Nutrition-sensitive agricultural approaches: the example of participatory cooking demonstrations in Yayu Biosphere Reserve, Ethiopia
To make the agricultural sector more sensitive to nutrition issues in order to improve food and nutrition security is a major goal, also in Yayu Biosphere Reserve, Illu Ababora Zone, South-West Ethiopia. The NutriHAF project aimed to reach this goal through diversifying agriculture through fruits and vegetables in multi-storey cropping systems, meaning that in fields with coffee, fruit trees or other trees vegetables were grown on the ground. Several vegetable species that were found to grow in these conditions were, however, not known well to local families, and knowledge about production and consumption was missing. Next to participatory on-farm and on-station trials and vegetable production training, one focus of the project was on vegetable processing training in the form of participatory cooking demonstrations. The approach the project was following and results will be shared in this policy brief and are recommended for replication.
