Science Forum 2013

PLENARY SESSION: REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON NUTRITION AND HEALTH OUTCOMES - CASE STUDY PRESENTATION: Katherine Gray-Donald, McGill University

ispcadmin — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 21:44:21 +0000

PLENARY SESSION: REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON NUTRITION AND HEALTH OUTCOMES - CASE STUDY PRESENTATION: Katherine Gray-Donald, McGill University

Putting CARICOM Food Security Research into Action (Katherine Gray-Donald, Leroy Phillip, Isabella Granderson, and Chandra Madramootoo)

A challenge facing policy makers, practitioners and scientists dealing with global food security is making food available and accessible for the health of current and future world population. In CARICOM countries, both rising regional food imports and increasing rates of Non-Communicable Chronic Diseases related to diet and obesity are causing an important economic burden for the region.

Researchers at The University of the West Indies, and McGill University in Canada, in collaboration with regional and local institutions, and funding from the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF), are taking an innovative "farm to fork" approach, promoting locally grown farm produce to enhance diet quality and diet diversity for consumers. The aim is to link the enhanced agricultural production to school lunch program provisioning to improve the food offerings.

From a nutritional evaluation of 509 primary school children in Trinidad Tobago and in St Kitts and Nevis, we found virtually no stunting, but 22% are overweight or obese. In St Kitts, 75% of children from food insecure households had no vegetable intake on a given day; food secure children fared marginally better (66%). Anemia was present in a number of children. Dietary interventions in school lunch programmes have been introduced to increase vegetable and fruit intake, increase iron intake and reduce sugar intake.

The project is addressing problems of crop productivity arising from water scarcity in the dry season. Results of drip irrigation interventions in St. Kitts show major increases in yields of pumpkin and watermelon, and substantial improvement in the productivity and diversity of crops grown by small farmers. Conservation (as silage) of drought tolerant forages (sorghum and mulatto grass) for small ruminant production in St. Kitts and Nevis has been introduced to increase the availability of mutton.

The current school meals program in intervention vs. control schools is being investigated to improve child health outcomes and provide a market opportunity to increase economic returns for small holder farmers in CARICOM. With the implementation of new school lunch menus based on local food habits and available foods and agricultural innovations, farmers' supply intervention schools with tomatoes, string beans, carrots, watermelon, pumpkin and mutton. Ensuring a regular supply for some foods remains a challenge to overcome.

Enhancing food intake of children through local production will be evaluated in terms of food production increases, foods provided to children in schools and changes in indicators of nutritional health.

Knowledge Share Fair

ispcadmin — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:15:58 +0000

Knowledge Share Fair at SF-2013

The Knowledge Share Fair is an opportunity for individuals, organizations, and centres to share ideas, concepts, projects or outcomes related to the intersection between nutrition, health and agriculture.

For a schedule of KS presentations at the Forum, please click here (PDF)

Resources

ispcadmin — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 13:57:56 +0000

Past Science Forums

Science Forum 2011
Summary | Brief
Science Forum 2009
Brief | and special issue of Crop Science journal highlighting papers illustrating topics and outcomes from Science Forum 2009

CGIAR research program

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

International conference

International Conference on Nutrition + 21 (ICN+21)
Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum: Stuttgart-Hohenheim, September 17 - 19, 2013

International congress

International congress on Hidden Hunger - From Assessment to Solutions

Events in Bonn

Beethovenfest (Bonn, Germany : 5 September - 5 October)

Photo by Neil Palmer (CIAT)

Participation

ispcadmin — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:19:26 +0000

The biennial CGIAR Science Forum brought together scientists, practitioners, policy makers and funders to examine emerging challenges and recent scientific advances, identify key researchable issues where there is real potential to deliver impacts on development goals and form new partnerships to address them.

The Forum sought to achieve a balanced platform for players from key disciplines that surround the nexus of agriculture, nutrition and health outcomes. To promote their professional development and to engage the next generation of scientists, the participation of early career scientists was particularly encouraged.

Photo by HarvestPlus

Organizers

ispcadmin — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:18:10 +0000

The Science Forum 2013 will be led by the Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) on behalf of the CGIAR, and co-hosted by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Germany.

Steering Committee:

Maggie Gill (ISPC, Coordinator Scientific Programme Science Forum 2013),
Peter Gardiner (Executive Director, ISPC),
Marlene Diekmann (Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH),
Robert Mwadime (Chief of Party, USAID Community Connector Project, Uganda)
Rajul Pandya-Lorch (Head, 2020 Vision Initiative, International Food Policy Research Institute),
Prakash Shetty (Professor of Public Health Nutrition, Institute of Nutrition, University of Southampton) and
Preetmoninder Lidder (Agricultural Research Officer, ISPC).

Photo by ILRI and Bio-Innovate Africa

Program

ispcadmin — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:15:08 +0000

You can access the full program (with presentations and video) here

Program at a glance (PDF) can be downloaded here

The program featured leading perspectives on research needs, evidence and methods to better understand the contribution and impact of agriculture in improving nutrition and health.

The role of the plenary sessions was to raise the big questions in testing concepts, pathways and assumptions, followed by breakout sessions delving into these topics. Based upon an in-depth examination of individual issues, the breakout sessions reported back to the plenary providing opportunity for broad discussion. Presentaitons from both plenary and breakout sessions, were applicable, are now available online. Video of plenary sessions, including reporting back from breakout sessions, are also accessible through the Full Program link.

You can also access the presentations online or view the videos through the links below:

Slideshare

YouTube

Photo by HarvestPlus

About the Science Forum

ispcadmin — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:26:17 +0000

The Science Forum series is a flagship event that was initiated by the Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) in 2009 under its remit of Mobilizing Science. It serves as a means to reach out to scientists and scientific communities largely external to the CGIAR, but who have potentially important contributions to make to the CGIAR research portfolio and its system level objectives of improving food security, human nutrition and health, alleviation of poverty and environmental sustainability.

Science Forum 2013 focused on “Nutrition and health outcomes: targets for agricultural research” and was held from Sept 23-25 in Bonn, Germany. The objective of the Forum was to use recent evidence across a range of disciplines to identify priority research needs and new scientific approaches, and facilitate new and stronger partnerships, through which the agricultural community can add most value to the delivery of nutrition and health outcomes. The Science Forum provided an opportunity for scientists to explore the nexus of agriculture/health/nutrition with external experts from these fields. Information and resources resulting from the Forum can be accessed on this website.

Background flyer of Forum can be found here (PDF)