Agriculture to Nutrition (ATONU)

Agriculture to Nutrition (ATONU) | Improving Nutrition Outcomes Through Optimized Agriculture Investments

September 2014 - December 2020

Project Summary

Project Description
Agriculture to Nutrition (ATONU): Improving Nutrition Outcomes Through Optimized Agricultural Investments aimed to break the intergenerational cycle of undernutrition for smallholder farm families and poor households in Sub-Saharan Africa with tailored nutrition-sensitive agriculture programs targeting women of childbearing age and children in the first 1,000 days of life, (i.e., from conception to two years).

The regional initiative, led by the Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), worked with partners and beneficiaries to design, evaluate, and advocate for effective nutrition-tailored agriculture interventions.

Project Approach
ATONU explored the main pathways to strengthen the nutritional value of agriculture. Chief among these are the following: 1) changes in food produced for household consumption (i.e., encouraging the production of nutrient-dense foods); 2) changes in food produced to generate agricultural income; and 3) empowerment of women, who are instrumental to household food security and health.

ATONU accomplished its objectives through four main packages:

Work Package 1—focus on design, intervention, monitoring, evaluation, and learning tools; guide the selection of agriculture investments and determine best interventions
Work Package 2—provide technical assistance for the implementation and evaluation of context-specific, tailored nutrition interventions and provide proof of concept
Work Package 3—focus on policy advocacy, communications, and knowledge management, and disseminate ATONU’s research evidence to influence the wider national and international development agendas
Work Package 4—strengthen the capacity of participating individuals and African institutions

Impact and Accomplishments

The ATONU project provides technical assistance to integrate tailored nutrition interventions into planned and ongoing agricultural investments and will accomplish the following:

Generate tools and frameworks for diagnosing the opportunities to incorporate tailored nutrition interventions into agriculture investments
Document best practices and evidence, and add to the agriculture-for-nutrition knowledge base
Strengthen African capacity by building a community of practice in agriculture for improved nutrition

Implementing Partners

The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN)
The Africa Innovations Institute in Uganda,
Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania,
Agribusiness Systems International, an affiliate of ACDI/VOCA,
Farm Africa,
The Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich,
The Leverhulme Center for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health
and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK.

Objectives

The ATONU project provided technical assistance to integrate tailored nutrition interventions into planned and ongoing agricultural investments through:

generating tools and frameworks for diagnosing opportunities to incorporate tailored nutrition interventions into agriculture investments;
offering technical assistance for designing, testing, and rigorously monitoring and evaluating results of the tailored nutrition interventions (proof of concept);
documenting and disseminating best practices and evidence and adding to the agriculture-for-nutrition knowledge base;
advocating for evidence-based decision-making at all levels; and
strengthening African capacity and building a community of practice in agriculture for improved nutrition.

The impact was that smallholder farm families and poor households had access not only to more food but also to a wide variety of safe and nutritious foods.

PUBLICATION

Ambipakathi, R., Gunaratna, N.S., Madzorera, I., Passarelli, S., Canavan, C.R., Noor, R.A., Madzivhandila, T., Sibanda, S., Abdelmenan, S., Tadesse, A.W., Berhane, Y., Sibanda, L.M. and Fawzi, W.W. 2019. Market food diversity mitigates the effect of environment on women’s dietary diversity in the Agriculture to Nutrition (ATONU) study, Ethiopia. Public Health Nutrition. Link Here
Ambikapathi, R., Passarelli, S., Madzorera, I., Canavan, C. R., Noor, R. A., Abdelmenan, S., Tewahido, D., Tadesse, A. W., Sibanda, L., Sibanda, S., Munthali, B., Madzivhandila, T., Berhanu, Y., Fawzi, W., Guranatra, N. S. 2020. Men’s nutrition knowledge is important for women’s and children’s nutrition in Ethiopia. Maternal and Child Nutrition. 2021 Jan;17(1):e13062.doi: 10.1111/mcn.13062.Epub 2020 Aug 4.
Simone Passarelli, Ramya Ambikapathi, Nilupa S Gunaratna, Isabel Madzorera, Chelsey R Canavan, Abdallah R Noor, Amare Worku, Yemane Berhane, Semira Abdelmenan, Simbarashe Sibanda, Bertha Munthali, Tshilidzi Madzivhandila, Lindiwe M Sibanda, Kumlachew Geremew, Tadelle Dessie, Solomon Abegaz, Getnet Assefa, Christopher Sudfeld, Margaret McConnell, Kirsten Davison, Wafaie Fawzi. A chicken production intervention and additional nutrition behavior change component increased child growth in Ethiopia: a cluster-randomized trial. The Journal of Nutrition. Vol 150, Issue 10, pp 2806-2817.
Simone Passarelli, Ramya Ambikapathi, Nilupa S Gunaratna, Isabel Madzorera, Chelsey R Canavan, Abdallah R Noor, Amare Worku, Yemane Berhane, Semira Abdelmenan, Simbarashe Sibanda, Bertha Munthali, Tshilidzi Madzivhandila, Lindiwe M Sibanda, Kumlachew Geremew, Tadelle Dessie, Solomon Abegaz, Getnet Assefa, Christopher Sudfeld, Margaret McConnell, Kirsten Davison, Wafaie Fawzi. 2020. Paper 1: A cluster-randomized chicken production intervention in Ethiopia improves child linear growth. Agricultural Interventions, Caregiver Perceptions, and Child Growth in Rural Ethiopia. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
Simone Passarelli, Ramya Ambikapathi, Nilupa Gunaratna, Isabel Madzorera, Chelsey Canavan, Abdallah Noor, Dagmawit Tewahido, Yemane Berhane, Simbarashe Sibanda, Lindiwe Majele, Margaret McConnell, Christopher Sudfeld, Kirsten Davison, Wafaie Fawzi 2020.Paper 2: The Role of Animal Husbandry Practices in Children’s Exposure to Contamination: A Mixed Methods Analysis. Agricultural Interventions, Caregiver Perceptions, and Child Growth in Rural Ethiopia. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
Simone Passarelli, Ramya Ambikapathi, Nilupa S Gunaratna, Isabel Madzorera, Chelsey R Canavan, Ramadhani Abdallah Noor, Dagmawit Tewahido, Yemane Berhane, Simbarashe Sibanda, Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, Tshilidzi Madzivhandila, Bertha LM Munthali, Margaret McConnell, Christopher Sudfeld, Kirsten Davison, Wafaie Fawzi. 2021.The role of chicken management practices in children’s exposure to environmental contamination: a mixed-methods analysis. BMC Public Health, 21 (1) 1097
Simone Passarelli, Semira Abdelmenan, Dagmawit Tewahido, Yohannes Mulugeta Demmu, Helen Abreham, Ramya Ambikapathi, Nilupa S Gunaratna, Yemane Berhane, Wafaie Fawzi 2022.Nutrition-sensitive chicken production in Ethiopia: a qualitative evaluation. Agriculture & Food Security 11 (1) 23.