Exploring solution spaces for nutrition-sensitive agriculture in Kenya and Vietnam

Timler, Carl J.; Alvarez, Stéphanie; DeClerck, Fabrice; Remans, Roseline; Raneri, Jessica E.; Carmona, Natalia Estrada; Mashingaidze, Nester; Chatterjee, Shantonu Abe; Chiang, Tsai Wei; Termote, Céline; Yang, Ray Yu; Descheemaeker, Katrien; Brouwer, Inge D.; Kennedy, Gina; Tittonell, Pablo; Groot, J.C.J.

doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2019.102774

Cited by 40 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Similar to results of other studies on the smallholder farmers in the northern midland and mountainous region of Vietnam (e.g. Ha et al, 2017;Nguyen, 2017;Son et al, 2019;Timler et al, 2020), the local households in rural districts of Thai Nguyen are mainly reliant on agriculture-based livelihoods. Crop production and animal husbandry account for 62.6% and 15.2%, respectively, of total household income sources.…”

Section: Livelihood Situation and Climate Change Impacts On Local Farsupporting

confidence: 88%

A systems approach toward climate resilient livelihoods: A case study in Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam

Kühling

Trautz

2020

Heliyon

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This study aims to identify strategic actions towards climate resilient livelihoods and secure income for smallholder farmers in Thai Nguyen province of Vietnam using a systems approach and system dynamic modelling tools. Information and data for this research was collected through surveys, interviews, focus group discussions and workshops with relevant stakeholders and 187 farmers in two vulnerable districts during October 2019-April 2020. Findings of this study uncovered a number of shortcomings of the government policies and approaches in climate change adaptation. Local initiatives, community learning and ownership seem to be neglected. This research has substantiated the effectiveness and validity of systems approaches and tools in structuring and solving complex issues in agricultural research and development under the interwoven relationships between environmental and human factors. Climate resilient production models and practices are just part of the systemic interventions that need to be implemented in a coordinated manner towards a more resilient future of the farming communities. This study has addressed the current knowledge gap and the need for using integrated approaches and decision support systems for unravelling ill-structured and/or complex issues of climate change adaptation (CCA). It also provided practical recommendations for informed CCA policies and implementation.

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Section: Livelihood Situation and Climate Change Impacts On Local Farsupporting

confidence: 88%

A systems approach toward climate resilient livelihoods: A case study in Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam

Kühling

Trautz

2020

Heliyon

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“…Pilot studies conducted in Kenya and Vietnam revealed that diversification of smallholder farms with underutilized and traditional vegetable crops such as African nightshade (Solanum americanum), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) crotalaria (Crotalaria brevidens), French beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), groundnuts (Arachis hypogea), kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala), pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima), purple amaranth (Amaranthus blitum), spider plant (Cleome gynandra), mustard greens (Brassica juncea), orange-fleshed sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), and water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) could cover vitamin A requirements of 10-31 extra people per hectare and enhance income by 25% to 185% [56]. However, a trade-off of these diversification interventions was reduced leisure time.…”

Section: Diversifying Production Systems and The Role Of Home And Houmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Vegetable Genetic Resources in Nutrition Security and Vegetable Breeding

Ebert

2020

Plants

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Malnutrition, comprising undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and overnutrition, is more widespread than hunger per se and affects most nations around the globe. The diversity and the quality of food produced and consumed are decisive factors when addressing the triple burden of malnutrition. In this context, fruit, vegetables, and nuts are increasingly moving into the focus of the nutrition community. Agricultural policies and investments in agriculture are predominantly focused on staple food production, neglecting the economic and nutritional potential of fruit and vegetables. While global vegetables are well represented in genebanks around the globe, this is much less the case for traditional vegetables. Collecting efforts in hotspots of vegetable diversity in Africa and Asia are required to conserve this germplasm before it is being replaced by modern varieties. Home gardens, community seedbanks, and variety introduction through vegetable seed kits are ways how genebanks can link with the farming community to strengthen the informal seed sector. This in turn may result in more diverse production systems and increased consumption of fruit and vegetables. In the formal seed sector, vegetable breeders need access to a wide diversity of genetic resources, predominantly farmers’ varieties, landraces, and crop wild relatives. Genomics-assisted breeding is increasingly facilitating the introgression of favorable genes and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) with complex inheritance patterns from wild species into cultigens. This will lead to wider use of crop wild relatives in the development of resilient cultivars.

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“…Second, TAPE requires a translation into local contexts and languages: while it has global relevance, the pilot tests show that its application requires a translation of the questionnaires to include local characteristics of agroecosystems and socioeconomic contexts (e.g., soil health indicators, food groups for the nutritional diversity). The status of local populations in terms of food security could also be a critical element of context for the assessment, in addition, and as a preamble, to nutritional diversity (e.g., Timler et al, 2020). This preliminary step that has already been identified in several assessment frameworks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Measuring productivity provides information on the amount of resources necessary (i.e., production factors like land, capital and labor in classic economic terms, but also water or nutrients) to produce a given quantity or volume of product (Cochet, 2012;Sickles and Zelenyuk, 2019;Van der Ploeg et al, 2019). It is usually a measure of the relationship between the sum of all inputs and all outputs in physical terms (Timler et al, 2020). Improving the volume of production over time relative to the amount of inputs or resources used is an important aspect of performance.…”

Section: Productivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the volume of agricultural outputs is not measured in commensurate units (e.g., not all outputs are measured in tons, and tons of different outputs represent different products), outputs are converted to monetary terms by multiplying them with the prices at the gate in local currency and converted to purchasing power parity (OECD, 2019). Alternatively, when dealing with farming systems specialized in food production, all outputs may be expressed as calories or grain equivalents or nutritional carrying capacity (number of people that can be fed per hectare with the available nutrient considered) (e.g., Timler et al, 2020). The farm agricultural land area is defined as the area of land used for agriculture within the farm (FAO and UNSD, 2012).…”

Section: Productivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing Transitions to Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems: A Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE)

Mottet

Bicksler

Lucantoni

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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There is increasing interest in agroecology as a way to move toward more sustainable agriculture and food systems. However, the evidence of agroecology's contribution to sustainability remains fragmented because of heterogeneous methods and data, differing scales and timeframes, and knowledge gaps. Facing these challenges, 70 representatives of agroecology-related organizations worldwide participated in the development of the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE), to produce and consolidate evidence on the multidimensional performances of agroecological systems. TAPE is composed of: Step 0, the preliminary step that includes a description of the main socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the agricultural and food systems and an analysis of the enabling environment in terms of relevant policy, market, technology, socio-cultural and/or historical drivers; Step 1, the Characterization of Agroecological Transitions (CAET), based on the 10 Elements of Agroecology adopted by FAO and its member countries, using descriptive scales to establish scores and assessing the degree of transition, with information from the farm/household and community/territory scale; Step 2, the Core Criteria of Performance listing the key dimensions considered relevant to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Environment & climate change; Health & nutrition; Society & culture; Economy and Governance. Finally Step 3, a participatory validation of the results obtained from the previous steps with the producers and relevant stakeholders. TAPE can be used (i) to assess the extent of agroecological transition among agricultural producers in a community or a territory, (ii) to monitor and evaluate projects by characterizing the initial and subsequent steps in an agroecological transition, and/or (iii) to evaluate widely diverse agricultural systems against agroecological elements and how they contribute to the achievement of the SDGs. Its application can support the transition of all forms of agricultural systems toward more sustainable practices and the formulation of adequate policies to enable this transformation. Preliminary results from pilot applications show that TAPE can perform in a variety of geographic regions and agroecosystems and that it allows assessment of performances of various criteria that move beyond classic indicators to begin to build a global evidence base for agroecology and support transformation to sustainable agricultural production and food systems.

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Exploring solution spaces for nutrition-sensitive agriculture in Kenya and Vietnam

Cited by 40 publications

References 41 publications

A systems approach toward climate resilient livelihoods: A case study in Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam

A systems approach toward climate resilient livelihoods: A case study in Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam

The Role of Vegetable Genetic Resources in Nutrition Security and Vegetable Breeding

Assessing Transitions to Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems: A Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE)

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