-dense diverse foods along the value chain

Inputs

into FoodProduction

FoodProduction

FoodStorage

and HomeProcessing

Industrial

FoodProcessing

Distribution,

Transport &Trade

FoodRetailing,

Marketing &Promotion

Food

Preparation& Catering

The agriculture supply chain


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corporations to national companies to small businesseshasproven (for better and worse) that it can shape demand when itcomes to eating habits. Why not channel that knowledge towardimproving nutrition at scale? We speak with industry players aboutwhat it takes to effectively channel private-sector insights, and weconsider how to encourage more in the private sector to makethese changes to benet both bottom lines as well as reputations.

The food system, it is said, is broken. But in fact the food systemis performing just as we have designed it to; we simply forgotto frame it as the front line supplier of health. Happily, this isbeginning to change. In June 2013, the prestigious medical journalThe Lancet dedicated an entire issue to the topic of maternal andchild nutrition. Not only did it cite the latest trends in under- andover-nutrition in middle and low-income countries, but it wentout of its way to emphasize those interventions to which nutritionis particularly sensitive, including agriculture. Over the last year,that June issue has helped to galvanize the nutritional communityaround the importance of agriculture.

Such evidence-based research is necessary to drive momentum

and policy that prioritizes nutrition. Among those making adifference at the policy level is U.S. President Barack Obama,whose Feed the Future initiative insists that agriculturaldevelopment investments also have nutritional outcomes. On theother side of the globe, the Comprehensive African AgriculturalProgram mandates that an entire pillar of investment be dedicatedto alleviating hunger and food insecurity, in part by improvingnutrition. The UNs Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement puts greatweight on nutrition-sensitive interventions. Perhaps most inspiringare those national leaders of developing countries who putforward agricultural initiatives aimed at improving the nutrition oftheir citizens, as we see in Nigeria, home to one in ve Africans.

In this report, we focus not on where, in summaries and frameworkdiscussions, we would like to go, but rather on what we are ndingon the ground. We see agriculture paying attention to nutrition,and nutrition tackling the need to place food rst. We see bothsectors working out methods for measuring success. These are thepeople on the front lines, representing some of the most innovativeapproaches to reconnecting nutrition and agriculture. I hope

their stories will enlighten, and inspire, and that they will enrichyour understanding of the complexity of building a nutritious andsustainable food system. You will see that more solutions need tobe extracted, more interventions supported. These investmentswill depend on the will of agriculture, health and other supportingsectors to continue the conversation and stay connected.Complex, yesbut as we see here, not at all impossible.

These investments will depend on thewill of agriculture, health and

other supporting sectors to continuethe conversation and stay connected

04 | 05





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Framework for actionto achieve optimumfetal and child nutritionand development

Benets Duringthe Life Course

Nutrition specicinterventions andprogrammes

Adolescent health andpreconception nutrition

Maternal dietarysupplementation

Micronutrient supplementationor fortication

Breastfeeding andcomplementary feeding

Dietary supplementation forchildren

Dietary diversication

Feeding behaviors andstimulation

Treatment of severe acutemalnutrition

Disease prevention andmanagement

Nutrition interventions inemergencies

In June of 2013, The Lancet released a follow-up report to its 2008 seriesof papers on maternal and child undernutrition. In the report, theauthors reafrmed the fundamental role that nutrition plays in determininga persons life outcomes, including her physical growth and development,her education, her income, and her overall health. Both agricultureand dietary diversity were specically called out as necessary to achievingoptimum nutrition. The drawing of this clear line from crops to humanhealth only underscores the continuing need to link the agriculture andnutrition sectors moving forward.


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Morbidity andmortality inchildhood

Optimum fetal and child nutrit ion and development

Knowledge and evidence

Politics and governanceLeadership, capacity, and nancial resources

Social, economic, political, and environmental context (national and global)

Nutrition sensitiveprogrammes and approaches

Agriculture and food security

Social safety nets Early child development Maternal mental health Womens empowerment Child protection Classroom education Water and sanitation Health and family planning

services

Building an enablingenvironment

Rigorous evaluations Advocacy strategies Horizontal and vertical

coordination Accountability, incentives

regulation, legislation Leadership programmes Capacity investments Domestic resource mobilisation

Feedingand caregiving

practices,

parenting,stimulation

Breastfeeding,nutrient-rich

foods, andeating routine

Low burdenof infectious

diseases

Feeding andcaregivingresources(maternal,household,

and communitylevels)

Food security,including

availability,economic access,

and use of food

Access to anduse of health

services, a safeand hygienicenvironment

Cognitive, motor,socioemotionaldevelopment

Schoolperformance andlearning capacity

Workcapacity andproductivity

Adult stature

Obesity and

noncommunicablediseases

Source: The Lancet , Maternal and ChildNutrition, 2013.

06 | 0706 | 07





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The beginning of the value chain offers three ways to improve the nutritionalquality of diets: (1) breeding new nutrients directly into seeds (biofortifying);(2) preserving and amplifying the nutrients that exist when breeding new seedvarieties; and (3) investing in the development and dissemination of seeds

that have always possessed high nutrient content, such as small grains, pulses andhorticultural crops. Too often, however, vegetable seeds get short shrift. Governmentpolicies concentrate almost exclusively on staple crops, with vegetables an ancillaryconcern, at best. Exacerbating the problem is that smallholder farmers are resistantto adopt improved vegetable seeds, having come to rely on their own saved seeds or

on the trusted, if outdated, ones they acquire within their networks.

Seeds1


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African Orphan

Crops ConsortiumAfrica

The World Vegetable Center

At the wholesale market in Arusha,Tanzania, its all about tomatoes.Everywhere you look, there arestacks of wooden crates piled high withthe crimson orbs, ready to be packedonto trucks and driven off to the capital,Dar es Salaam, for distribution throughoutthe region.

The thriving tomato trade is among the mostvisible success stories of AVRDC, or the WorldVegetable Center, the main Africa ofceof which is located just a few miles away.Founded in Taiwan in 1971as the AsianVegetable Research and DevelopmentCenterthe international nonprot aims toincrease yields of vegetables for farmersin the developing world. Rather than focuson the supreme staple, AVRDC respectsthe vegetable. With some 60,000 lines,its Taiwan facility is home to the largestvegetable seed bank in the world.

In the late 1990s, explained ThomasDubois, AVRDCs Regional Director forEastern and Southern Africa, who oversees

the Arusha ofce, the organizationreleased two improved tomato varieties,Tengeru 97 and Tanya. (With nearly2,500 accessions, the Arusha centeris the largest vegetable seed bank insub-Saharan Africa.) AVRDC had bredthe vegetables for improved pest anddisease tolerance, a thicker skin (to reducetransport damage), and a longer shelflife. Since 1997, tomato production inthe region has increased by 40 percent,and today more than 90 percent of thetomato elds in the country are plantedwith the two varieties. All the tomatoes

Tanzania

Tomato production in theregion has increased by

40%

As the chief agricultural ofcer forMars, Incorporated, Howard YanaShapiro has traveled all over thedeveloping world to source cacao,peanuts and other ingredients forthe companys M&Ms, Snickers bars,Skittles and other products. But itwasnt until 2010, while attending alecture at the University of California,Davis, where the 67-year-old holds

a senior fellowship in plant sciences, that he learned about the conditionknown as stunting. Such underdevelopment of the body results from a lack ofessential nutrients early on in life and impacts nearly one-third of the childrenin the developing world. The ramications, which are largely irreversible, oftenaccompany other micronutrient-malnutrition symptoms including anemia,shattered immune systems, and impaired cognitive function. In both 1990 and2010, malnutrition and suboptimal breastfeeding were the number one riskfactor for children ages 4 and below. For children between the ages of 5 and 9,iron deciency was number one. The condition also takes a serious economictoll: A 2013 report by the African Union found that undernutrition, or hiddenhunger, can cost African nations up to 16.5 percent of their annual grossdomestic product.

A plant breeder by training, Shapiro

came up with the idea to combatstunting by improving the nutritionalcontent of crops readily availableto rural populations. In 2012, heand several partners, among themthe African Union, established theAfrican Orphan Crops Consortium,aimed at ne-tuning 100 indigenousplantscrops like amaranth, teff,nger millets and cocoa yam, knowncollectively as orphan cropsbecause of the way theyve beenoverlooked by mainstream breedingprogramsto increase their vitamin

and micronutrient content.

Earlier this year, the consortium cut the ribbon on a state-of-the-art plant-breeding academy in Nairobi, where 100 breeders from across the continentarrived to begin work on their chosen plants. The plan is to decode the genomesof each fruit, vegetable and nut in order to identify and locate those genes orsets of genes that correspond to the desired agronomic and nutritional traits.Molecular markers will be used to track the traits in successive generations ofthe crops, which, once optimized, will be adapted to local environments anddistributed on a large scale to farmers. Shapiro envisions an anti-stunting effortthat is ongoing and globalfacilitated by the fact that the genetic informationfrom the project will be made available online, at no cost, to anybody whoagrees not to patent it.

Stuntingimpacts nearly

1/3of the children

in the developing world

Stunting impacts nearly

1/3 of the children in the

developing world.

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you see here, said Dubois, with a fewexceptions, are Tengeru 97 and Tanya.Major companies have commercializedthe varieties, and they are now popular all

over East Africa. (See page 18.)

But AVRDC is also in evidence at thelocal market, where women sit by atbaskets of spider plant, amaranth, Africannightshade and other indigenousvegetables. Long ignored by mainstreamagriculture, these plants are a rich sourceof protein, calcium and micronutrients,and they have the advantage of beinghardy and drought-tolerant. In addition,their growing cycles are shorter thanthose of such staple crops as maize andrice. Over the last 15 years, an increased

awareness of the nutritional and otherbenets of these vegetables has resulted ingrowing demand for high-quality varietiesof them. AVRDC oversaw the selectionof four improved lines of amaranth, forexample, with softer, sweeter leaves. Theplants, which can be harvested in as

few as 21 days and which cook quickly(reducing both labor time and fuelconsumption), are now grown by small-scale farmers throughout the region.

African eggplant, too, once derided asfood for the poor, has become a marketstaple. Wandering the stalls, visitors passmound after mound of the small, white-skinned DB3 variety released a few yearsago through AVRDC by the TanzanianHorticultural Research Institute (HORTI-Tengeru) and popularized throughdemonstration plots and agricultural fairs.These sweet, ovoid vegetables can beharvested every week for seven monthsand produced for up to 15 months, cuttingacross the hunger season, when nutritiouscrops are often not available.

Once it has successfully bred vegetableswith the desired agronomic attributes,AVRDC oversees the production of high-quality breeder seeds, which eventuallyare passed on to the Agricultural SeedAgency (ASA) of Tanzania, for bulking up.National governments can access andofcially release the seeds, and private

companies can buy the bulked-up seedand grow it out for sale. There are wholevillages around Arusha, Dubois said, wherefarmers grow tomatoes, amaranth andAfrican nightshade not to eat but to sell tothe regions many seed companies.

Back at the AVRDC, Dubois led somevisitors down freshly painted halls to thechilly seed-preparation room, where metalshelves stand packed, oor to ceiling, withyellow and green plastic crates holdingplastic bags of seeds. Laminated signsfeature photos of both plant and seeds.

Dubois handed us some small yellowpackets labeled Healthy Diet GardeningKit. The organization collaborates withNGOs and other partners to disseminateits packets in disaster-relief and post-conict situations, including in refugeecamps. Thats the beautiful thing aboutvegetables, Dubois said. You can growthem anywhere. You can grow themin your backyard, even on your terrace.Recipients are trained in planting,harvesting and cooking the vegetables;each packet enables a family of eight tohave nutrition year-round. A new program,

Vegetables Go to School, currentlyunder implementation in six countries,employs the seed kits to promote schoolgardens and educate children about theimportance of eating vegetables.

Next, Dubois led the way into agreenhouseclosing the rst screendoor before opening the second, to keepthe insects outwhere scores of trays ofAfrican nightshade crammed the longtables. The formerly overlooked vegetableis increasingly in demand for its highbeta-carotene content. Women in tall

rubber boots transferred wispy spider-plant seedlings into little plastic pots fortransplanting to the centers adjacenteight-hectare farm. The center involves

growers in every step of its research,Dubois said, from breeding to marketing.The knowledge of the farmers is very rich,so we have to exploit it. Where we may seethe yield alone, they see the taste.

These are the rst grafted tomatoes inTanzania, Dubois said, pointing to a rowof white plastic containers lined up on theperiphery of the greenhouse. The centeris working on grafting tomato plants on toeggplant rootstock, which is resistant tothe pests, diseases and drought that tendto rot the tomato root at cer tain periods of

the year. Successful grafting should allowfarmers in Africa to grow them even in theoff-season. (Where AVRDC introduced thesame grafting in Thailand and Vietnam,the adoption rate reached 100 percent in

just a few years.)

Out in the eld, Dubois, a bioengineerfrom Belgium with a penchant forfunky eyewear, pointed to the Africaneggplantboth the smaller orange varietyused for seed production, and the whiteDB3s now in vogue among the regionsfarmers. The visitors walked past cowpeas

drying on a tarp in the sun and into acement-processing building where threewomen cleaned seeds for grain and leafamaranth. Over the last decade, thehigh-protein grain has made huge inroadsin neighboring Kenya, where womenroutinely mix it with maize our for morenutritious porridges, chapattis and bakedgoods. (Though a facility on the campusfeatures state-of-the-art PCR machinesand other equipment for nutritionalassessment, most of that work currently isdone in the Taiwan ofce. Dubois hopes tochange that in the future.)

But seed production and dispersal are just one part of the picture. AVRDC alsofocuses on what happens af ter vegetablesare pulled from the eld, in part throughits Post-Harvest Training and ServicesCenter (PTSC). Dubois demonstrated afew of the cooling systems on display,including a low-tech version incorporatingsand and two layers of bricks, and anylon-tent-looking model known as theWakati 1 that was recently introducedby a young Belgian entrepreneur. Drivenby solar power, the low-cost contraption

Over the last 15 years,an increased

awareness of the

nutritional and otherbenets of thesevegetables has resulted

in growing demandfor high-quality

varieties of them


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signicantly extends the life of vegetables,enabling growers to maximize their prots.Every couple of weeks, the PTSC convenesfarmers and others for training sessions on

cooling, preserving, processing, cooking,transporting and packaging vegetables.Staff nutritionist Roseline Marealledemonstrated a range of harvesting andpreserving implements and directed ourattention to the range of value-addedproducts on display, from mango chutney,hibiscus jam, and tomato paste to carrotand amaranth powders and dried Africaneggplant. The center also sells and rents

packaging supplies, insulated coolboxes, cleaning supplies and otherpost-harvest tools.

The challenge now, said Dubois, is tobetter measure the nutritional andeconomic impact that AVRDCs vegetablesare having on families in the regionand beyond. Getting the numbers is verydifcult, he said, particularly when itcomes to private seed companies. Butwe are nonprot and for the public good.So as long as we know they are out the re,we are happy.

The challenge nowis to better measure

the nutritional andeconomic impact that

AVRDCs vegetables arehaving on families in

the region and beyond

Back in the early 1990s, when Howarth Bouis came up withthe idea of breeding micronutrients directly into crops, peopletold him he was crazy. How could plant breeders possiblystart worrying about micronutrients when there were stillmyriad issues involving yield and pest and disease resistanceto addressnot to mention a changing climate? Bouis, anagricultural economist, was concerned about the conditionknown as hidden hunger, which results from a lack ofessential vitamins and minerals in the diet and can leavechildren blind, permanently lower their IQs, and make them

targets for long-term illnesses and early death. In particular,he was frustrated by the ongoing cost, and the access issues,involved in traditional nutrition-supplementation programs. If

you could breed micronutrientsdirectly into the staplesupon which impoverishedpopulations rely, Bouis,maintained, youd have apermanentand an ultimatelyfar less expensivesolution.

Fast-forward two decades,and HarvestPlus, the nonprotthat Bouis founded in 2003,has seen the release of its

biofortied crops acrossthe globe. Three years ago,the Nigerian governmentapproved the disseminationof HarvestPluss high-vitamin-Acassava, and the Democratic

Republic of Congo (DRC) followed suit a year later. 2012 sawthe release of high-vitamin-A maize in Zambia and of high-iron beans in Rwanda and the DRC. The beans also are beingdisseminated in Uganda, along with high-vitamin-A sweetpotatoes. In India, farmers are cultivating high-iron pearl

millet and high-zinc wheat, and Bangladeshi growers recentlybegan planting high-zinc rice. (All of the HarvestPlus crops arebred conventionally, though the organization is looking intothe potential of genetic modication.) In total, some 1.5 millionhouseholds worldwide have received the seeds, stems orvines of biofortied crops.

The challenge now is how to scale up those successes. Oncethe enriched seeds have been approved for release, it cantake several seasons of multiplication to achieve the volumes

necessary to meet farmer demand. Delivery, too, can getcomplicated. In Zambia, for instance, where the populationhas long eaten white maizeThey regard yellow maize asfood aid, said Bouistheres been some resistance to thehigh-vitamin-A maize, whose kernels are a dramatic orange.

When we give people information, Bouis said, and tell themthat, for the same price as white maize, they can protect theirfamilies from vitamin-A deciency, they adopt the crop readily.

The issues arent just cultural. There is also a challenge inbuilding demand among consumers. Because higherlevelsof minerals such as iron or zinc are not visually apparent,consumers have no way to identify them in the market. Oneway around the obstacle would be for governments to stepin and prioritize biofortied crops, either by subsidizing themor by mandating that all staple crops developed in nationalprograms be bred for nutrition in addition to yield. Ofcialsare well-disposed to the idea, said Bouis, but achievingthe volumes required to implement such policies is severalyears away.

I thought the governments would be skeptical, said Bouis.While the HarvestPlus strategy initially was to work on a singlecrop per country at a time, some leaders are clamoring formore. In Rwanda, theyre saying, Why dont you bring themaize? What about your work on the potato?

householdsworldwide have

received theseeds, stemsor vines

of biofortiedcrops

million1.5

GlobalBiofortication

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When it comes to nutrition, plants are a lot like humans: Both require goodnutrition for long-term health. It turns out that adding fertilizer to farmers eldscan directly inuence the nutritional density of the foods grown there. Alsolike humans, plants require micronutrients in smaller quantities than they do

primary ones. Given the right conditions, those essential nutrients will settle in the edibleportion of the crop and eventually make their way to the consumer. A team of public-sector scientists is working with private industry at the front of the value chain to improvenutrition through zinc-fortied fertilizers in Turkey. (Worldwide, zinc deciency is responsiblefor the deaths of some 450,000 children every year.) At the same time, the quality of soil

can have a negative impact on the crops grown in it. In Nigeria, scientists are working onminimizing the impact of soil-borne contaminants with an aim to improving human health.

Soil2


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Soon after, the Turkish fertilizer gant Toros-Agri began to add zinc to its traditional(nitrogen-potassium-phosphate) fertilizers.We did not know anything about humanzinc deciency in Turkey or anywhere in

the world, said Esim Mete, CEO of Toros-Agri, in the 20th-oor conference room ofthe glassy Istanbul high-rise that housesthe company. (In fact, more soils worldwidelack zinc than any other micronutrient, andzinc deciency is responsible for the deaths

of some 450,000 children a year.) Toros-Agri proceeded to produce 2,300 tons ofenhanced fertilizer. The company recruitedfarmers from across the country to test iton small patches of their land. If the newfertilizer could drive yields, Mete gured,

Experimenting with Fortied Fertilizers

In the early 1990s, it became apparentthat wheat farmers in Turkeys centralAnatolia region were not only among thenations poorest but also among its mostundernourished. In particular, they sufferedfrom severe deciencies of zinc. When IsmailCakmak, a plant nutritionist and physiologistat Istanbuls Sabanci University, beganlooking into the problem, he discoveredthat the soil itself was lacking in the vitalmicronutrient. And the compromisedgrowing environment meant that wheat and

barley yielded up to 60 percent less thanwheat and barley crops in other regions.

In a series of experiments, Cakmak andsome collaborators at the Ministry ofAgriculture began adding zinc and othermicronutrients directly to the soil. Theyfound that, on average, the yields ofthose crops that had been treated withthe zinc-enhanced inputs shot up by asmuch as 55 percent in regions where soilzinc deciency is severe. Applying suchmicronutrients as iron, manganese, copperand boron, by contrast, had little effect at all.

The yields of thosecrops that had been

treated with thezinc-enhanced inputsshot up by as much as

55%

while also improving the nutrient densityof the grain, they would have a win-winsituation. Farmers would be drawn to theinput, and better public health could goalong for the ride.

When it came time to harvest the crops,Mete and her colleagues were astonishedby what they saw. The result was like dayand night, she recalled. While one waslooking like a bleak eld, the other wasgreen, and the plant had already grown20 or 30 centimeters. The outcome wasconsistent across other crops. Mete recalledone farmer who told her that when he pulledup a plant that normally would hold eightpotatoes, he found 15 of the tubers instead.

Cakmak and others eventually convinced

the Turkish government, which at thetime was providing subsidies for differentgrades of fertilizer, to add Toros-Agriszinc-enhanced version to its list. Thoughthe countrys subsidy scheme hasshifted, farmers continue to seek outthe fertilizer due to the boost it givesto yield. Today, Mete said, some30 percent of the companys phosphatecompounds contain added zinc; otherproducers also have begun enhancingwith the micronutrient. Mete estimatedthat Turkey now produces upwards of

Turkey

12 | 13





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to subsidize enhanced inputsthose insub-Saharan Africa, for instance, haveyet to implement the large-scale useof even basic fertilizerspolicy makers

increasingly are aware of the potentialof the intervention. By using zinc, Metesaid, you will prot from not using so manymedicines; people will not be sick andlose working time; they will not occupyhospitals. Cakmak currently is overseeingstudies on the effect of zinc-containingfertilizers on wheat and rice in 15 countries,including China, India, Thailand, SouthAfrica and Brazil. This will certainlyemanate, Mete said. In the meantime,she wonders whether major cereal-exporting countries like the United Statesand Canada might consider fortifying their

fertilizers for the greater human good.

In any case, said Mete, the conversationhas begun to shift. Whereas the dialoguesurrounding fertilizers once focusedexclusively on eradicating hunger (thereis still a blind spot, she conceded),micronutrients increasingly are getting majorplay. This is our main topic as IFIA. We aresaying fertilizers, yes: not only to eradicatehunger, but to combat malnutrition. Weare talking about having more nutritiousfood, rather than having just food.

500,000 tons of zinc-enhanced fertilizersannually35 percent of its total output.

The nal challenge lies in convincing the

consumer. Who will pay for extra nutrientin the grain? Mete asked. This is the onlylimiting factor. Until efcacy studies haveproven the health benets of such cropsand, perhaps more importantly, the publicbecomes aware of themfarmers will wantfor a market thats guaranteed. Toros-Agri,for instance, has considered fortifying itsfertilizers with other micronutrients (namelyselenium and iodine, both of whichare important to human health) but isconcerned that farmers without a captiveconsumer will refrain from buying them.(Especially since, unlike zinc, they dont

promise signicant impacts on yield.) Thisis where governments might again step in,Mete said. Perhaps they could mandatethat national grain boards pay more forcereals grown with enriched fertilizers?She offered the example of Finland, where,unbeknownst to much of the citizenry,the government has, for the last 30 years,paid producers to add selenium to theirfertilizers in the name of public health.

It may take awhile, Mete said, but fortiedfertilizers will eventually become the norm.

This is still a new idea, and everybodys

talking about it. Part of that has to do withMetes own evangelizing. Long a vocalpresence in the International FertilizerIndustry Association (IFIA), she was lastyear named its president, and she hastaken advantage of that platform toadvocate for the role that agriculture canplay in public health. The governmentsof India and China are in conversationswith producers in those countries aboutenhanced fertilizers, she said, as are someof the states located in a zinc-decientbelt that runs across Latin America. Whilenot every nation may be in a position

Fertilizers not onlycan help to eradicate

hunger, they cancombat malnutrition.

We are talkingabout having more

nutritious food, ratherthan having just food

Zinc Deciency Among Children Under Age 5, By Region

Region Prevalence(%) Deaths(000) DALYs lost(000)

East Asia & Pacic 7 15 1,004

East Europe & Central Asia 10 4 149

Latin America & Caribbean 33 15 587

Middle East & North Africa 46 94 3,290

South Asia 79 252 8,510

Sub-Saharan Africa 50 400 14,094

High Income Countries 5 0 2

Source: Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries , 2nd edition, 2006, Tables 28.1, 28.2, and 28.3.


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In the 1960s and 70s, Nigeria was known throughout the world for its groundnutpyramids, massive triangular structures created from sacks of the peanuts, ofwhich the West African country was the worlds largest producer. Exports of thenuts plummeted from 502,000 metric tons in 1961 to zero in 1980. The discoveryof crude oil in the populous country had something to do with the falloff, butRanajit Bandyopadhyay, a senior plant pathologist at the International Instituteof Tropical Agriculture (IITA), in Ibadan, Nigeria, points to another cause.

In the late 1960s, it was established that aatoxins, dangerous contaminantsproduced by the fungus Aspergillus avus and which infect peanuts, maizeand other crops, are potent human carcinogens. Where aatoxin is present

in high concentrations, the link to poor nutrition is evident. Growth is impaired(a study in Benin and Togo found that blood aatoxin levels were 30 to40 percent higher in stunted children), and the immune system is suppressed.Children exposed to high levels of aatoxins also experience delays incognitive development, underachieve in school, and exhibit a higherprobability of chronic diseases (cancer, heart disease) into adulthood. Oncethe contaminants deleterious impacts became apparent, importing countriesbegan imposing stricter regulations on aatoxins, with the European Union,for example, eventually setting a standard of four parts per billion (ppb) inprocessed foods, a level that Nigeria and many other sub-Saharan countrieswere unable to meet. The export market for peanuts collapsed, and farmersturned their attention to other crops.

Aatoxin presents an enormous food-safety and nutrition challenge,

exacerbated by the fact that the contaminant tends to take hold in thosefoodspeanut-based nutritional supplements, for instance, and fortiedcorn-soy porridgesroutinely promoted by the nutrition community.Bandyopadhyay has been working on the aatoxin problem since 1983.By 2009, he and his colleagues, together with collaborators from the U.S.Department of Agriculture, had gured out that, by screening thousandsof strains of Aspergillus avus, they were able to locate some that did notproduce the toxin. Once they had identied non-toxin-producing strains,they formulated those into a product that they put on dead sorghum grain.When farmers spread the grains on their elds a few weeks before owering,the good fungus began to grow, its spores dispersing and occupying the soiland displacing the toxin-producing strains in the process. The bio-controlproduct, now trademarked as Aasafe , generally results in an 80 to 90 percentreduction in aatoxin. So widespread has Aasafe use become in Nigeria

that Bandyopadhyay and his colleagues eventually oversaw the construction(with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) of an Aasafemanufacturing facility on the campus of IITA.

Earlier this year, the African Union established an initiative called the Partnershipfor Aatoxin Control in Africa, and Bandyopadhyay and his colleagues currentlyare working with a dozen sub-Saharan countries to scale up productionof localized strains of Aasafe. Kenya and Senegal both have plans to buildmanufacturing facilities in 2015. Pyramids shouldnt be far behind.

Aasafe

The bio-controlproduct, now

trademarked asAasafe, generally

results in an

reduction

to

80%90%

in aatoxin

Nigeria

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In the 1960s, the Swedish company Tetra Pak developed atype of aseptic packaging that made it possible to store andtransport milk and other sensitive foods at room temperaturewithout preservatives for up to 12 months. The technologyopened up new possibilities, in particular for developingcountries, where a lack of cooling facilities and transportationinfrastructure had long limited the consumption of dairyand other nutritious but perishable foods. Since 1962, whenit began working in Mexico on a school-meal program, thecompany, now known as the Tetra Laval Group, has beencollaborating with governments and local dairy processors

around the world to establish and administer school -mealprograms featuring milk. In addition to improving nutritionfor studentsmilk contains calcium, magnesium, selenium,riboavin and vitamin B12the programs serve as catalystsfor developing local dairy- farm sectors.

When it goes into a new country, explained Ulla Holm, theGlobal Director of the Tetra Laval Food for Development Ofce,the company generally approaches its ministers of Agriculture,Health, and Education rst. Working with the governmentand with local processors, it helps to set up dairy hubs, orcollection stations, outtted with cooling tanks. At the sametime, it assists in putting school-feeding programs in place, sothat it can guarantee the processorswho must invest their

own money for equipmenta market for all of the milk theyprocess. Tetra Laval gives discounts on packaging material tolocal processors, and the processors add additional discountsso that the milk is affordable for schools. (Of course, theres thequestion of what happens when Tetra Laval no longer wants toabsorb the cost of its high-tech packaging for the program.)

The dairy processors, with the help of Tetra Laval, providetraining to their member farmers, who may have as fewas two cows. (The hubs generally consist of some 2,000farmers overseeing some 10,000 cows.) Implementing proper

feeding, watering and hygiene practices can increasemilk output signicantly, thereby improving farmer incomeswhile also ensuring the safety of the product for consumers.(In Bangladesh, where Tetra Laval has been working withlocal food processor Pran on a dairy -hub program since2008, farmers milk production increased from 50,000 litersto 495,000 liters in just six months. Over two years, farmersinvolved in the program have increased their incomes120 percent.) Without a hub system in place, farmers may beobliged to spend time traveling to and from markets to selltheir milk, and they may be dependent on middlemen, who

may offer unfair prices, fail to show up or adulterate the milk.Engaging in a formal arrangement with a local processoroften enables milk farmers to move from a subsistence levelto full-time dairy production.

Tetra Lavals aseptic packing has been called the mostimportant food-packaging innovation of the 21st century.Today, the innovation offers hope for improving diets in theswelling urban centers of the developing world. At the sametime, it broadens the possibility for smallholder dairy farmersto nd a market for their delicate products.

The Global Cold Chain Alliance

Nikki Duncan, the director of InternationalPrograms for the Alexandria, Virginiabased Global Cold Chain Alliance(GCCA), spends her days guring outhow to stem food waste. A graduate ofGeorgetowns School of Foreign Service

with a masters degree from the JohnsHopkins School of Advanced InternationalStudies, Duncan has long moved ininternational circles. Which puts her in anideal position for pairing the GCCAaprivate-sector organization representingthe refrigeration, transportation andstorage industrieswith developmentorganizations to strengthen the cold-chain infrastructure in countries where itis wanting. The GCCA partners with theWorld Food Logistics Organization (WFLO)to provide advisory services to government

agencies, NGOs and others, and withhelp from its global network of experts, itconducts cold-chain and food-systemsassessments and research; producestraining programs; and helps implementlarge-scale agricultural projects on theground. Over the past 15 years, GCCAhas worked with USAID, the USDA, the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation, and the WorldBank, among others, to fortify the cold-chainand thereby enhance nutritioninregions where refrigeration is a challenge.

Global

GlobalAseptic Packaging

Implementing proper feeding,watering and hygiene practices

can increase milk outputsignicantly, thereby improving

farmer incomes whilealso ensuring the safety of the

product for consumers

16 | 1





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Most of the food loss in the developingworld takes place at the front end of thevalue chain, a result of nancial andtechnological constraints generally owingto the absence of functional storage and

cooling facilities. Because this stage also iskey to maintaining nutrients, strengtheningit improves health as well as economicoutcomes. The challenge is that theelectricity or diesel required for coolingoften is too costly or simply unavailable.In sub-Saharan Africa, 70 percent of thepopulation lives off the grid, while in India,some 350 million people lack access toelectricity. The Institution for MechanicalEngineers in the UK estimates that if thoseregions were to adopt the same levelof refrigeration as that of developedeconomies, fully one quarter of the total

food wasted could be eliminated.

While establishing a continuous chain oftemperature-controlled environments fromthe point of harvest to the marketplace is,for many communities, out of the question,there are numerous low-tech xes that canll the breach. Duncan offers the exampleof the Zero-Energy Cooling Chamber.Cheap and easy to build using just adobebricks, sand and water, this sandbox-size contraption produces evaporativecooling chambers that can reduce the

Over the past several years, residents of Tanzania have become well-acquaintedwith the REDGOLD brand: its shiny crimson and yellow label can be found onsauces and pastes, chutneys and jams. The agship line of Darsh Industries,REDGOLD, founded 15 years ago by a gemstone dealer named Bhadresh Pandit,has had a transformative impact on the local economy. Whereas the lack of aready market once meant that area tomato farmers lost much of their harvest towaste, Darsh today guarantees some 500 growers a buyer for all that they produce.Those nutritious tomatoesdeveloped with the help of the Asian VegetableResearch and Development Center (see page 9)turn up in various forms at theregions markets. Darsh provides its partner growers with technical training andplastic crates, which cut down dramatically on spoilage during transport.

In mid-June, with tomato season just under way, the companys productionfacilities on the outskirts of Arusha were in full swing. Women in rubber boots andgreen smocks washed bottles and afxed labels to jars, while men monitoredgiant metal vats bubbling with red liquid. Farmers were using a very crudemethod to get the seeds, explained managing director Pandit, as he led a visitoraround the factory oor. They were stomping with their feet. We said, Bring it tous, and well process it in a hygienic way. Today Darsh separates the seeds andskin from the pulp and returns the rst two directly to growers, who have doubledtheir incomes by selling the cleaned seeds to the regions many seed companies.(They repurpose the skins into fertilizer.)

Last year, Darsh Industries sourced 4,500 metric tons of tomatoes from the Arusharegion; its goal is to raise that gure to 10,000. This October, Darsh, which employs300 at its Arusha facility, will open a second plant, in southern Tanzania, whereit hopes to expand its network of contract farmers to 5,000making that muchmore nutritious fruit available year-round while saving it from the garbage bin.

Tanzania

In sub-Saharan Africa,

70%of the population livesoff the grid

In India, some

350million

people lack accessto electricity

Tomatoes in Tanzania


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temperature of nutrient-dense vegetablesand fruits by 15 to 20 degrees, therebyextending their life by a couple of days.Cold storage enables farmers to preservetheir produce and also means thatnutritious foods like dairy products, meats

and sh can enjoy extended lives.

The CoolBot is another innovation beingadopted by farmers. A small contraptionproduced by a U.S.based company,it works in tandem with a window airconditioner to transform a small shed orroom into a reliable cooler. The device,which sells for about $300, can push thetemperature in the room down about32 degrees. Insulating the structure withhay bales or other materials enhances

efciency even further. A group of onionfarmers in northern Tanzania tested theCoolBot and were extremely pleased withthe results. Instead of selling their onionsright after harvestand when everybodyelse was selling themthe farmers put

theirs in a CoolBotenhanced shed andwaited two months. When they nally didbring them to the market, they made ahandsome premium. Their prots were sohigh, in fact, they were able to pay off theCoolBot in a single season.

The GCCA also provides training on bestpractices for avoiding post-harvest loss. In2008, it collaborated with the WFLO undera grant from the Bill & Melinda GatesFoundation to study post-harvest losses inAfrica and India. After conducting surveysin eight countries, the groups came up

with a list of technologies for reducinglosses and thereby enhancing nutrition.Working with the University of California,Davis, they established a Post-HarvestTraining and Services Center, whichthey opened on the Arusha campus ofthe World Vegetable Center, or AVRDC,in 2012. (See page 9.) The Center offerssuggestions for low-tech methods andtools that can be implemented for little orno money. It also provides training courseson harvesting, transporting, storage,marketing and preservation techniques,and provides shipping services and rents

cooling spaces. Among the simple lessonstaught are the importance of harvestingslightly earlier than usual, thereby gainingsome time to nish ripening post-harvest;placing harvested produce in the shadeto reduce spoilage, and using smooth-

sided plastic bins instead of rough woodencrates to minimize damage duringtransport. At the Center, farmers canpurchase materials for building packingtables, small-scale coolers, and insulatedboxes, cartons and crates.

Duncan says that while not yet provenor brought to scale, there are a fewinteresting cold-chain innovations on thehorizon. RefrigiWear, a company basedin Georgia, produces a small, adaptablebag that would be ideal for last-miledelivery, for instance.

Solar options, too, show great promise,particularly given the climates of Indiaand sub-Saharan Africa. Duncan offersthe example of one company that hasdeveloped small rooms capable of storingone or two pallets using solar power, andof another outt, based in London, thatis looking to utilize liquid nitrogen not justas a power source but also a coolantoffering savings of both fuel consumptionand emissions.

Cold storage enablesfarmers to preservetheir produce andalso means that

nutritious foods likedairy products, meats

and sh can enjoy

extended lives

Food Losses Fruits and Vegetables Consumption Processing

Distribution Post-Harvest

Agriculture

Part of the initial production lost or wasted at different stages ofthe food supply chain for fruits and vegetables in different regions

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%Europe Sub-Saharan

AfricaNorth

America &

Oceania

North Africa,West &

Central Asia

IndustrializedAsia

South &Southeast

Asia

LatinAmerica

Articl e: Global Food Loss and Waste; Chapter: Extent of Food Losses and Waste; Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Rome 2011);Site: http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/mb060e/mb060e02.pdf

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Malnutrition rates in South Asia are among the highest in the world. While providingthe regions population with diverse diets would be the ideal response, costand logistics put such a x out of reach. Augmenting the nutrition of food afterit has left the farm and while it is being processed, however, offers one way to

ameliorate the problem. Large-scale food fortication is a proven, cost-effective interventionthat has been in place throughout the developed world for decades. Such programscould take the people of India and Bangladesh a long way toward better livelihoods andnutritional security. The Indian government does not require that milk be fortied, but a fewcourageous dairies have taken the initiative to do it anyway, in the hopes that fortication

during processing will improve their market, increase their farmers incomes, and reduce thecountrys persistent and pervasive malnutrition. In Bangladesh, the government is exploringa process for fortifying rice just after its left the farmers elds.

Post-Harvest

Enrichment

4


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Fortifying Milk in India

O n the dusty outskirts of Jaipur, awoman in a crimson sari and goldankle bangles prodded a cowalong the road with an eight-foot-long stick.A few yards away, another woman, herblack umbrella held aloft against the glare,strolled with two similar-looking beasts. Herein Rajasthan, Indias largest state, cowsare big business. (India recently became

the worlds largest milk producer.) Afteragriculture, cattle and other livestock are

the most important sources of livelihood,especially for the poor. And amongthe largely vegetarian population, milkand milk products may constitute theonly source of animal protein. High inenergy and lipids, milk contains manyof the nutrients critical for growth anddevelopment, including calcium, vitaminsD and A, potassium, riboavin, and vitamin

B12. The amounts of those nutrients areminimal and depends on how much onedrinks, of course. Still, Indiansparticularlyyoung oneslove their milk. Since theygenerally consume it daily, it is an idealmedium for fortication.

India is estimated to be home to40 percent of the worlds malnourishedchildren, and though the nationalgovernment provided nancial supportfor fortication to dairy cooperativesbeginning in 1989, that support was cutoff a year later. Some states continued the

In India, where micronutrient malnutrition is extremely widespreadtheprevalence of underweight children in the country is among the highest in theworldedible oils are consumed by nearly 90 percent of households. Amplifyingtheir nutritional content, then, makes perfect sense. In fact, mandatory forticationof hydrogenated vegetable oil has been in place in the country since 1953. Butrecent economic growth has resulted in increased consumer demand for otherforms of edible oil. At the same time, the industry has consolidated, so that todaythere are three leading companies and only a handful of other big players. TheNational Edible Oil For tication Project, announced in August 2014, aims to takeadvantage of these shifts in order to broaden fortication across the industry.

The agricultural giant Cargill has been fortifying its India -produced oils (soybean,rapeseed, groundnut and vegetable) with vitamins A, D and E for several years.While more educated, urban populations already will go out of their way to buythe fortied oils, awareness of nutrition in rural areas is still quite low. The partnersin the new initiative, including the Confederation of Indian Industry, the National

Institute of Nutrition and GAIN, thinkthat an even larger market can be builtto fuel voluntary fortication by theindustry. The fortication partnershipwill work at the consumer level tocreate awareness about vitamindeciencies with a social-marketingcampaign, including radio and TVspots. They also will collaborate withlocal doctors, who will spread theword at the grassroots level. Whilemass-produced fortied oils are morelikely to reach high- and middle-income consumers at the outset, theexpectation is that the benets ofthe oils will trickle down to low-incomegroups once fortication becomesthe industry norm.

High in energy andlipids, milk contains

many of the nutrientscritical for growthand development,including calcium,vitamins D and A,

potassium, riboavin,and vitamin B12

India

India

In India, wheremicronutrientmalnutrition is

extremely widespread,edible oils are

consumed by nearly

90%of households

Fortifying Oil

20 | 21


Seeds Post-Harvest Enrichment Working t hrough Pub li c I ns tit ut ions Measu ring Impact



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Bangladeshis like their rice. Even if he goes out at night for pasta,one Dhaka resident explained, he must still eat rice when hereturns home afterward. Without it, his day wouldnt be complete.

Fortunately, the country has made great strides in meeting theever-growing demand for the grain: rice production there hastripled in the last 30 years. (Bangladesh has been self-sufcientin the grain since 2010.) The problem is that, in a country where

malnutrition remains a serious problemnearly half of childrensuffer from some type of micronutrient malnutrition, in particular,zinc deciencies (45 percent of preschool children suffer froma lack of zinc; in the slums, that percentage skyrockets toover 50)most Bangladeshis prefer white polished rice, themicronutrient content of which is close to nil.

Though its located only 52 kilometers from downtown, theBangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) generally takes sometwo hours to reach, on account of the infamous Dhaka trafc.BRRIs well-groomed campus houses all manner of laboratories,cold-storage seed facilities, manual and automated mills,

harvesting machines and other rice-research necessities. Inaddition to focusing on how production will be impacted by achanging climatealready this year, the rainy season seems

to be following a logic all its ownscientists at BRRI are workingon an innovative approach to enriching rice with essentialminerals after harvesting. Dr. Jiban Krishna Biswas, directorgeneral of the institute, explained that his staff already has hadsuccess fortifying the rice with zinc while it soaks just prior tomilling. To date, the fortication trials have been limited to thelaboratory and are exploratory. If the concept proves feasibleon a small scale and is acceptable to millersand if studiesconrm positive health impactsthe program could be rolledout nationwide. BRRI also hopes to explore the addition ofother micronutrients to rice soaking water.

The nal step will be selling the product to the public, whichBiswas believes will not be a problem. In the past few years,

he explained, a series of television campaigns have raisedpublic awareness about such nutritional issues as the need fordiets rich in micronutrients. The village people are concernednow about vitamin A and zinc, he said. Other TV programsurge Bangladeshis to eat native fruits. Our generation isquite concerned about healthy food, said Biswas, who worea mustache and the slightly distracted air of the scientist thathe is. In any case, he said, this is an initiativeand, if needbe, a PR campaignthat merits doing. We are suffering fromhidden hunger. We have to try every approach there is.

BangladeshRice Fortication in Bangladesh

Total milk production and per capita availability in India

l a k h M T

g m

/ d a y

P u n j a

b K e

r a l a

H . P .

T a m i l N

a d u

G u j a r

a t M a

h a .

K a r n a

t a k a

B i h a r

H a r y a

n a M . P . R a

j . A . P

. J &

K W .

B . U . P .

O r i s s

a

180

150

120

90

60

30

0

1000

800

600

400

200

0

Production AvailabilityMilk Production and Consumption in IndiaTotal milk production and per capita availability of milk in major states in India

Report Title: Project on Livestock Industrialization, Trade and Social-Health-Environment Impacts in Developing Countries; Author: Animal Production and Health Division,Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Figure Title: Total milk production and per capita availability of milk in major states in India;Site: http://www.fao.org/wairdo cs/lead/x6170e/x6170e2z.htm


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program, but eventually it was droppedby all. In 2008, a bill advocating thatgovernment mandate milk fortication wasintroduced in Parliament but never passed.

(This despite a 2007 study that found Indianchildren aged 1 to 3 who received a dailysupplement of milk fortied with iron, zinc,selenium, copper, and vitamins A, C andE, for one year had a 15 percent reductionin days with severe illness; an 18 percentreduction in the incidence of diarrhea;and a 26 percent reduction in incidencesof acute lower respiratory illness.) Inrural Rajasthan, some 70 percent of thechildren suffer from a vitamin deciencyof some sort, which is one reason GAINrecently decided to step into that breach.Beginning in early 2013, the organization

launched a collaboration with a handfulof dairies in the state to ensure that milk befortied with vitamins A and D2.

At the Lotus Dairy, located at the endof that dusty road, CEO Naresh KurarGupta walked a visitor from the receptiondock, where raw milk gets hauled off oftrucks in tall aluminum cans, throughthe various processing stages and nallyto the pasteurization room, where thefortifying takes place. Dressed casuallyin sneakers and khakis, and with a bushywhite mustache, the cheerful executive

explained how the dairy manages to workwith some 50,000 farmers, 99 percentof whom are women and most of whomhave fewer than ve animals, to sourcesome 100,000 lite rs of milk every day. Thedairy operates 24 hours, its 100 truckscollecting milk both morning and nightfrom seven regional chilling centers, eachserving a 50-kilometer radius. A mereseven hours from the time the milk arrives,it has been processed and packagedand is ready for distribut ion to the regionsshops and kiosks.

The machinery clanked and whooshedas we walked through the various processrooms, where Guptas staff of 500, dressedin pale-blue smocks, also processedand packaged buffalo milk, lassi, ghee,yogurt and milks avored with pineapple,chocolate, strawberry and cardamom.In the pasteurization room, we duckedunder a maze of metal pipes, and Guptastopped at the six-foot-tall balance tank.He passed around the bottled pre-blendthat GAIN pays to have delivered to thedairy and which gets added at this stageof the process. GAIN works with Indias

Institute of Health Management Research,or IHMR, on a proof-of-concept project,which trains dairy personnel on theproper administration of the pre-blend

to the milk. (To keep costs of the milk low,GAINs grant to IHMR pays the full costfor the forticant, and Lotus charges thesame price that i t did before the milk wasfortied.) Our job starts from the cowitself, Gupta said, explaining that healthycows are key to nutritious milk. To thatend, Lotus organizes training programs inthe villages to school its farmers on bestpractices, and it provides ghee and cat tlefeed (mustard cakes and cotton seed)at subsidized rates. The company assuresits farmers a market for whatever theyproduce, and it makes regular payments

directly into their bank accounts.

A few months after launching its programwith Lotus, GAIN began working with twoother small Rajasthan dairies, Divya AgroFood Products, Ltd, and Kota, and thenwith some of the milk unions that comprisethe massive Rajasthan Co-Operative DairyFederation, or RCDF. (Before openingLotus, Gupta worked for RCDF for 24 years.)By August, all 20 of the RCDFs unionswere processing fortied milk, and thetotal average amount of fortied milkfrom all the participating dairies was

42,800 metric tons. Assuming per capita,per day consumption of 200 milliliters ofmilk (the estimate of the National NutritionMonitoring Bureau), more than 7 millionpeople in Rajasthan now benet fromfortied milk every month.

Because the forticant doesnt changethe milks appearance or smell, it hasbeen easily adopted by consumers, andGupta has no doubt he will continue tond a ready market. People spend moneyon milk. Their rst priority is milk. Proof-of-concept complete, Lotus and the other

dairies have vowed to continue fortifyingeven after GAIN has nished fundingthe initiative, and the state of MadhyaPradesh has reached out to the NGO fortechnical support in launching its ownmilk-fortication program. Other statesare considering similar programs. Guptaestimates that 30 percent of consumersnow are aware of the benets of theadded vitamins in milk, and he believesthat number will only go up, thus makingthe fortifying initiative a good idea forbusiness as well as for public health.

Indian children

aged

1 to 3who received a daily

supplement of milk fortiedwith iron, zinc, selenium,

copper, and vitamins A, Cand E for one year had a

and a

26%reduction

in incidences of acute lowerrespiratory illness

15%reduction

in dayswith severe illness;

an

18%reductionin the incidence

of diarrhea;

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Seeds Post-Harvest Enrichment Working t hrough Pub li c I ns tit ut ions Measu ring Impact



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Too often, the small- scale farmer scratches her living from the land, struggling togrow enough food to earn some income while feeding her family as well. Even in ruralareas, thoughand almost exclusively in urban onesmost of the food that is eatenderives from the marketplace. In the form of kiosks, small grocers, open-air markets,

and individual vendors, a tremendous opportunity exists for not just enabling, but actuallyinuencing the buying decisions that impact familial health. How to set these nutritious-foodengines in motion, though, and ensure they have the tools needed to survive? Part of thechallenge is getting these sellers the nancing they need to get off the ground and grow.

Shaping

Markets

5


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The Marketplace for Nutritious Foods

G rowing up in rural Kenya,Clement Mwangi used to lovedelivering milk fresh from hisfamilys cows to the teachers at his localschool. He oversaw the family animals

through his high school years, and whilehe accepted a job with the countrysministry of education af ter earning adegree in nance, cows were never farfrom his mind. Mwangi also was acutelyaware of the many Kenyans unable toafford the beverage on which hed sohappily been reared. In casting about fora cost-effective way to get fresh milk to thenations less advantaged, he came upwith the idea of a coin-operated machinecapable of dispensing small quantitiesat a time. Milk-on-demand, he thought,could meet the needs of a cash-and

refrigeration-constrained population whileproviding access to a healthy food.Today, at the storefront Maziwa King facilityhe opened two years ago in Nairobi,consumers arrive on foot toting bottles orpitchers and, after depositing a few coins,walk away with nutrient-rich product lessthan a day from its source.

Eric Muraguri has his mothers laying hensto thank for the quality education he hadthe privilege of receiving. The 40-year-oldstudied food science before taking a jobat KenChic, East Africas largest poultry

company, where he noticed that thesecondary chicken parts not t for thewealthy suburbs of Nairobi were beingcollected by poor women in the alleyoutside the slaughterhouse. Muraguri,who holds a masters degree in publichealth, knew the safety of the offals was

questionable and needed to be betterpreserved for the countrys poor, who hadscant access to other healthy proteins.He began collecting the undervalued birdparts and selling them at low margins,and today his four Chicken Choice shops,the rst of which he opened in 2007, drawconsumers eager to carry home theonce-neglected parts.

Mwangi and Muraguri are amongthe handful of African entrepreneurscurrently beneting from the Marketplacefor Nutritious Foods, a program run by

the Geneva-based Global Alliance forImproved Nutrition, or GAIN. The small-grants program offered to entrepreneursis one arm of the Marketplace, a two-year-old initiative currently in operation inKenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, thataims to increase the affordability, diversity

and accessibility of nutritious foods tovulnerable populations. The Marketplaceprovides business-planning and technicalsupport for the scaling-up of innovativeideas, and it brings together net worksof entrepreneurs, investors, growers andinstitutions to address the challengesinvolved in the production and deliveryof such foods.

In a busy area on the outskirts of Nairobisnotorious Kibera slum, a 27-year-oldnamed Sarah Mekesa dropped a fewcoins into a Maziwa King machine and

AfricaEmployment Contribution bySmall and Growing Businesses (SGBs)

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

S h a r e o

f

S G B C o n

t r i b u

t i o n

t o E m p

l o y m e n

t

Low

IncomeCountries

Lower-Middle

IncomeCountries

Upper-Middle

IncomeCountries

High

IncomeCountries

78%67%

59%66%

Report: Communications Toolkit, 2012 Impact Report, Small and Growing B usinesses; Author: Aspen Networkof Development Entrepreneurs; Site: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/ande.site-ym.com/resource/collection/2D449B24-B86A-4B99-91D5-9ACDC9DCBD15/Communications_Toolkit-_Useful_Slides.pdf

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The past few years have seen investors around the worldocking to the agricultural sectorin particular, to thepurchase or leasing of large swaths of land in sub-SaharanAfrica and elsewhere. Nutrition is a different story. And with noministry of its own, the sector tends to fall between the cracks.In 2010, the World Bank conducted a study on the moneythat would be required to scale up nutrition in order have realimpact. It compared this gure to the funds actually availablethrough foreign aid. The shortfall? More than $10 billion.

As the manager of innovative nance for GAIN, Chris Walker

spends his days nding ways to ll that gap. Walker works withsmall and medium-size businesses to help them overcomethe obstacles that might prevent them from scaling up theproduction and distribution of nutritious foods. At the sametime, he cultivates relationships with investors interested inadding social impact to nancial return.

GAIN is working with Root Capital, a Boston-based sociallender focused on agriculture, in support of a Ghanaianentrepreneur who is producing a fortied instant porridgetargeted at infants and young children. Samuel Kwame AduNtim resigned from his job with Unilever in 2002 in order toprovide a locally sourced and affordable complementaryfood to rural populations with limited budgets. His company,

Yedent Agro Group, works with several thousand small- scalefarmers in the countrys Brong-Ahafo region, guaranteeingthem a market for their soy, maize and millet. (Currently,Kwame Adu Ntim is contemplating a switch to a nutritious

variety of quality protein maize to give his product an extranutritional boost.) He built his production facility nearby inorder to be close to the farmers, who also can benet fromthe product, which he sells in 50-gram sachets (enough fortwo servings) at a price that is half that of the comparableimported products on the market.

By using its grant money in such strategic ways, GAIN is ableto leverage signicant amounts of private investment anddirect it toward improving the nutrition of low-income families,particularly among infants and young children. Based on

the needs of the companies involved, Walker reaches outto different funding partners. He speaks with local banks inAfrica and Asia, for instance, and works with them on ways toprovide small loans to food businesses interested in producingnutritious products. For the past ve years, GAIN has workedwith the International Finance Corporation, the private-sectorlending arm of the World Bank, to help companies reformulateand/or re-size foods. In addition to collaborating with RootCapital, GAIN teams with LGT Venture Philanthropy, a Swiss-based impact investor, with which it has invested money innutritionally oriented enterprises. (It recently made a loan toa nonprot that is making a ready-to-use therapeutic food.)Working with such partners, Walker pointed out, has theadded advantage of exposing GAIN to a different skill set:

Investors have a deep understanding of business and nance,and they bring a critical investment eye, and often technicalknow-how, to the table.

Global

watched as the white liquid reachedthe rim of her bottle. Mekesa buys a literof milk every day, she said, at a cost of70 shillings ($0.79), and feeds it to hertoddler daughter, often incorporated intoporridge or cooked with spinach. Since

she discovered Maziwa King, the youngmother said, her family consumes twicethe milk it once did, and shes noticed animprovement in her daughters health.Next up to the machine was 50-year-oldSimon Ngugi, who spends 60 shillings($0.68) a day in order to enrich his teawith the creamy, full-avored beverage.(Mwangis milk is pasteurized but nothomogenized.) Monica Mwihaki, the24-year-old who oversees the facility,said she serves some 100 customers aday, with lines forming most afternoonsand evenings.

By the end of 2014, Mwangi, whose sharpsartorial style nods to the years he spentstudying in Paris, plans to have 12 of theItalian-made kiosks situated next to or insidelow-income areas around the cit y. Withthe $140,000 dollars hell receive from GAIN,

he intends to increase his staff from threeto eight and to purchase a refrigeratedtruck. He and his 37-year-old wi fe andbusiness partner, Wairimu, are lookingforward to guaranteeing a market to evermore farmers, whom they bel ieve get a rawdeal when selling to distributors. Ultimately,says Mwangi, he hopes to expand not

just throughout Kenya bu t also beyond i tsborders. We see ourselves going very big.

Eric Muraguri navigated a rutted dirtroad outside of Nairobi before climbingdown from the drivers seat of his SUV

and removing a padlock from an irongate. Dressed in Topsiders and a blackcowboy hat, the spirited businessmanushered some visitors into an area alivewith the sound of thousands of 3-week-oldchicks. The feathered bundles skit tered

about, feeding intermittently from plasticbucket-like contraptions dispensing agrowth-promoting mix of soy and maize.Muraguri, who buys some 2,500 chicksevery two weeks from former employerKenChic, closely monitors the birdsfeed intake and weight gain (he shunsantibiotics) before transferring them forslaughter at 1.5 kilos. He contracts with17 farmers, guaranteeing them a marketfor all that they raise, and sells the birdparts to different markets depending onconsumer price points. Arrangements withlocal hotels and golf clubs, for instance,

Innovations in Finance


GAIN


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For Mary Abukutsa-Onyango, traditional vegetables are personal. As a girlgrowing up in western Kenya, she had rejected meat at an early age. Abukutsa-Onyangos mother, determined to provide her daughter with a varied andnutrient-dense diet, would cook the range of greens she found growing aroundthe familys rural home. By the time Abukutsa-Onyango arrived at university,though, she was disappointed to nd the same old sukuma wiki , or spinach, onher plate day after day. Not only had the national diet become tedious, it lackedfor vitamins and minerals as well.

Abukutsa-Onyango decided tochange that. Since 1991, she has

devoted her professional life to thepromotion of such little-known greensas African nightshade, vegetableamaranth and spider plant. Its beenan uphill battle. For starters, therewas a bias to overcome: Traditionalvegetables had long been spurnedas poor peoples food, suitable only intimes of starvation. When Abukutsa-Onyango applied for academicfunding in the 1990s, she was told thather research into weeds didnt meritinvestment. She persevered, and today,as professor of horticulture at Nairobis

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agricultureand Technology, she oversees an entire research farm and greenhouses, workingwith students, the government, and thousands of Kenyan farmers to select nutritiousplan

Documents

GAIN Snapshot Report Agriculture Nutrition FINAL