Participatory, agroecological and gender-sensitive approaches to improved nutrition : a case study in Malawi

This paper examines a participatory agriculture and nutrition program in northern Malawi that successfully improved child growth, crop diversity, food security through innovative educational strategies and sustainable agriculture. Malawi is a relevant case study, as a low-income country where the majority of people are rural smallholder farmers, and over the last decade the government has pursued an agricultural input subsidy program, with conflicting results. Persistent food insecurity and heavy reliance on maize as a food source in Malawi has multidimensional impacts on families, including low dietary diversity and child undernutrition. Women’s agency and access to agricultural resources is very limited in Malawi, with early marriage associated with low dietary diversity, early pregnancy and high spousal violence for women. Rural Malawian women have less access to education, lower access to land, credit, seeds and other agricultural resources compared to men. In addition they are constrained by highly unequal workloads, including agricultural labor, household tasks and child care responsibilities. Understanding ways to improve child nutrition while at the same time empowering marginalized smallscale farmers to innovate provides lessons that Malawi can share with other rural communities in Africa. The authors and collaborating researchers have been conducting this research for over 12 years, and demonstrate that increased knowledge of agroecological methods, farmer-to-farmer teaching, directly addressing unequal social relations and integration of child nutrition and local knowledge are all key factors in improving livelihoods, and employed as they were in this long-term research make this project an exception to conventional agriculture-based interventions. Proven food security and nutritional gains have been achieved through agricultural education that was fully integrated with nutrition, and was focused on farmers, including women farmers and vulnerable members of the communities. The iterative, dialogue-based and farmer-led approaches used mobilized communities to apply agroecological methods and improved child feeding practices, as well as address unequal gender relations. Significant improvements in child growth (average of 0.6 improvement in weight-for-age Z score over time and compared to non-project households) and household food security resulted from participatory experimentation with crop diversification, legume intercropping and nutrition education. Farmer practices have improved markedly, including improved residue management and incorporation of nutrient-rich legumes into maize-based cropping, up from 15% in 2000 to over 70% of farmers in 2011. More recent efforts by the project have focused on participatory climate change adaptation and addressing the specific needs of HIV/AIDS-affected rural households. Four hundred smallholder farmers, selected based on known vulnerability (i.e. highly food insecure, HIV/AIDS affected and/or youth) are doing participatory climate change adaptation research in two regions in Malawi, including crop diversification, agroforestry and small livestock integration. Initial findings from this initiative will be discussed. The paper will examine the evidence of the case study, and draw out key strategies to promote healthy diets, empower the socially disadvantaged and address gender issues using food and agriculture-based approaches. Other related case studies will be discussed in relation to this study. Broader relevance in relation to vulnerable regions to climate change impacts and other shocks will be discussed in light of current research.