Resource information
Even after several decades of green
revolution, malnutrition continues to be a major development
challenge in much of South Asia, and India has a major share
of the malnourished people in the region. For nutrition
goals to be integrated into extension the curricula provided
to current and future agricultural extension agents must be
revisited. As part of the South Asia Food and Nutrition
Security Initiative (SAFANSI), this paper focuses on
approaches to incorporating such nutrition content into the
agricultural extension curriculum. Three state agricultural
universities in Tamil Nadu, united Andhra Pradesh, and Bihar
were used as case studies for the curriculum review. Through
these case studies, face-to-face consultations at the
national level down to program implementation at the village
level have been developed. These include consultative
workshops, and a conceptual framework and strategy for
incorporating nutrition into extension curriculum
development to improve nutrition outcomes. This strategy,
detailed in this report, includes opportunities for
collaboration from the national level to the community
level. Specific lessons and follow-up actions are outlined
that may be useful for other South Asian countries. The
paper is organized as follows: chapter one gives
introduction. Chapter two reviews current literature on
agriculture-nutrition linkages to develop a conceptual
framework for integrating nutrition into agricultural
extension programs. Research methods and approaches are
given in chapter three. Results and discussions are given in
chapter four. Lessons from the case studies are presented in
chapter five, and chapter six consists of concluding remarks.
