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THE FOOD SYSTEM AND ITS INTERACTION WITH HUMAN HEALTH AND NUTRITION 27


BOX 1 Empower Women to Play an Effective Role


The link between health and productivity is particularly important for women—partly because of the role women play in food production, food preparation, and child care and partly because of their special vulnerabilities related to reproductive health. The limited communication between agricul- tural and health research is an obstacle to women’s ability to meet nutrition and health goals for themselves and their families. Women are key players in food systems—in Africa, for instance, they


account for 70 percent of farm labor and perform 80 percent of food process- ing. They are certain to play a large role in producing increased food supplies to meet rising demand. But women must be given the power to play their role in agriculture effectively. They will require access to land rights, water-use rights, credit, extension services, and well-functioning markets for inputs and outputs. In many areas women smallholder farmers are attempting to raise their incomes through better access to output markets, and supermarkets are offering new market opportunities. But these opportunities also present smallholders with new competitive conditions, requirements for improved food safety, and demands for consistency in quantity and quality, which they may have difficulties meeting. Agricultural projects and policies must therefore take context-specific


gender norms and women’s heavy time demands and constraints into account. Both women and men should be involved in developing priorities and implementation strategies for projects and research for the food system (Cramer and Wandira 2010).


important measures of well-being, but they can make workers more productive and thereby help transform food systems into vehicles for greater economic growth and poverty alleviation.


The Bottom Line Human health and nutrition are both the foundation of a strong food system and the expected outcome from such a system. An integrated multidisciplinary systems approach to research and development in human health and the food system, with due consideration to natural environment issues, thus offers great advantages over single-sector approaches, irrespective of whether the goal is improved health, improved nutrition, improved food systems, or sustainable management of the


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