Vitamin A deficiency is widespread and has severe consequences for young children in the developing world. Food-based approaches may be an appropriate and sustainable complement to supplementation programs. Orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) is rich in beta-carotene and is well accepted by young children. In an extremely resource poor area in Mozambique, the effectiveness of introduction of OFSP was assessed in an integrated agriculture and nutrition intervention, which aimed to increase vitamin A intake and serum retinol concentrations in young children. The 2-y quasi-experimental intervention study followed households and children (n = 741; mean age 13 mo at baseline) through 2 agricultural cycles. In y 2, 90% of intervention households produced OFSP, and mean OFSP plot size in intervention areas increased from 33 to 359 m(2). Intervention children (n = 498) were more likely than control children (n = 243) to eat OFSP 3 or more d in the last wk (55% vs. 8%, P < 0.001) and their vitamin A intakes were much higher than those of control children (median 426 vs. 56 microg retinol activity equivalent, P < 0.001). Controlling for infection/inflammation and other confounders, mean serum retinol increased by 0.100 micromol/L (SEM 0.024; P < 0.001) in intervention children and did not increase significantly in control subjects. Integrated promotion of OFSP can complement other approaches and contribute to increases in vitamin A intake and serum retinol concentrations in young children in rural Mozambique and similar areas in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper provides a micro-level foundation for discussions of income and asset allocation within the smallholder sector in Eastern and Southern Africa, and explores the implications of these findings for rural growth and poverty alleviation strategies in the region. Results are drawn from nationally-representative household surveys between 1990 and 2000 in five countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Zambia. The paper shows that farm sizes in most of Africa are declining over time; that farm sizes appear to be declining at a faster rate for households at the low end of the land size distribution; that Gini coefficient measures indicate that farm sizes within the small-farm sectors are generally more inequitably distributed than in Asia and Latin America at the time of their green revolutions, not even considering the serious additional disparities in land allocation that would result if large-scale farming sectors were to be included in the several case countries having bi-modal land distribution patterns; and that the largest part of the variation in per capita farm sizes within the small-farm sectors is, in every country, predominantly within-village rather than between villages. Realistic discussions of poverty alleviation strategies in Africa need to be grounded in the context of these land distribution patterns and trends. The paper concludes by identifying the implications for poverty alleviation strategies.

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We show five points regarding the middle class in developing East and Southern Africa: (1) 55 per cent of the region's middle class-37 per cent of the 'non-vulnerable' middle class-is rural; (2) 61-83 per cent of the middle class's food is purchased; (3) processed food occupies 70-80 per cent of the class's food expenditure, with similar shares in urban and rural areas; (4) perishable products account for 44-55 per cent of the class's expenditure. Policy attention to processing and to food products 'beyond-grains' thus needs to be 'mainstreamed'; and (5) the import share of food expenditure does not rise with income in urban areas.

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The Food Systems Dashboard brings together extant data from public and private sources to help decision makers understand their food systems, identify their levers of change and decide which ones need to be pulled.

To understand how the unfolding diet transformation in East and Southern Africa is likely to influence the evolution of employment within its agrifood system and between that system and the rest of the economy. To briefly consider implications for education and skill acquisition. Design/methodology/approach: We link changing diets to employment structure. We then use alternative projections of diet change over 15-and 30-year intervals to develop scenarios on changes in employment structure. Findings: As long as incomes in ESA continue to rise at levels near those of the past decade, the transformation of their economies is likely to advance dramatically. Key features will be: sharp decline in the share of the workforce engaged in farming even as absolute numbers rise modestly, sharp increase in the share engaged in non-farm segments of the agrifood system, and an even sharper increase in the share engaged outside the agrifood system. Within the agrifood system, food preparation away from home is likely to grow most rapidly, followed by food manufacturing, and finally by marketing, transport, and other agrifood system services. Resource booms in Mozambique and (potentially) Tanzania are the main factor that may change this pattern. Research Implications: Clarifying policy implications requires renewed research given the rapid changes in Africa over the past 15 years. Program Implications: Improved quality of education at primary and secondary levels must be the main focus of efforts to build the skills needed to facilitate transformation.