4S Presentation_Harvesting Nutrition or Planting Nutrition

Harvesting Nutrition or Planting Nutrition:

Making Sense of Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Through Critical Nutrition Studies

Shun-Nan Chiang

PhD Student, Department of Sociology

University of California, Santa Cruz

History of the Expansion of Western Nutrition

THANK YOU

FOR LISTENING

Colonial Period

1950s - 1990s: International Nutrition

2000s: Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture

the systematic importation of western nutrition science in the developing countries

Aim

Maximize agriculture's contribution to nutrition

Position Western nutritional science as the central concern of

agricultural development

South Asia

1869 : India - prison

Agriculture ==> Nutrition

Support from

International NGOs

Nutrition and agricultural sciences

1980s : Home Gardening

“although agricultural and food security systems evolving in most cultures inevitably has some bearing on nutrition, the concept of nutrition as we speak of today … is an imported western phenomenon.” (Levinson and McLachlan 1999)

Africa

1938 : First British nutritional survey

1940 -1943 : Nutrition development project

1978 Oxfam

Socially appropriate technology

Nutrition-oriented agriculture

Ongoing Discussions

The uncertainty of nutrition-sensitive agriculture

Focus on technological innovation or policy chance

Competition of Diverse Agricultural Approaches

Criticism of Nutritionism in the Global North

Beyond the Criticism of Nutritionism in the Global North

Food Politics

Doing Nutrition Science Differently

Moral Assumptions

Other ways of Knowing Healthy Eating

Nutrition Science

Questions

Focus on individual responsibility

==> Extra burden for mothers

• Governmental Policy and Guideline of Dietary Health

# Nutritional anthropology

Discrimination for some social groups

Public nutrition

• Public's Dietary Practices

New Nutrition Science Project

The debate about the possible negative consequences of Western nutrition science in the Global North

Other Interest Groups

(Food Industry, Consumer Activism...)

# Home gardening review report

Nutrition-related

Behavior

Social Factors

Solutions

• within nutritional knowledge
• among sectors of society

Society

Western nutrition science is used to combat malnutrition in the Global South

# Example in the Philippines

Reductive Perspective

Alternatives

Environment

Health

Economy

Population Nutrition

“Other ways of knowing food” and “doing nutrition differently” in the context of Global South?

• malnutrition
• obesity
• food insecurity

Critical nutrition literacy

# Doing nutrition differently

Quantifiable Category of Food:

calorie, nutrients

Doing nutrition differently

Nutritionism:

food -- nutrients

human health -- biomarkers

Other ways of knowing food

Public-Private Partnership in the International Development Field

Nutrition Transition & Double Burden of Malnutrition in the Global South

More than 40 African civil society groups made a statement to oppose the idea

The “New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa” should be understood “as an outcome of a project of nutritionism”

Questions

“Nutrition transition”

by the Group of Eight Countries (G8)

“Double burden of malnutrition”

Considering the situation of nutrition transition & double burden of malnutrition:

The Westernized diet as the major cause

Pre-existing high prevalence

of undernutrition

Diet with higher proportion of fats and sugars

Higher prevalence

of noncommunicable diseases such as obesity, coronary heart disease

Which parts of the issue of malnutrition could nutrition-sensitive agriculture claim to solve?

Diet with higher proportion of carbohydrate and fiber

While this [public] investment is having an impact, the path to sustainable food security cannot be forged by governments alone.

Agricultural transformation in Africa is a shared interest of the public and private sectors and presents a unique opportunity for a new model of partnership.

The expansion of multinational food corporations (Big Food) in the Global South

What would be its relationship with other parts of the issue of malnutrition?

The first layer: the influence of western nutrition science

Global North

Global South

Future

Research Directions

The debates about the possible inadvertent consequences of the western nutrition science

western nutrition science as the key

to combat malnutrition

The controversies over the negative effects by multinational food corporations

The public-private partnership

as a beneficial tool for development

Sandra Harding’s proposal to "keep both eyes open"

The second layer: possibility of “other ways of knowing food”

by recognizing western nutrition science should not be the only way of knowing food in the Global South, we need to consider the “other ways of knowing food” in the local context of different countries.

Nutrition science as representation

Population health as reality

The third layer: the context of competing farming approaches

How different farming approaches interact with:

western nutrition science

the idea of public-private partnership in the international development field

The local knowledge of knowing food

Symmetrical framework & de-romanticize alternative approaches