a food systems approach to aquaculture: re-orienting farming systems for improved nutritional...

A food systems approach to aquaculture: re-orienting farming systems for improved nutritional outcomes

Dr. Patrick DuganWorldFish

Why is the health community becoming interested in Agriculture?

• 165 million children suffer from stunted growth globally, most in LMICs

• A paper in the Lancet reviewed all evidence related to direct interventions to prevent child malnutrition.

• 10 interventions were identified as “evidence based” and worthy of scale up.

• Scaling up these interventions to 90% coverage in the top 34 countries of stunting burden only reduces stunting by 20%...

• What more is needed?

Bhutta, The Lancet, 2013

Increasing income alone has only mild to moderate associations with child nutritional status

Ruel, 2013

Pathways from Ag to Nutrition

https://www.spring-nutrition.org/sites/default/files/publications/briefs/spring_understandingpathways_brief_1_0.pdf

Dietary diversity, socioeconomic status, and risk of micronutrient deficiencies

Source: Semba Journal of Nutrition, 2012; 142: 143S-156S

Dietary diversity in many settings is limited

Percent of children 6-24 months with minimum dietary diversity* fed >4 food groups (WHO rec)

Country % With minimum dietary diversity*

Bangladesh 45.2

Ethiopia 7.1

Haiti 29.2

India 16.0

Kenya 28.7

Uganda 23.1

Zambia 18.9

*WHO’s Minimum dietary diversity indicator >4 food groups or more of seven food groups.

Dietary diversity is associated with better child growth

Source: Arimond and Ruel, Journal of Nutrition, 2004; 134:2579-85

Dietary diversity tertiles by country

Child height for age

And is important for the prevention of deaths from chronic disease

Ezzati M, Riboli E. N Engl J Med 2013;369:954-964.

Ag. Policies need to better reflect the diets that we will result in healthy populations.

“There is a growing disconnect between agricultural policy and contemporary nutritional challenges. It has been slow to respond to the persistent problem [nutritional deficiencies]. Agricultural policy is still heavily biased towards staple grain productivity improvement…while the diet diversity needs of the middle class as well as the poor are not adequately addressed.”

-Prabhu Pingali

Source: Pingali, Food security, 2015, 7:583-591

Source:Subhatu, PNAS, 2015 Aug 25, 2015, vol 112, 34, 10657-10662

Findings from the paper

• Farm production diversity was positively associated with dietary diversity in some situations…but not all.

• Smallholder access to agricultural markets and off-farm employment positively associated with household dietary diversity

• Clearly the relationship is complicated and more research is needed.

• Greater agriculture diversity does not necessarily mean that every individual farm should increase production diversity.

Aquatic agricultural settings offer unique opportunities for diversification of systems

•Aquatic environments amenable to production of many diverse foods•Fish is a key food produced in such settings

• Nutrient-rich, with many bioavailable nutrients not found in other parts of the diet (zinc, iron, vit. A)

• Low carbon emissions associated with production than livestock.

•Complex dynamics between ecosystems and agricultural production

What opportunities exist to modify aquaculture farming design to improve nutrition?

Photo by Holly Holmes

Opportunity 1: Homestead pond polyculture with micronutrient rich small fish


Opportunity 2: Pond connected to rice field; polyculture with micronutrient rich small fish

Opportunity 3: Gill net for empowering women in aquaculture system



• Developed in response to need for woman-friendly ability to harvest fish- especially mola

• Mola are small micronutrient rich fish and require frequent harvesting. Traditionally harvesting a male-dominated activity yet men often are away in the fields.

• Underlying principle: if women harvest themselves they are more likely to consume/feed to children.

• Gill net: allows women to operate from bank of water body. Different nets were tried, this worked the best

• Early trials with gill net found it to be user friendly and well accepted: further research needed to determine impact on consumption.


Genschick, Sven (WorldFish)


Photo by Hossain, Mohammed Zakir

Opportunity 4: Pond dike farming as an integrated aquaculture-agriculture system


Opportunity 4: Pond dike farming as an integrated aquaculture-agriculture system• Integration of on-farm activities for improved diversification of

production and thus diets of rural households• WorldFish promotes

• the cultivation of vitamin A rich vegetables (e.g. orange sweet potato) on pond dykes

• The combination of vegetables promoting the consumption over a longer period of time

• Multifunctional farming systems results in:• increased availability of non-staple foods that provide

complementary nutrients to those from fish and greater dietary diversity, year-round (Islam et al. 2011).

• More efficient and sustainable use of natural resources• Surplus production can be sold to increase household income.

Conclusions

• The importance of agricultural systems for human nutrition has been neglected for too long

• Many reviews have noted the need for more rigorous evidence about ‘what works’ in agriculture to reduce undernutrition: at present all we have is a handful of rigorous studies

• Small modifications in farming design can have large impacts on the performance of production systems, increasing consumption and enhancing the potential benefits to nutritional outcomes

• Greater investment is needed in research:• Exploring different pro-nutrition farming systems models that

deliver the foods associated with good nutrition and health outcomes

Thank You

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