Do Market-oriented Engendered Agriculture-health Interventions Affect Household Nutrition Outcomes: Evidence from an Orange-fleshed Sweetpotato Project in Rwanda

Abstract

The number of agricultural interventions promoting biofortified crops as a strategy to combat micronutrient malnutrition have increased significantly during the past decade. These interventions aim to improve the intake of key nutrients and sometimes other nutrition outcomes. In this study, we assess the impact of a market-oriented gender-sensitive agriculture-health project on household food consumption and food security. We use gender-disaggregated data from 842 sweetpotato farmers and a series of econometric techniques to assess the project's impact on food consumption household food security. The study finds unambiguous and strong impact of the project on both household food consumption and food security. Moreover, female-headed participant households benefitted much more from participation than did male-headed households. We further find that nonparticipant households would also have benefitted had they participated. The findings imply the importance of designing market-focused projects with a gender lens. They also imply that market-oriented agriculture-sensitive interventions do not necessarily harm the nutritional status of farm households.

Quality diets for better health: Integrated orange‐fleshed sweetpotato intervention improved dietary practice in southern Ethiopia

“…For balance, the control arm would also have 1000 households. The questionnaires were based on a standard MLE tool developed by International Potato Center (CIP) for OFSP projects in the region (Bocher et al., 2021). Data collection occurred between November and December in both 2017 and 2019.…”

“…Developing and implementing innovative strategies and promoting accessible and locally adopted nutrition‐sensitive agriculture‐based intervention and strengthened partnership are among the recommended strategies to improve diet diversity and practices to reduce the health burden of malnutrition. Nutrition‐sensitive, orange‐fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP)‐based intervention is proved to be a cost‐effective and affordable intervention to reduce malnutrition, particularly vitamin A deficiency (Bocher et al., 2021; Girard et al., 2021; Jones & de Brauw, 2015; Low & Thiele, 2020; Low et al., 2007; Sindi et al., 2013; Tomlins et al., 2007).…”

Gendered sweetpotato trait preferences and implications for improved variety acceptance in Uganda

“…Emerging literature shows complex decision‐making by end users that may dampen adoption of important new technology, the mentioned technical, institutional, and policy challenges notwithstanding. For instance, in addition to agronomic traits (ATs), farmers may prefer varieties that are more nutritious, have good VTs, are more marketable, are better tasting, and induce less drudgery both in cultivation and meal preparation (Bocher et al., 2021; Kassie et al., 2017; Moyo et al., 2021; Shikuku et al., 2019). While these traits may seem trivial to prioritize in complex breeding systems, failure to account for them may lead to low acceptance of new technology, critically impeding intended intervention outcomes of mitigating food and nutritional insecurity and reducing returns of investment on plant breeding efforts.…”

Perceptions on Sack Gardening in Rural Areas: The Case of Vegetable Stakeholders in Koutiala and Bougouni, Mali

“…Strong correlations exist between factors, but some statements differentiate them. Consensus between factors indicates the stakeholders were unanimous regarding statements: 1, 4, 23,33,19,25,45. From these consensuses, we noted that stakeholders all agreed on the fact that sack gardening is more practiced by women, sack gardening responds to the nutritional needs of households and that the nutritional deficits of children can be easily remedied by adopting the sack gardening practice.…”