Animal Source Foods and Household Nutrition Learning Series

15 June 2017. Land O’Lakes International Development Livestock, Animal Source Foods and Household Nutrition Learning Series made possible through the USAID TOPS program held in 2016-2017 a Learning Series on Animal Source Foods and Household Nutrition with the participation of the diverse community interested in this important topic.

Along with key event cohosts including SPRING, Agrilinks, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the series reached almost 600 individuals from 52 countries. We covered the following topics across two webinars and two in-person events:

• Measuring the nutritional impact of livestock programs
• The importance of ASF in diets
• Food safety issues with ASF
• Technical considerations when implementing livestock projects
• Review of the evidence of livestock programs on nutrition outcomes
• Best practices when designing nutrition-sensitive livestock programming

A summary report of the series was recently published on our website – check it out HERE.

Resources and links to recordings and presentations from each of the events are available on the series webpage HERE.

The four events included:

1. Livestock and Livelihoods: Measuring and Promoting Nutrient-Rich Value Chain Commodities (Webinar, June 16, 2016)
2. Livestock Markets, Animal Source Foods and Human Nutrition: Considering Program Tensions, Maximizing Impact and Avoiding Harm (In person event, October 17, 2016)
3. Issues and Opportunities: Addressing Food Safety Concerns in Animal Source Foods for Improved Household Nutrition (Webinar, January 25, 2017)
4. Animal Source Foods for Nutrition Impact: Evidence and Good Practices for Informed Project Design (In person event, May 4, 2017)

Food safety and ASF go hand-in-handIt is estimated that the global burden of food borne illness matches that of illness from the major infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, combined. The most frequent cause of food borne illness are diarrheal disease agents, and children under five years of age disproportionally bear the burden of food borne illness. ASF are one of the primary sources of food borne illnesses.

ASF and food safety are intimately related, and more attention needs to be paid in this space. However, merely increasing regulations does not translate to improvements in food safety; growth in supermarket culture in LMIC also does not translate into improved food safety. As Dr. Delia Grace explained in October, interim solutions are necessary to bridge the food safety gap between informal and formal markets in LMIC. At the Agrilinks webinar in January, ILRI researchers Dr. Hung Nugyen and Dr. Silvia Alonso presented opportunities to improve food safety in formal and informal markets and ways to incentivize producers to produce and consumers to demand safer foods. USAID will continue to explore this subject in the AgExchange online discussion 20-22 June 2017.