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Week Eight Notes: Food and Agriculture
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Reading Notes
Reading 1: Introduction and Agriculture, food security and nutrition
SOURCE: FAO, ch. 1 “Introduction” and ch. 2 “Agriculture, food security and nutrition” in Agriculture
food and nutrition for Africa, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 1997:
http://www.fao.org/3/w0078e/w0078e00.htm
SUMMARY: 39 pages to 16
Introduction
● The text follows a “food systems” approach, following the path from producer to consumer to
examine the role of agriculture in human development in Africa.
● The text emphasizes the importance of linkages between agriculture and nutrition in the
development of the continent and stresses the need for sub-Saharan Africa to develop its greatest
assets: the productive capacities of its land and its people.
● 69% of the economically active population in sub-Saharan Africa is employed in agriculture
(1995).
○ The productive capacities of natural resources on the continent depend on the
productive capacities of its people.
● The way rural households function and make decisions and think about the future is essential
information for planners and policy-makers in the agricultural sector
○ In rural communities, producers and consumers live in the same household and are
often the same people.
● Less frequently recognized is the importance of the consequences of different levels and
patterns of consumption and the agricultural decisions on the household food security and
nutritional status of both the producers and the consumers in rural and urban areas.
● The quantity, quality, variety, and safety of food available in a given community can all be
directly impacted by agricultural decisions.
○ Frequently, the effect is a change in access to food for a particular sector of society or
community because of fluctuations in food prices or in household income.
○ The poor are particularly impacted because they lack the resources and adequate
buffer stocks needed to withstand a crisis and sustain household food security over the
long term.
○ A sudden breakdown in household food security or a prolonged lack of availability of
adequate food for consumption in the home will result in a deterioration in nutritional
status and malnutrition.
● Malnutrition here is understood to mean undernutrition, i.e. a lack of adequate energy, protein
and micronutrients to meet basic requirements for body maintenance, growth and development.
○ Other important factors include lack of access to health services, sanitation, knowledge,
education, and care.
○ The consequences of malnutrition for human well-being and socio-economic
development are far-reaching.
○ Undernutrition and growth retardation in infants and young children are linked to
decreased physical activity, lowered immune function, delayed mental development,
lower academic performance, and higher rates of morbidity and mortality.
○ Adult undernourishment can result in poor health and decreased productivity due to
poor physical performance, which hinders community and national development.
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○ The productivity capacity of both the present and future generations can be increased by
improving the nutritional conditions of the undernourished and the poor.
NOTE: for the exams use the updates statistics in the lecture slides
Table 1 - Chronic undernutrition* in sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries, all ages
Countries Percent affected Numbers (millions)
1969-1971 1990-1992 1969-1971 1990-1992
Total, developing countries 35 21 917 839
Sub-Saharan Africa 38 43 103 215
Source: FAO, 1996b.
* Populations with energy intake (kcal/capita/day) on average below 1.54 times the basal metabolic rate
(BMR) over one year. The estimates are averages for sub-Saharan Africa.
Table 2 - Underweight children* in Africa and developing countries
Countries Percent affected Numbers (millions)
1975 1990 1995 1975 1990 1995
Total, developing countries 42.6 35.8 34.6 195.6 193.4 199.8
Continental Africa 30.4 27.3 27 22.9 31.6 34.8
Sources: WHO, 1995b; WHO Global Database on Child Growth.
*Children aged 0 through 60 months with weight for age below -2 SD of the median United States National
Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reference (for continental Africa and sub-Saharan Africa).
Table 3 - Micronutrient malnutrition in Africa and developing countries, 1990s
Form of malnutrition At risk (millions) Affected (millions)
Iron deficiency or anemia - 206
Iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) 181 86
Vitamin A deficiency (children 52 1.04
under five years)
Sources: WHO, 1994; WHO/UNICEF/ICCIDD, 1993; WHO/UNICEF, 1995.
● In order to increase awareness of the causes of malnutrition and to promote and protect the
nutritional well-being of vulnerable populations, the FAO/WHO International Conference on
Nutrition (ICN) was held in Rome in December 1992.
● The conference’s World Declaration on Nutrition and Plan of Action for Nutrition,
unanimously adopted by delegates from 159 countries, emphasize that improvements in human
welfare, including nutritional well-being, must be at the center of social and economic
development efforts.
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○ Action to direct resources to those most in need to raise their productive capacities,
improve their social opportunities, and increase their access to food sustainably.
○ The need to protect the nutritional well-being of vulnerable groups through specific
short-term nutrition programs, together with building long-term solutions.
● The World Food Summit, held in Rome in November 1996, reaffirmed the right of all people to
be free from hunger through the recognition that the long-term answer to the problems of
poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition is sustainable economic growth coupled with
equitable distribution of that growth throughout society.
○ Agriculture is the key to equitable economic growth, and the future health and
nutrition of the African people clearly depend on its development.
Agriculture, food security and nutrition
Definitions
Food security
Food security may have different meanings for different people.
● The International Conference on Nutrition (ICN, Rome, 1992): “access by all people at all
times to the food needed for a healthy life”. In order to achieve food security a country must
achieve three basic aims:
1. Ensure adequacy of food supplies in terms of quantity, quality, and variety of food
2. Optimize stability in the flow of supplies
3. Secure sustainable access to available supplies by all who need them
● Adequate food availability at the national, regional and household levels, obtained through
markets and other channels, is the cornerstone of nutritional well-being.
○ Household level: food security implies physical and economic access to foods that are
adequate in terms of quantity, nutritional quality, safety and cultural acceptability to
meet each person’s needs.
■ Depends on an adequate income and assets, including land and other
productive resources owned.
● NOTE: the achievement of household food security may not necessarily result in improvements
in the nutritional status of all household members.
How does household food security then relate to human nutritional status, as expressed in biological or
physiological terms?
Food security → good nutritional status requires:
● Access to nutritionally adequate and safe food (food security).
● Sufficient knowledge and skills to acquire, prepare and consume a nutritionally adequate diet,
including those to meet the special needs of young children.
● Access to health services and a healthy environment to ensure effective biological utilization
of foods consumed.
Actual nutritional well-being is then determined by a number of interrelated factors:
● Food security
● Health and sanitation
● Adequate supplies of safe water
● Parents’ education
● Time to prepare food
● Care of vulnerable individuals within the household
Household food security is thus one of the prerequisites for good nutritional status
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Source: Adapted from
Frankenberger et al, 1993.
Nutrition and nutritional status
Nutrition can be defined as being concerned with “... how food is produced, processed, handled, sold,
prepared, shared, and eaten and what happens to food in the body - how it is digested, absorbed, and
used” (King and Burgess, 1993).
Nutritional status refers to the nutritional state of the body, as expressed according to scientifically tested
parameters such as weight, height, age, or combinations of these.
Determinants of nutrition security: basic causes and links
The levels:
1. Basic causes
2. Structural/institutional conditions, areas of public action
3. Market conditions
4. Micro-level conditions (household, intrahousehold, gender).
