Abstract

During the first phase of the project (100670), researchers tested two legume options that were widely accepted by resource-poor farmers in the Ekwendeni catchment area. These were pigeon peas intercropped with groundnuts and pigeon peas intercropped with soybeans. The project resulted in increased legume consumption by young children, but also demonstrated some constraints to improving child nutrition and food security at the household and community level. This phase will address these constraints by intensifying legume production in the catchment area, developing a seed system, promoting the use of legumes in child feeding programs and organizing clubs to encourage sustainable, healthy farming and eating practices. Additional effort will be made to understand the potential of nutrition education and legume promotion on soil fertility, food security and child health.

Post-Project Summary

The work carried out during this phase involved: improving the survey design and data management; carrying out agriculture, nutrition and anthropometric surveys; conducting qualitative research on household and community issues; supervising a qualitative evaluation of the agriculture and nutrition discussion groups (ANDGs); and analyzing the data and writing up the results of both phases of the project. An interesting feature of this project was the role played by the farmer research team (FRT). The FRT was involved in research activities on household and community dynamics related to legume uptake, food security ranking, and agricultural data collection, with Ekwendi hospital staff playing the role of coaches and facilitators. A three-day workshop on gender and social inequality was held for four FRT leaders (two women, two men) and seven Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC) team members (including two community promoters, one man and one woman), during which key gender and other social problems were identified The group undertook a purposive selection of eight villages based on variation in these factors. Working in pairs, the participants carried out focus group discussions in five of the villages, for a total of 20 groups involving 200 farmers. The data were analyzed in a workshop with the entire research team.

The project was remarkable for the level of ownership shown by the FRT and the fact that it had a measurable impact on health. Legumes become part of the diet in all the communities involved. A seed bank was established, controlled and managed by the farmers themselves. The nutrition status of women and children improved significantly once the key role of the paternal mother-in-law in decisions concerning child feeding was recognized. The effect on child growth became more apparent the longer the village had been in the intervention group and the more actively the village was involved in the project. The project resulted in enhanced income and food security, increased social capital in the communities involved and the extension of legume-based agricultural practices to communities outside the project area, thanks to the efforts of the FRT.

Throughout the life of the project, the SFHC team benefited from training and ongoing support in data management, anthropometry, computer applications, qualitative research methods, report writing, etc. Five unpublished reports and five scientific papers were produced based on the project. Team members presented a paper at the International Congress of Nutrition, Durban (September 2005); a poster at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto (August 2006); a paper at the Innovation Africa Symposium in Kampala (November 2006); and a paper and a poster at the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology in Mexico City (September 2007). The leader of the farmer research team traveled to Merida to take part in the Ecohealth Forum in 2008. A Canadian doctoral student from the University of Toronto began her doctoral research in 2008. The team and the communities continued their work under a new project, Building Food Security and Social Resilience to HIV/AIDS in Malawi (105152).

Recipient Institution(s)