Improving Nutrition Outcomes Through Optimized Agricultural Investments (ATONU)

3 November 2014. Kinshasa. DRC. The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) and its consortium partners announced a $16 Million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to implement the “Improving Nutrition Outcomes through Optimized Agricultural Interventions (ATONU)” project.

This was announced during the Africa Day of Food and Nutrition Security.

This project seeks to improve nutrition outcomes in smallholder farm families and poor households through tailored nutrition sensitive agriculture programs that ultimately benefit women of child bearing age and children in the first 1000 days of life.

The ATONU project consortium members include:

1. the Africa Innovations Institute in Uganda, 
2. Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania, 
3. Agribusiness Systems International, an affiliate of ACDI/VOCA, 
4. Farm Africa, 
5. the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich, 
6. the Leverhulme Center for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health 
7. and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK. 

The ATONU project will be implemented over a six-year period, ending in December 2020. The focus countries for the project are: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana and Uganda.

Objectives:

The ATONU project will provide technical assistance to integrate tailored nutrition interventions
into planned and ongoing agricultural investments through:

•  generating tools and frameworks for diagnosing the opportunities to incorporate tailored nutrition interventions into agriculture investments; 
• offering technical assistance for designing, testing, and rigorously monitoring and evaluating results of the tailored nutrition interventions (proof of concept); 
• documenting and disseminating best practices and evidence and adding to the agriculture for nutrition knowledge base; 
• advocating for evidence-based decision making at all levels; and 
• strengthening African capacity and building a community of practice in agriculture for improved nutrition. 

The impact will be that smallholder farm families and poor households will have access not only to more food but also to a wide variety of safe and nutritious foods. Dr Lindiwe Majele Sibanda – FANRPAN CEO and ATONU Project Director, appreciating the grant award from the foundation, said: 

“The grant award will help close the gap between the agriculture and nutrition communities who have to work together and bring to bear what agriculture can do for nutrition in farm families”.

Additional source:

6 November 2014. NRI: Research consortium featuring NRI seeks to harness the power of agriculture for improved nutrition: new grant announced by FANRPAN

Related: Call for Applications

Postdoctoral Fellowships on Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA Fellowships)(led by the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University)

• Download the Call
• Objective: To accelerate the development of innovative and interdisciplinary methods, metrics and tools to advance scientific understanding of the linkages between agriculture and food systems, health, and nutrition outcomes, and thereby inform policy and programmatic actions in low and middle income countries (LMICs).
• Funding available: Six one-year postdoctoral research fellowships, in four rounds (2015-2018), with stipends for fellows and two mentors.

Related:

• Agricultural Development Optimizing Nutrition Outcomes From Investments In Agriculture
• Agriculture for Nutrition and Health
• Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition
• Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture and Food-Based Approaches
• Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health
• Strengthening Partnership, Results and Innovations in Nutrition Globally
• The African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development
• Tufts University Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy