Nutrition-sensitive Agricultural Interventions for Ethiopia

The Agriculture to Nutrition (ATONU) Project, led by the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), aims to develop, implement, and evaluate nutrition-sensitive interventions within the context of existing agricultural programs with the goal of improving the nutritional status of women of reproductive age and young children, particularly in the first 1000 days of life. Specifically, ATONU will implement a nutrition sensitive intervention in collaboration with the ACGG Program. ACGG is evaluating the agricultural productivity of high-producing chicken genotypes in Ethiopia and will be providing 20-30 chickens to small-scale chicken-producing households for an 18-month on-farm evaluation. These households will also be provided with regular technical input on good chicken production practices, and ACGG investigators will aim to reach women as well as men in participating households.

ATONU will implement an additional nutrition-sensitive intervention among ACGG households that will use behavior change communication (BCC) to encourage consumption of chicken products (meat and eggs); good water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practices in poultry production; use of income from sale of chicken products to improve nutrition; empowerment of women in decision-making around chicken production and sale; and home gardening of nutrient-dense vegetables to improve dietary quality within the household. Qualitative work is supporting development of this intervention.

ACGG's intervention to increase chicken production may improve the nutritional status of women and children through increasing access to chicken meat and eggs for household consumption and empowering women by giving them access to income, which could be used for purchase of other nutrient-dense foods. However, increasing production and income alone may not necessarily translate into improved diets or nutritional outcomes. ATONU's intervention will specifically encourage the use of chicken products and income to provide nutritious diets for women of reproductive age, emancipated minors and young children through extensive nutrition behavior change communication. Further, recognizing that lack of availability of nutrient-dense foods in local markets may be an important barrier to a diverse and nutritious diet, the home gardening component of ATONU's intervention seeks to increase the availability of nutrient-dense vegetables at household level.

The ACGG program is operating in diverse agroecologies in Ethiopia. Within its target areas, the program listed villages in which chicken production was an important activity and, from this list, randomly selected villages in which to implement its intervention. In a subset of these ACGG villages, ATONU will implement its intervention. As a result, there will be two groups of ACGG villages: those receiving only the poultry production intervention, and those receiving the poultry production intervention coupled with ATONU's nutrition-sensitive intervention. Allocation of ACGG villages to one of these two groups will be done randomly. Investigators will evaluate the nutritional impact of these two interventions among smallholder chicken-producing households in Ethiopia. Specifically, investigators will use the two groups of villages described above and a third group of ACGG-eligible villages that ACGG did not choose for intervention to conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial with the goal of evaluating the effect of the ACGG and ATONU interventions on maternal and child diets, nutritional status, and health.

Inclusion criteria

Households in one of the two ACGG treatment arms will be eligible for inclusion if they meet all of the following criteria:

• Are participating in the ACGG program
• Have at least one woman of reproductive age (18-49 years at enrollment) or emancipated minor (girl aged 15 to less than 18 years)
• Plan to remain in the study area throughout the study duration
• Provide informed consent.

Households in the control arm will be eligible for inclusion if they meet all of the following criteria:

• Meet the criteria for participating in the ACGG program, namely, they have produced chickens for at least two years and are currently keeping no more than 50 chickens with interest to expand production in the future
• Have at least one woman of reproductive age (18-49 years at enrollment) or emancipated minor (girl aged 15 to less than 18 years)
• Plan to remain in the study area throughout the study duration
• Provide informed consent.

Exclusion criteria

• Households will be excluded if they fail to meet any of the criteria listed above