The roles of community nutrition scholars in changing mothers' child feeding, food preparation, and hygiene practices in southern Bangladesh.

Introduction: This qualitative study evaluates a nutrition and hygiene education program led by trained community nutrition scholars for 5,000 mothers of small children in the Khulna and Satkhira districts in southern Bangladesh. The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) understanding the processes and reasonings behind mothers' improvement in child feeding, food preparation, hygiene, and homestead garden production, (2) understanding men's roles in facilitating women's behavioral changes, and (3) assessing the degree of changes in subjective notions of self-confidence, decision-making, and recognition among mothers and nutrition scholars. Methods: Data were collected through 14 focus group discussions with 80 participants and in-depth interviews with 6 women community nutrition scholars. Data was then analysed qualitatively by drawing on direct quotes from focus group discussions and interviews with detailed interpretation and account for respondents' behaviors and perceptions. Results: Overall findings confirm behavior changes by women, their spouses, and other family members. Many women were able to independently decide to change food allocation and child feeding practices after gaining self-confidence through the training. Men performed vital roles, such as purchasing nutritious food in local markets, providing labor for land preparation of homestead gardens, and defending the women from the resistance to change by their mothers-in-law. Discussion: While the study supports the literature that women's bargaining power in food/resource allocation is critical in child health and nutrition, the evaluation found that this process involves negotiations among family members. Engaging men and mothers-in-law in nutrition interventions have great potential to make nutrition interventions more effective.

Making room for manoeuvre: addressing gender norms to strengthen the enabling environment for agricultural innovation.

Local gender norms constitute a critical component of the enabling (or disabling) environment for improved agricultural livelihoods - alongside policies, markets, and other institutional dimensions. Yet, they have been largely ignored in agricultural research for development. This viewpoint is based on many years of experience, including a recent major comparative research initiative, GENNOVATE, on how gender norms and agency interact to shape agricultural change at local levels. The evidence suggests that approaches which engage with normative dimensions of agricultural development and challenge underlying structures of inequality, are required to generate lasting gender-equitable development in agriculture and natural resource management.

Determinants of household food access among small farmers in the Andes: examining the path.

OBJECTIVE: Household food access remains a concern among primarily agricultural households in lower- and middle-income countries. We examined the associations among domains representing livelihood assets (human capital, social capital, natural capital, physical capital and financial capital) and household food access. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey (two questionnaires) on livelihood assets. SETTING: Metropolitan Pillaro, Ecuador; Cochabamba, Bolivia; and Huancayo, Peru. SUBJECTS: Households (n = 570) involved in small-scale agricultural production in 2008. RESULTS: Food access, defined as the number of months of adequate food provisioning in the previous year, was relatively good; 41 % of the respondents indicated to have had no difficulty in obtaining food for their household in the past year. Using bivariate analysis, key livelihood assets indicators associated with better household food access were identified as: age of household survey respondent (P = 0.05), participation in agricultural associations (P = 0.09), church membership (P = 0.08), area of irrigated land (P = 0.08), housing material (P = 0.06), space within the household residence (P = 0.02) and satisfaction with health status (P = 0.02). In path models both direct and indirect effects were observed, underscoring the complexity of the relationships between livelihood assets and household food access. Paths significantly associated with better household food access included: better housing conditions (P = 0.01), more space within the household residence (P = 0.001) and greater satisfaction with health status (P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Multiple factors were associated with household food access in these peri-urban agricultural households. Food security intervention programmes focusing on food access need to deal with both agricultural factors and determinants of health to bolster household food security in challenging lower- and middle-income country contexts.

An agriculture and health inter-sectorial research process to reduce hazardous pesticide health impacts among smallholder farmers in the Andes.

BACKGROUND: The use of highly hazardous pesticides by smallholder farmers constitutes a classic trans-sectoral 'wicked problem'. We share our program of research in potato and vegetable farming communities in the Andean highlands, working with partners from multiple sectors to confront this problem over several projects. METHODS: We engaged in iterative cycles of mixed methods research around particular questions, actions relevant to stakeholders, new proposal formulation and implementation followed by evaluation of impacts. Capacity building occurred among farmers, technical personnel, and students from multiple disciplines. Involvement of research users occurred throughout: women and men farmers, non-governmental development organizations, Ministries of Health and Agriculture, and, in Ecuador, the National Council on Social Participation. RESULTS: Pesticide poisonings were more widespread than existing passive surveillance systems would suggest. More diversified, moderately developed agricultural systems had lower pesticide use and better child nutrition. Greater understanding among women of crop management options and more equal household gender relations were associated with reduced farm pesticide use and household pesticide exposure. Involvement in more organic agriculture was associated with greater household food security and food sovereignty. Markets for safer produce supported efforts by smallholder farmers to reduce hazardous pesticide use.Participatory interventions included: promoting greater access to alternative methods and inputs in a store co-sponsored by the municipality; producing less harmful inputs such as compost by women farmers; strengthening farmer organizations around healthier and more sustainable agriculture; marketing safer produce among social sectors; empowering farmers to act as social monitors; and using social monitoring results to inform decision makers. Uptake by policy makers has included: the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health rolling out pesticide poisoning surveillance modeled on our system; the Ecuadorian Association of Municipalities holding a national virtual forum on healthier agriculture; and the Ecuadorian Ministry of Agriculture promulgating restrictions on highly hazardous pesticides in June 2010. CONCLUSION: Work with multiple actors is needed to shift agriculture towards greater sustainability and human health, particularly for vulnerable smallholders.