de Jager, I. and Abizari, A.R. and Douma, J.C. and Giller, K.E. and etc, .
(2017)
Grain legume cultivation and children’s dietary diversity
in smallholder farming households in rural Ghana and Kenya.
Food Security, 9 (5).
pp. 1053-1071.
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Abstract
Boosting smallholder food production can potentially
improve children’s nutrition in rural Sub-Saharan
Africa through a production-own consumption pathway and
an income-food purchase pathway. Rigorously designed studies
are needed to provide evidence for nutrition impact, but are
often difficult to implement in agricultural projects.Within the
framework of a large agricultural development project
supporting legume production (N2Africa), we studied the potential
to improve children’s dietary diversity by comparing
N2Africa and non-N2Africa households in a cross-sectional
quasi-experimental design, followed by structural equation
modelling (SEM) and focus group discussions in rural
Ghana and Kenya. Comparing N2Africa and non-N2Africa
households, we found that participating in N2Africa was not
associated with improved dietary diversity of children.
However, for soybean, SEM indicated a relatively good fit
to the posteriori model in Kenya but not in Ghana, and in
Kenya only the production-own consumption pathway was
fully supported, with no effect through the income-food purchase
pathway. Results are possibly related to differences in
the food environment between the two countries, related to
attribution of positive characteristics to soybean, the variety
of local soybean-based dishes, being a new crop or not,
women’s involvement in soybean cultivation, the presence
of markets, and being treated as a food or cash crop. These
findings confirm the importance of the food environment for
translation of enhanced crop production into improved human
nutrition. This study also shows that in a situation where rigorous
study designs cannot be implemented, SEM is a useful
option to analyse whether agriculture projects have the potential
to improve nutrition.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Dietary diversity,Legume production,SEM
analysis,Children,Ghana,Kenya |
| Author Affiliation: |
Division of Human Nutrition, Wageningen University, PO Box 17, 6700, AAWageningen, The Netherlands |
| Subjects: |
Crop Improvement |
| Divisions: |
General |
| Depositing User: |
Mr T L Gautham
|
| Date Deposited: |
31 May 2018 10:42 |
| Last Modified: |
31 May 2018 10:42 |
| URI: |
http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/id/eprint/15443 |
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