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A blind spot in food and nutrition security: where culture and social change shape the local food plate

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Abstract

It is estimated that over 800 million people are hungry each day and two billion are suffering from the consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. While a paradigm shift towards a multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral approach to food and nutrition insecurity is emerging, technical approaches largely prevail to tackle the causes of hunger and malnutrition. Founded in original in-depth field research among smallholder farmers in southwest Kenya, we argue that incorporating cultural or social dimensions in this technical debate is imperative and that by systematically overlooking these dimensions, food insecurity cannot be accurately captured nor properly addressed. Based on a sub-location in rural southwest Kenya where the food plate is rapidly narrowing towards a high-calorie low nutrient diet and where over 80 % of households experience food shortages at least once a year, conclusions suggest that preferences, the local function of food, and the practices that emerge therefrom can affect the regularity of meals and their composition. The findings allow us to complement emerging research and program development with a more comprehensive and locally adapted approach to tackle food and nutrition insecurity.

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Notes

  1. The most critical deficiencies include vitamin A, iron, zinc, iodine, and folic acid (Micronutrient Initiative 2009). Vitamin A deficiency can cause mortality and blindness; lack of iron can result in anemia and builds resistance to infection; zinc shortage can lead to diarrhea and stunting; salt iodization promotes cognitive development; and a lack of folic acid can lead to disability (Micronutrient Initiative 2009).

  2. Food and nutrition indicators extensively inform the measurement and monitoring process and policy interventions. These indicators typically include calories per capita measures based on Food Balance Sheets, household consumption data using Household Surveys, and dietary intake measures using Food and Nutrition surveys.

  3. According to the World Cancer Research Fund: “‘Western’ dietary patterns are energy dense, and increasingly made up from processed foods. They are high in meat, milk and other dairy products, fatty or sugary foods such as processed meats, pastries, baked goods, confectionery, sugared and often also alcoholic drinks, with variable amounts of vegetables and fruits. The starchy staple foods are usually breads, cereal products, or potatoes. A feature of the global ‘nutrition transition’ is that ‘western’ dietary patterns are becoming ‘exported’ globally with accelerating speed. ‘Western’ diets defined in this way are associated with overweight and obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, some cancers, and other chronic diseases. However, the term ‘western diet’ is potentially confusing: variations of such diets consumed within ‘western’ countries can and do have very different nutritional profiles” (2007, p. 192).

  4. In 2008 ODI estimated that the vast majority of overweight and obese adults are found in developing countries (904 million compared with 557 million in the industrialized world) (ODI 2014).

  5. The human well-being approach (hereafter referred to as the well-being approach), launched at the University of Bath, UK in 2002, suggests well-being as a way to understand the outcomes and processes of development. Rather than infer well-being or development with proxies such as income, the approach is multi-dimensional; it posits that well-being is based on three interconnected pillars of physical, social, and psychological/subjective well-being.

  6. Starvation or acute disease exhibited by the shrinking of the stomach where the body lives off of the fat under the skin and then eats away the muscle.

  7. A disease made visible when a second child is born and does not leave enough milk for the firstborn.

  8. Due to the mosaic virus, which attacked the cassava root and increased value placed on maize over cassava, the cultivation of sorghum and millet has also declined (Mango and Hebinck 2004) as these grains are too bitter to eat alone or with maize according to local tastes (I29).

  9. Sun drying cereals is practiced frequently. Once dehydrated, they are stored in sacks or granaries with chemicals to reduce insect infestation, formerly prevented by drying and burning manure into ash to mix with the grain. However, due to fear of theft, they are increasingly kept in sacks within the home rather than outside in an unprotected granary constructed of twigs.

  10. Potatoes and cassava are customarily left in the soil until needed, a long-practiced method of conservation.

  11. Except for little fish or omena, fish is purchased fresh.

Abbreviations

CABE:

Centre for African Bio-Entrepreneurship

FAO:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

NCD:

Non-communicable disease

SUN:

Scaling up nutrition

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technical Cooperation and Investments Center (TCI), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Room D517, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153, Rome, Italy

    Anna-Lisa Noack

  2. International Development Studies, Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Room G 1.34, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018 VZ, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Nicky R. M. Pouw

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  1. Anna-Lisa Noack
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Correspondence to Anna-Lisa Noack.

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Noack, AL., Pouw, N.R.M. A blind spot in food and nutrition security: where culture and social change shape the local food plate. Agric Hum Values 32, 169–182 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-014-9538-y

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