Updates from the CGIAR research program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Project Highlights (new and on-going)

IFPRI- Poverty Health and Nutrition Program (PHN)

The LANSA research programme consortium (Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia) under PHN submitted its inception report to DFID in late August. The report will be reviewed and a decision made on the proposed 5-year delivery phase.  Led by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, LANSA comprises 6 partner organizations (including IFPRI) working on research to shed light on how to maximize the nutritional impact of agricultural policies and programs in the region.

The Transform Nutrition research programme consortium, led by IFPRI (PHN), submitted its inception report earlier this year.  This has now been approved by DFID and work will start on the delivery phase in India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Kenya (see www.transformnutrition.org.

HarvestPlus Annual Report

The HarvestPlus annual report has come out; this report will give a glimpse into 2011 achievements and a benchmark against which to assess the progress in developing, testing, and delivering nutritious food crops.

A Proof of Concept for Biofortification

An article published in the Journal of Nutrition in August gives conclusive evidence that orange sweet potato (OSP) provides significant amounts of vitamin A to malnourished Ugandan children and women. A modest improvement in vitamin A levels in the body was also measured in some cases. Coupled with similar findings from Mozambique and other studies, we now have a proof of concept for biofortification. Additional resources on the OSP can be found at the infographic and the project brief.

Web Portal

The web portal on “AgHealth” went live. The A4NH component on Prevention and Control of Agriculture-Associated diseases aims to use this portal to link five research activities and more than 20 projects on agriculture associated diseases.

Mycotoxin Research Coordination Meeting

Researchers from five CGIAR centers attended an A4NH organized mycotoxin research coordination meeting in Nairobi, Kenya from September 3-4, 2012. Researchers shared their current activities related to mycotoxin research and discussed challenges they are facing, opportunities for further work and how these different activities might work together within the A4NH mycotoxin research portfolio. The centers included ICRISAT, IITA, CIMMYT, ILRI, and IFPRI. The group selected three major areas of mycotoxin research – risk and impact assessment, values chains, and biocontrol – to focus on through A4NH. Partners working in the East Africa region also attended part of the meeting to share information about mycotoxin research, the policy environment, mitigation efforts, and levels of awareness and education in the region. They also provided helpful input on the opportunities identified by A4NH researchers during the meeting. A follow-up meeting is tentatively planned for January 2013.

Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2)

We are pleased to announce that A4NH’s proposal to hold a pre-conference event at the upcoming GCARD2 meeting in Punta Del Este, Uruguay has been accepted. The pre-conference event will be held on October 28th from 9AM – 3PM. Partners from Africa, Asia and Latin America have accepted our invitation to participate in this event.

The main objective of this meeting is to obtain stakeholders input and consensus on impact pathways for improving nutrition and health through agriculture R+D, to specify regional variations in impact pathways and get advice and support for implementation of the A4NH research program.

Program Participant Agreements (PPA)

We are pleased to report that the work plans for 2012 with all participating centers have been finalized, all PPAs have been signed, the first quarter and a half payments have been wired, and semi-annual financial reports have been received from all centers, and have been reviewed, compiled and submitted to the Consortium office.

A4NH Website

We are making good progress in developing the A4NH website. We expect to launch the site by mid-September.  We will notify you on the exact date of the launch soon.

The 2^nd Program Management Committee/Center Focal Points Meeting

The agenda has been finalized and shared with all participants. Other materials and documents will be available soon.  Please send any material you would like to share to Tigist Defabachew.

Strategy Documents

The draft Partnership Strategy document is being finalized and will be distributed for comments in the coming few days. We hope to have the final version before the GCARD2 meeting which will be held at the end of October.

Events held/attended/upcoming

August 12: Howarth Bouis attended the Global Hunger Event convened by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer. Howdy was joined by HarvestPlus partners from Nirmal Seeds in India and CIP. Biofortification was high on the agenda at the event. Following the event, Howdy shared his thoughts on the way forward with a piece on the Chicago Council’s Global Food for Thought blog

August 7 – 17: Kimberly Fornace visited IFPRI to work with the A4NH team on the project titled: “Rapid assessment of potential benefits to human health and nutrition from research on livestock and fish market chains in Asia and Africa”. This project aims to develop an integrated rapid assessment tool to assess livestock and fish value chains in relation to nutrition and food safety. This tool will be applied to assess food quality and safety research priorities in value chains with high potential for pro-poor transformation including: dairy in Tanzania, fish in Egypt and pigs in Vietnam. The project is led by Delia Grace (ILRI) in collaboration with Jonathan Rushton and Kimberly Fornace (Royal Veterinary College), Laurian Unnevehr (IFPRI) and Malcolm Beveridge (WorldFish).

August 20-24: The International Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics’ (ISVEE) 13th conference was held in Maastricht, the Netherlands. CRP 4.3 presented 35 posters and orals on agriculture-associated health and supported participation of 25 authors/co-authors, including Annie Cook, winner of the best poster award.

August 26-31: A4NH co-convened a workshop at Stockholm World Water Week on Health and Food Security with World Health Organization (WHO) and Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). The main topics were:  overview of issues associated with water, health and food security, contaminants and vector-borne diseases and risk reduction and health hazards in food production

August 27- 30: Delia Grace participated in the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program CAADP –CGIAR alignment’s CAADP Regional Workshop on Agricultural Productivity in East Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya.

September 7: Howarth Bouis spoke at “Nutrition on the Table: Micronutrients and Global Child Survival with Dr. Robert E. Black and Special Guests,” organized by the Aga Khan Foundation Canada and the Micronutrient Initiative.

September 10: A4NH participated in a workshop on “Food and Nutrition in Eastern and Southern Africa,” organized by the Australian International Food Security Centre (AIFSC) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The objective of the meeting was to identify the research gaps in terms of food security, agriculture and nutrition in line with the AIFSC’s strategy and African priorities, how the AIFSC could best complement work being undertaken by partners in target countries and where to invest.