A4NH and IFPRI Gender Task Force seminar on “Value Chains for Nutrition in Rural India: Investigating barriers to fruit and vegetable consumption among women of reproductive age” presented by Sarah Kehoe, Senior Research Fellow Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (MRC LEU), University of Southampton, UK
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Value Chains for Nutrition in Rural India: investigating barriers among women
1. Value Chains for Nutrition in Rural India
Investigating barriers to fruit and
vegetable consumption among
women of reproductive age
Sarah Kehoe
sk@mrc.soton.ac.uk
2. Overview
• Introduction to the work at MRC
• Public health challenges in India
• Description of previous longitudinal research in India that
led to LANSA-funded ‘Value chains for nutrition’ study
• Value chains for nutrition study
• Future plans
2
6. India UK
Population 1.22 bn 63.7m
% Living in rural areas 70 20
Population density per km2 373 255
Gross National Income per capita (US$/ year) 1,410 37,780
Human Development Index Score* 0.547 0.863
Human Development Index Ranking * 134/187 28/187
Gender Inequality Index Ranking* 129/146 34/146
6
*United Nations Development Programme data
8. 2015 Global Hunger Index South, East and SE Asia
8Source: International Food Policy Research Institute. http://ghi.ifpri.org/
Country
Proportion of
undernourished in
population (%)
Prevalence of wasting in
children <5 years (%)
Prevalence of stunting in
children <5 years (%)
Under five
mortality rate
(%)
Score
Timor-Leste 26.9 18.9 57.7 5.5 40.7
Afghanistan 26.8 9.5 40.9 9.7 35.4
Pakistan 22 10.5 45 8.6 33.9
India 15.2 15 38.8 5.3 29
North Korea 41.6 4 27.9 2.7 28.8
Lao PDR 18.5 6.4 43.8 7.1 28.5
Bangladesh 16.4 14.3 36.1 4.1 27.3
Sri Lanka 22 21.4 14.7 1 25.5
Myanmar 14.2 7.9 35.1 5.1 23.5
Cambodia 14.2 9.6 32.4 3.8 22.6
Nepal 7.8 11.3 37.4 4 22.2
Indonesia 7.6 13.5 36.4 2.9 22.1
Philippines 13.5 7.9 30.3 3 20.1
Mongolia 20.5 1 10.8 3.2 14.7
Vietnam 11 5.7 19.4 2.4 14.7
Thailand 7.4 6.7 16.3 1.3 11.9
Malaysia 2* 10.7* 11.2* 0.9 10.3
Fiji 4.5* 6.6* 3.7* 2.4 8.7
China 9.3 2.3 9.4 1.3 8.6
9. Mapping of BMI of Indian women aged 15-49 by state
(2005-6)
9
10. Age standardised prevalence of raised fasting blood
glucose by country in 2008
10Source: WHO Global Health Observatory. Raised blood glucose is defined as ≥7.0mmol/L or being on medication for raised blood glucose ages ≥25years
11. Global burden of low birth weight and diabetes
11
Type 2 Diabetes
LBW
12. Approximately 2 billion people globally are micronutrient
deficient with women of reproductive age disproportionately
affected.
12
(Black et al, Lancet 2008;371:243-60 & Ramakrishnan, Nutr Rev 2002;60:S46-S52)
13. Pune Maternal Nutrition Study
• Observational data from villages outside Pune, India showed that
intakes of green leafy vegetables, fruit and milk were positively
associated with birth size.
13
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
Never <1/wk 1/wk >3/wk
Green leafy vegetables intake @ 28 wks
p<0.001
Source: Rao. J Nutr 2001;131:1217-1224
Birth
weight
(kg)
14. Mumbai Maternal Nutrition Project
• Randomised controlled trial of a food-
based supplement.
• Primary outcomes: birth size and infant
mortality.
• Participants were married women of
reproductive age, living in Mumbai slums
and intending to have children.
• The supplement was consumed daily for at
least 3 months pre-conceptionally and
throughout pregnancy.
14
15. 15
Birthweight(g)
ALL
WOMEN
CONTROL
TREATMENT
Mother’s pre-pregnant BMI
(kg/m2)
<18.6 18.6-21.8 >21.8
+ 48g - 8g + 79g + 113g
Mean and 95% confidence intervals
p value for interaction: p=0.001
2350
2400
2450
2500
2550
2600
2650
2700
2750
2800
2850
0
Potdar R et al. AJCN 2014; 100: 1257-68
Sahariah S et al. J Nutr 2016 (in press)
Gestational diabetes:
Treatment: 7.3%
Control: 12.4%
OR (95%CI) 0.56 (0.36, 0.86)
Mumbai Maternal Nutrition Project -Results
16. Fruit and Vegetable Intakes
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
UK population India slum India rural
Medianportionsoffruit
andvegetables/day
Source: National Diet and Nutrition Survey, UK; National Family Health Survey-3, India
17. To summarise…
• Intakes of fruit and vegetables are low in rural India.
• Increasing intakes may improve fetal growth and
development thereby reducing risk of mortality in the short
term and preventing chronic disease in the longer term.
17
18. Why are fruit and vegetable intakes low in
rural India?
What are the modifiable constraints to fruit
and vegetable intakes?
18
19. Determinants of Dietary Diversity
“Variety of foods across and within food groups capable of
ensuring adequate intakes of essential nutrients” (FAO/WHO
1996).
Diet diversity in rural East India was poor among:
• Low educated
• Low socio-economic status
• Families with female head of households
• Families with poor purchasing power
Parappurathu et al, 2015. Food Security, 7(5); 1031-1042
19
21. Core Objectives
1. To undertake exploratory qualitative research to identify
constraints and facilitators to consumption of fruit and
vegetables in rural Maharashtra.
2. To map the value chains for selected exemplar foods.
3. To provide policy-relevant output regarding the
incorporation of nutritional priorities into value chain
activities.
22. Core Objectives
1. To undertake exploratory qualitative research to
identify constraints and facilitators to consumption
of fruit and vegetables in Maharashtra.
2. To map the value chains for selected exemplar foods.
3. To provide policy-relevant output regarding the
incorporation of nutritional priorities into value chain
activities.
26. Design And Methods
• Workshops with Stakeholders in Mumbai and Wardha
1) Research gaps; linking fruit and vegetable value chains with nutrition.
2) Obtain perspectives of stakeholders on problems and potential solutions.
3) Identify exemplar fruit and vegetable value chains to be studied in detail.
• Focus group discussions with women consumers.
• In depth interviews with value chain actors (farmers,
wholesalers and vendors).
• Second set of stakeholder workshops to discuss findings
and propose interventions.
27. Stakeholder Workshops
• Mumbai Workshop Attendees
Maharashtra State Rural Livelihood Mission
Mahila Arthik Vikas Mahamandal (MAVIM)
Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research
National Institute of Nutrition
• Constraints to fruit and vegetable intakes
Time demands Gender Inequality
Land use / cash crops
Poverty
Political will
Difficulty linking agriculture with nutrition and health at the State level
Importance of understanding the problems from consumer’s point of view
28. Stakeholder Workshops
• Wardha Workshop Attendees
Maharashtra State Rural Livelihood Mission
Zilla Parishad
Representatives of Farmers’ Unions, Consumers, Farmers, Vendors
• Exemplar fruit and vegetable value chains to be studied
using in depth interviews:
Mango Guava Spinach Bhindi
29. Focus Group Discussions
• Women recruited by
‘key persons’ in the
villages.
• 8-10 women per
group. Grouped by
caste, age and land
ownership.
• Audio-tape recorded,
transcribed and
translated to English.
30. Focus Group Discussions
• 8 FGD conducted.
• Total of 82 women.
• Inductive thematic
analysis was used to
identify emerging
themes.
• Data collection
stopped when no new
themes emerged.
31. Identifying Key Themes
• Preliminary Findings
Household Dynamics
Workload
Personal Factors
Time Pressures
Practical Factors
Social and Cultural Norms
Cost
32. Household Dynamics
“Women do not get to eat
proper meals the way they
are supposed to. Men would
get proper meal (laugh)”
“There is big family.. hence
there is no question to take
any decision. Whatever
[vegetables] we get we
prepare that”
33. Workload
“I get tired in the evenings.
So do not have meal, somehow
gulp a morsel or two and go to
bed”.
“We have to fetch water, wash
utensils, get flour from the
mill, go to field. That is what
woman has to do. After that
only she gets to eat”
34. Personal Factors
“Fenugreek and spinach are
the only two green leafy
vegetables I like ”
“My daughters are having
(fruits), this is more than
enough. Not bothered about
myself. I overcome my craving”
35. Time Pressures
“I don’t like to keep pending
work. I am ok if do not get
food but I am happy if I
finish all work within time.
“I don’t have full meal in the
morning because I have to
rush to farm”
36. Practical Factors
“Whenever we go to
Wardha we get it [fruit].
Every day we cannot have.
We go Wardha once in one
or two months”
“Those who have place may
prepare kitchen garden at
home.. can cultivate green
vegetables. Those who do not
have place can not cultivate.
They do not have any other
option than buying.”
37. Social and Cultural Norms
“Papaya is hot. [This]
means in pregnancy if you
have it then there is more
chances of miscarriage.
My grandmother said”
“How can he help me? If he
helps me in household chore
then in village, everybody
gossip about him or say bad
things”
38. Cost
“When there is the inflation
that time, they mostly
invest their money in the
farm and in the house; hence
they create thrifty
condition in home”
“During summer, the vegetable
which is 5 rupees per 250
grams becomes 20-25 rupees
per 250 grams”
39. Next steps
• Analysing in-depth interviews with actors focusing on
exemplar food value chains.
• Hold further stakeholder workshops to discuss our findings
and develop ideas for interventions.
40. Challenges
• Developing relationships with State Agriculture and
Marketing departments.
• Issue of context and how to make the outputs of the
project relevant to different settings.
41. Acknowledgements
• Study participants
• MSSRF Wardha gender team and administration staff
• Dr Rengalakshmi and colleagues, MSSRF Chennai
• Aulo Gelli, IFPRI
• Centre for Study of Social Change
• Wendy Lawrence, Kumaran Kalyanaraman and Ilse Bloom
at MRC LEU
42. Thank you for your attention!
Questions?
sk@mrc.soton.ac.uk
Hinweis der Redaktion
I’m going to talk about a value chain analysis project which is aiming to identify nutrition sensitive interventions to improve women’s diet quality in rural Maharashtra with a focus on fruit and vegetables.
I am based at the University of Southampton MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit. The lead organisation in this research is the Centre for Study of Social Change, a small NGO in Mumbai directed by Dr Ramesh Potdar. CSSC have been doing research into maternal and child nutrition in collaboration with the University of Southampton for the past 15 years. The other partners in this project are MSSRF and IFPRI who are well known to this audience.
29 states
Birth weight is a crude but frequently used proxy for intra-uterine growth because it is relatively easy to measure. Low birth weight is defined as less than 2.5kilograms and as you can see from this cartoon in which the size of the country represents the incidence of low birth weight it is a major public health problem in India. You can also see that India has a high burden of type 2 diabetes and the WHO predicts that 80 million adults in India will be affected by the year 2030. Given the link between poor early development and risk of diabetes, we were interested in studying whether improving fetal growth through better quality maternal diets can reduce the risk of developing the disease in India.
The reason we asked this question is that micronutrient deficiencies are highly prevalent globally and disproportionately affect young women. This is detrimental to the women themselves and also to the next generation. Women who are undernourished tend to have babies with intra-uterine growth retardation who are less likely to achieve their genetic potential in terms of growth and development. In adulthood they are likely to give birth to small babies themselves and continue the cycle shown here.
Similar findings for fruit and milk
GDM and birth weight
Quantitative surveys have shown that diversity of diet was affected by education, economic status, having a female as head of household and where purchasing power was poor. We wanted to do some qualitative work to understand this from the perspective of the women as consumers so that we could design interventions that would effectively increase intakes.
CSSC have been doing research into maternal and child nutrition in collaboration with the University of Southampton for the past 15 years. The other partners in this project are MSSRF and IFPRI who are well known to this audience.
The first of our core objectives was to conduct primary qualitative research to explore constraints and facilitators to fruit and vegetable consumption in rural Maharashtra. Of course these factors are likely to be context specific and so we are also planning to develop a conceptual framework linking fruit and vegetable value chains to nutrition that can be applied in different settings. This aspect of the work is being done in conjunction with Aulo Gelli based at IFPRI in Washington. Ultimately we aim to make recommendations for value chain interventions that will increase fruit and vegetable intake in Maharashtra.
Today I’m going to focus on the first objective and explain what we have done to date in the study and share some preliminary findings.
The primary data collection activities are based in the villages around the MSSRF Research Centre in Wardha, Eastern Maharashtra. They are being conducted by the study team here Varsha Dhurde, Rashmi Kale and Shilpa Bhaise. We have been fortunate to have intellectual input to the study from Gender researchers Dr Rengalakshmi and Yamuna Menon here at MSSRF. These photographs show the different types of housing in the villages ranging from huts made from sticks and dung to brick built dwellings.
This slide gives an overview of our research activities. I’ll go into more detail on each in the coming slides. Our first activity was to organise workshops with stakeholders. One in Mumbai in which we explored gaps in research linking fruit and vegetable value chains with nutrition. We also wanted to develop a network of professionals with an interest in such value chains in Maharashtra and obtain their perspectives on nutrition and health problems in the State. A second workshop was held in Wardha to identify exemplar fruit and vegetable value chains which could be studied in detail. We are currently running focus group discussions with women living in the villages around Wardha and we are planning to hold in depth interviews with value chain actors who supply these villages. Once we have completed these activities and looked at the data we plan to hold a further set of stakeholder workshops to discuss our findings and to develop ideas for interventions.
This slide gives an overview of our research activities. I’ll go into more detail on each in the coming slides. Our first activity was to organise workshops with stakeholders. One in Mumbai in which we explored gaps in research linking fruit and vegetable value chains with nutrition. We also wanted to develop a network of professionals with an interest in such value chains in Maharashtra and obtain their perspectives on nutrition and health problems in the State. A second workshop was held in Wardha to identify exemplar fruit and vegetable value chains which could be studied in detail. We are currently running focus group discussions with women living in the villages around Wardha and we are planning to hold in depth interviews with value chain actors who supply these villages. Once we have completed these activities and looked at the data we plan to hold a further set of stakeholder workshops to discuss our findings and to develop ideas for interventions.
The first stakeholder workshop was held at CSSC in Mumbai and we welcomed attendees from State Government Agencies concerned with rural livelihoods and women empowerment. Academics from Development and Nutrition sectors also attended.
Our discussions identified the following constraints to fruit and vegetable consumption and it was highlighted that gender inequality impacted on the majority of these factors. An important point raised was the necessity to understand health and nutrition problems from the consumer’s viewpoint and that any interventions must be designed with this in mind.
A second workshop in Wardha was held with more local representatives of government agencies and with farmers union representatives, consumers and other value chain actors. One of the objectives of this workshop was to identify exemplar fruit and vegetables to be studied in detail. The criteria for these exemplars were that they were known by the vast majority of consumers and that there was some variability in consumption within the study population. This would then enable us to study both barriers and facilitators to consumption.
I’d like to acknowledge that this model of studying value chains using exemplars was adopted by Emily Morgan a PhD student of Alan Dangour who studied a similar research question in Fiji.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We used the findings from the workshops to develop our focus group discussion guides. We decided to group the women by caste, age and land ownership to make them as comfortable as possible. We have held several pilot discussion groups to establish the best methods for encouraging open discussion. We have found that there is concern among the women for themselves and their children in terms of the lack of diet diversity and low intakes of fruit and vegetables.
Cost is an important factor but several other constraints are talked about such as time demands, fasting practices and order of eating within the household.
Facilitators that have been mentioned so far are access to kitchen gardens and income generating activities that allow more time for food preparation.
We are now planning to hold interviews with value chain actors around the extent to which they have choices about products that they grow, market and sell and how they make these decisions.
Based on these interviews, the focus group discussions and the workshop findings we will develop the conceptual framework and propose interventions aimed at increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables.
We will then hold further workshops to develop ideas for interventions.
We’ve had some difficulties making contacts with State Agriculture and Marketing departments and would be interested in any ideas on how to engage with this sector.
Also we are conscious that the findings of our primary research will be very specific to the locations studied. Any advice on how to ensure that the work is as useful as possible to a wider population would be very helpful.
We’ve had some difficulties making contacts with State Agriculture and Marketing departments and would be interested in any ideas on how to engage with this sector.
Also we are conscious that the findings of our primary research will be very specific to the locations studied. Any advice on how to ensure that the work is as useful as possible to a wider population would be very helpful.