FAO in its report - The State of Food and Agriculture (2013) - acknowledged the huge economic, social and psychological impact of varied forms of malnutrition. According to the report 26% of the world’s children are stunted 2 billion people suffer from one or more micronutrient deficiencies and 1.4 billion people are overweight of whom 500 are obese. Beyond the social costs, malnutrition has a huge economic costs in terms of productivity lost and direct health care costs account for as much as 5% of the global gross domestic product (GDP) which is equivalent to US $ 3.5 trillion per year or US $ 500 per person. The costs of under nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies are also huge accounts 2 to 3 percent of global GDP.

Therefore, the need for strategies and actions that bring sustainable solutions to end hunger and improve nutrition are more apparent than any time. As a result home and small farm production as the key determinant for dietary diversity has identified as an intervention for better nutritional outcomes. 

The State of food and Agriculture report has greatly emphasized all efforts to improve nutrition and to reduce the unacceptably high economic and social costs must begin with food and agriculture. Thus the FAO report has designed nutrition sensitive food systems interventions to address malnutrition and reduce the social and economic costs of nutritional problems.

Nutrition-promoting farming systems including small-scale farming are major components of the food systems framework. Initiatives that support home and smallholder production hold potential for improving dietary diversity and it is the key determinant of nutritional outcomes. Agricultural productivity growth in both staples and non-staples, as well as diversity in production, is the main ways in which agriculture contributes to improved nutrition. The most fundamental way in which agricultural production contributes to nutrition is by making food more available and affordable through agricultural productivity growth.

The FAO report has incorporated some case studies from developing countries to exhibit the important role of home and small farm food production for better nutrition. Action Contre La Faim (ACF) developed “Health and Nutrition Gardens” approach in West Africa empowered women to increase dietary diversity through home grown vegetables resulted in increase of vegetable by 160% and increase the seasonal availability of vegetables from 5 months within a year before the program to 9 months. ACF initiative has also considerably increased the nutritious outcome and dietary knowledge of the participants.

Initiatives made to support small-scale pastoral community by Save the Children is other case study in the FAO report that has resulted in positive nutritious outcomes. Provision of supplementary feed, vaccinations and de-worming as well as ensuring the availability of sufficient water to the small-scale pastoralist in Somali region of Ethiopia has improved the availability of milk in the region. As the result of this 90 percent of the children in Waruf were given milk, compared with only 31 percent in the control region, Fadhato.

Other study made by UK Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has also acknowledged the significant contribution of smallholders to better nutrition.  According Steve Wiggins & Sharada Keats (2013) from ODI Smallholder agriculture can potentially affect food security and nutrition through different ways. Among others, these are the major pathways from smallholders’ agricultural development to food security and nutrition:

1. Making food available through production; to the extent to which food can be produced and stored locally at moderate cost, this can reduce temporary local shortages;
2. Reducing the real cost of food by increasing the supply of food.
3. The composition of production also matters, since this affects the availability and prices of different foods  with their varying nutrients;
4. Generating incomes for farmers and those working the land as labourers, that allow access to food; and through
5. Providing incomes to others in the rural economy from linkages in production and consumption that create additional activity and jobs. 

A recent finding by Agriculture for impact (2013) revealed that efforts to improve market access to Sub-Saharan Africa smallholder has greatly contributed for better nutrition. “We have seen firsthand the power that providing enterprise skills and market access can have in empowering smallholder farmers to boost their production, improve their nutrition and increase their incomes – when managed effectively and coupled with appropriate safety nets” (Agriculture for Impact, 2013).

However, according the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) agriculture alone has shown limited success to improve nutrition. This could be mainly due to the fact that the nature of malnutrition is different from country to country as the level of agricultural and economic development varies. Similar to that causes of malnutrition are multidimensional and complex. This entails, interventions for better nutritious outcome should be dimensional and sustainable.

Therefore, as broadly discussed in the State of Food and Agriculture - FAO report - agriculture and the entire food system – from inputs and production, through processing, storage, transport and retailing, to consumption – can contribute much more to the eradication of malnutrition. Moreover, actions and strategies to address malnutrition should include integrated and complementary interventions in agriculture and food system in general, public health, considers gender roles within food systems, and education for [consumption] behavioral change as well as broad policy domains. 

To get a wider view of how can agricultural production improve nutrition you can download the whole document of The State of Food and Agriculture 2013: Food Systems for better nutrition report here 

Other sources: 

http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8376.pdf

http://www.technoserve.org/files/downloads/8-views-for-the-g8.pdf