The Influence of Agro-Food Policies
and Programmes on the Availability,
Affordability, Safety and
Acceptability of Food
Spencer Henson and John Humphrey
Institute of Development Studies,
Brighton, UK
Our choices
• Focus on micronutrient undernourishment – hidden
hunger
• Food-based approaches
• Post-farmgate, not on-farm consumption
 Urban households; non-farm rural households; farm
households that buy food in markets, seasonally or yearround, etc.
• Market-based approaches.
 Businesses of all types and sizes
 Enhancing the nutritional functioning of agri-food value chains
Food-based options for improving
micronutrient intake
Increasing dietary diversity
Fortification of Staple Foods – oil, flour, etc.
Targeted fortified foods:
Foods with added nutrient packages – Shokti doi
Complementary foods for children
Lipid-based supplements for regular consumption
Biofortification – orange fleshed sweet potato
Agronomic biofortification – zinc-enhanced fertiliser
Essential outcomes for food-based approaches to
nutrition
Food is safe
Food maintains nutritional quality and
benefits up to the point of consumption
Food is consumed by the populations whose
nutritional deficits are being targeted by the
intervention
Requirements for successfuly selling foods
rich in micronutrients
Nutrition awareness – buyers understand importance of foods
Signalling – people believe foods have the claimed benefits. Nutrient content is
often a ʺcredence characteristicʺ
Acceptability – people are willing to prepare and eat the product
Availability –physically availability in places where the target populations can
purchase it
Affordability – target populations must be able to purchase it
Adapted from, Hawkes, C. and Ruel, M.T. 'Value Chains for Nutrition', paper presented at Conference
‘Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health’, New Delhi, February 2011
Business challenges for selling nutritious
foods
Meet the five requirements
Capturing value:
Credence good issues
Risks and uncertainties of innovation
Value chain integrity: food safety and quality issues
Minimise the challenges
•
•
Dietary diversity
Staples fortification
Sidestep the acceptability challenge
Supplementary foods
Biofortification
Use existing distribution channels wherever
possible,
Agronomic biofortification
and avoid products that require careful handling and
preservation
• Avoid the signalling problem altogether – for
example, compulsory fortification – or focusing on
foods whose characteristics are more evident: fresh
fruit and vegetables
• Combat fraudulent claims through branding and
certification and certification
Policy initiatives: offset costs or defray risks
• Nutrition awareness programmes and demand
promotion
• Use of public distribution: feeding programmes
• Advance commitments to enable companies to get to
scale
• Support for value chain integrity, particularly for food
safety at the farm level
Concluding remarkss
• What role for the informal sector
 Consider more focus on improving quality and
safety of informal sector provision of nutrient-rich
food
• Keep it simple. Minimise the challenges
• Efficacy and cost-effectiveness of businesspromoting interventions is varied and requires more
impact assessment