The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health is developing an impact pathway by which agriculture can enhance nutrition and mitigate health risks through value chain research. This requires new tools and approaches to prioritize which can be applied to informal markets in which quality and safety are diverse and where there can be trade-offs between income, employment, nutritional benefits and disease risks.

For these informal and emerging value chains, market access and income are as much an objective as the quality and safety of foods produced and consumed. Key questions to be answered include:

• Among the wide range of potential hazards associated with animal source foods products in informal systems, which are likely to have the greatest risks to human health?
• Which have the most impact in terms of limiting the availability of food critical to the nutritional security of the poor and constraining development of the value chain, particularly livelihood opportunities of the poor who produce or handle those products?
• What are the key constraints to supply and demand of safe and nutritious foods?
• What are the potential health and nutrition benefits of research that seeks to overcome these risks and constraints?

Research objectives

1. Development of tools and approaches for assessing value chains in relation to nutrition and health
2. Assessment of food quality and safety research priorities in value chains with high potential for pro-poor transformation and of interest to the CGIAR and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

The value chains have been chosen for their ability to generate information to inform research and development. They are pig meat in Vietnam, dairy in Tanzania and fish in Egypt, together comprising one third of the value chains targeted by the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish.

Research partners

• Central Laboratory for Aquaculture Research, Egypt
• Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
• Vietnam School of Public Health

Funding

Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research

Unlike most crop and livestock enterprises, its benefits throughout the value chain are generated daily rather than seasonally. In many cases especially in short value chains, benefits flow disproportionately to women, the landless, and other marginalized groups, an issue that has to be addressed with increasing commercialization.

The goal of this project is to achieve inclusive growth and reduced poverty and vulnerability among dairy dependent livelihoods in relevant rural areas in Tanzania.

The one-year inception phase of this project (January to December 2012) aims to provide proof of concept that pre-commercialized, marginalized smallholder men and women can be targeted successfully.

If the project successfully establishes a proof of concept for this type of pro-poor strategy based on dairy market hubs, it will guide and accelerate implementation of future larger scale dairy development projects over a further four-year period.

The project is designed to support the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish for the Tanzania dairy value chain.

Activities during the inception phase (2012)

• Assess the current status of the Tanzanian dairy sector and identify appropriate entry points and partners for promoting a more pro-poor development orientation.
• Develop a strategy for strengthening the policy environment to better support pro-poor dairy development, capitalizing on ongoing engagement with key policy actors and previous successes in Kenya and Uganda.
• Identify sites appropriate for piloting pro-poor dairy development interventions that have been successful elsewhere in East Africa, and assess how those interventions need to be adapted to the Tanzanian context.

Funding: Irish Aid