Food that packs a punch in Asia and the Pacific

Brian Thomson: 00:05

This is Farms. Food. Future. – a podcast that’s Good for you, Good for the Planet, and Good for Farmers.  Brought to you by the International Fund for Agricultural Development.   

 

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Brian: 00:17

Welcome to episode 82, I’m Brian Thomson,

Michelle Tang: 00:21

and co-presenting this edition, I’m Michelle Tang.

Brian: 00:24

Today we’re diving into something pretty fascinating – how small shifts in food habits across Asia are shaking up health, agriculture, and entire communities.

Michelle: 00:36

And we’re not just talking about adding an extra veggie to your plate. This is about real change – rethinking how food is grown, distributed, and consumed to make sure nutrition is at the heart of agriculture.

Brian: 00:50

And that’s exactly what experts tackled at the IFAD workshop on Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture in Cambodia. Big names, big ideas, and a whole lot of collaboration.

Michelle: 01:00

Regional leaders came together to swap best practices, tackle challenges, and figure out how to make sure food systems work for everyone… especially the most vulnerable. You’ll hear voices from across Asia-Pacific sharing what’s working, what’s not, and what’s next.

Brian: 01:19

We’re talking climate adaptation, gender, youth inclusion – it’s all linked.

Michelle: 01:23

But before we jump in, don’t forget we want to hear from you – what you think about our stories and who you want us to be talking to – so please get in touch with us at podcasts@ifad.org. You can also subscribe to this podcast via your favourite podcast platform and please don’t forget to rate us.

Brian: 01:44

Coming up, our reporter Yamini Lohia brings us a report straight from Cambodia, with perspectives from Papua New Guinea, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan.

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Yamini Lohia: 02:01

We’re now in Cambodia at the IFAD workshop on Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Development, where regional leaders gathered to address how nutrition and agriculture intersect.

One key issue raised was the challenge of shifting communities’ preferences towards locally grown, nutrient-rich food, over cheaper, imported options.

Boreth Sun from Cambodia’s Agricultural Services Programme for Innovation, Resilience, and Extension, also known as ASPIRE, tells us about this common issue faced by many countries in the region.

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Boreth Sun: 02:34

Cambodian context: Nutrition is always associated with social status. Smallholder farmers or poor rural households are the ones who are most vulnerable, but at the same time, they produce so much healthy food. So how do you really promote that and encourage people to consume what they grow, what they produce, and what are available around their house? That's including chicken, including meat, including vegetables, including fish, including everything there. So, I think for us, the challenge is not to really think about, you know, other high value products because it's a social status thing. You want to consume what you call social status imported product, which sometimes it's not really healthy or nutritious for people. You know, you produce food to ensure that it's chemical free, so that you produce quality vegetables.

Sometimes people talk about nutrition as you know, you get more protein in this, you get more nutrition here and there. But at the same time, this is all contaminated with chemical residue… And then what's the point? So, we had to combine both. The challenges the project is doing both is that, you know, lots of proteins, lots of vitamins, a lot of nutrients in a lot of these vegetables that has been grown. So, we encourage them to eat that because first of all, it's safe. We know that it's chemical free or it's a good product. It's a safe product. Second is that it provides a lot of healthy nutrient benefits to the communities. We do work with a lot of people who are working with school and working with parents who also want to know that, you know, it's very important to ensure that the kids are eating the right type of food.

The health of people who produce food is also the health of people who consume that food as well. And so, I think this is the message, if you have a healthy father, you have a healthy mother, you have a healthy family… a healthy family make a healthy community… and a healthy community, make a healthy society and country.

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Yamini: 04:23

Thank you Boreth. It’s clear that the challenge isn’t just about food security but also about shifting social perceptions around nutrition.

Next, we’ll hear from Elizabeth Ngolo, M&E Officer for the Market for Village Farmers Project in Papua New Guinea, about how incorporating more colourful, balanced meals, is making a tangible difference in people’s health and well-being.

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Yamini: 04:47

Can you tell me a little bit about what the big challenges are with nutrition?

Elizabeth Ngolo: 04:54

The big challenges that we face…. Firstly, we have food, plenty of food, but the thing is we don't really understand what nutrition is and most times we don't really have this kind of balanced meal on our plates. And the other thing is education level, the level of knowledge. Most of our people are illiterate. So, a way of communicating from the English language down to the local language is kind of difficult.

Since I joined the project under this IFAD programme, we are now educating the farmers under this nutrition programme. When we conduct a training programme, we reminded them that we don't only work or produce to get money, but also to feed us, to feed ourselves, making sure that we have all the balanced meal that our body needs.

Yamini: 06:01

Thank you. That's very interesting. So, is there an example or a story that maybe you can share where this approach has been successful?

Elizabeth 6:10

Yeah, there are plenty successful stories, like after we train the people on how to have their plates coloured as a rainbow, there has to be a rainbow food on their plate. And then when we go back to the village and we do other activities apart from nutrition, we have feedback from the participants: “Oh, the training that you come and teach us, we tried it, and we feel that our body changed from one state to another”. Like one of the women said: “First I always feel sleepy, I'm tired every time… But now that I learn how to cook balanced meal, I feel that I have enough strength to do my farming”. Men are also now participating in preparing the food. Not only the women. Also, the teachers from primary schools are asking us to share the information on how to deliver this nutrition programme. So, we have been producing the booklets and giving them the information on how to run this nutrition programme to their communities.

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Yamini: 07:22

Thanks Elisabeth, it’s amazing how simple shifts in meal preparation can have such a profound impact on people’s daily lives.

Now, Fathimath Fazuna, who works with the Maldives Agribusiness Programme (MAP), tells us how they the island communities are taking control of their nutrition by growing and consuming more varied foods.

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Fathimath Fazuna: 07:43

n conducted in Maldives since: 2020

Yamini: 07:59

Thanks. Can I ask you about the nutritional challenges that you've seen?

Fathimath: 08:06

Yeah, basically, one of the challenges in Maldives context is that we are lacking a lot on micronutrients. Most of our diet includes proteins and carbohydrates, and we do not have a lot of diversity, so that's one of the challenges. And also, another one is that most of the crops are grown backyard in their homes, but it's not being consumed.

Yamini: 08:28

Thank you, Fathimath. So how are you and your team working to address these challenges?

Fathimath: 08:34

Yeah. Currently we are conducting home gardening training programs for island communities. We just finished our third island. We're providing participants with home gardening kits. And with it, we are also conducting nutrition awareness programmes for them so that they are more aware on diet and the diversities they can have in their meals and how to get a healthy meal on their table rather than an unhealthy one. We are having such awareness and educational programmes as well in the communities, and with it we are also conducting home gardening training.

Yamini: 09:16

Thank you. That sounds really promising. Is there an example or a success story that you can think of?

Fathimath: 09:21

We've had comments coming from the communities, that it was very important for them to know, and especially in a time where, you know, processed foods are so easily available and not very expensive, but processed food, are not giving them any benefits. So, it was an eye opening for some of them to have such sessions and they have also highlighted that, you know, traditional way of preparing the food and the ingredients used in preparing food are much more healthier and much more beneficial than the ones that we are using now.

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Yamini: 09:56

Thank you very much Fathimath. Growing your own food is one thing but making it sustainable in the long term is another, especially when dealing with climate change.

Now, we move to Sri Lanka, where Kapila Rathnayake, Gender Inclusion Specialist for IFAD’s Smallholder Agribusiness Partnerships Programme (SAPP), is working on value chain development.

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Yamini: 10:15

Kapila, can you identify some of the nutrition challenges that the communities that you work with have?

Kapila Rathnayake: 10:23

One of the biggest nutrition challenges, the lack of awareness about the rich nutritional foods and meals. And also, another thing is daily practices and habits, because all the media they construct, these artificial food and chemical based food items and drinks. So, then all the people they socialize with this process. So, one of the main challenges is how to deconstruct this belief system, how to deconstruct this artificial food chain. So that's the place where we implement value chain development process with the nutritional sensitive agricultural approach. So, what we are doing actually, we are creating innovative approaches through art-based tools, through media interventions, and through awareness workshops and different communication tools we are using to address these challenges. So, we develop our nutritional manual and training toolkit, and I personally develop a nutritional digital toolkit. You can have access through YouTube. So, we target ten topics like food waste and how to reduce the food waste and how to eat good, nutritional friendly meals.

Yamini: 11:41

Thank you Kapila. Can you now tell me about this specific story or example where you've seen an improvement in nutrition?

Kapila: 11:50

I have a couple of examples for your question. One is our mushroom project. Mushrooms have a good nutritional value, so if anybody doesn't have access for chicken they can replace with mushrooms to gain more protein. And also, another one is backyard poultry. Backyard poultry project itself is a nutritional rich production. So therefore, a lot of children and women, they got a lot of benefits during the Covid time in our country because of the backyard poultry project. As a gender and social inclusion officer, we when we conduct the workshop, we use forum theatre method to deliver the message to talk about nutrition. So, when you develop this forum theatre model, many people, they share their local recipes. We can introduce to the people about the nutrition or whatever the concept. But when you go to a particular community, they have a lot of stories, they have a lot of theories, they have a lot of practices. They have good recipes, listen to them, bring their recipes to the theory. Send to this community before you introduce your concepts, listen to them. They will share good nutritional friendly recipes to you.

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Yamini: 13:01

Thanks Kapila. Changing behaviour and mindsets in a way that includes nutrition is no small feat, but it’s something that’s clearly happening across the region.

Then, in Pakistan, Dr. Muhammad Ahsan Riaz, Project Director of IFAD’s National Poverty Graduation Programme, or NPGP, is combining nutrition with poverty reduction. I asked him about how they’re working on improving the health of families.

Muhammad Ahsan: 13:26

Our main objective is to enhance the income level of the very poor people and get them out of poverty on a sustainable basis, and at the same time, we need to address the climate issues, their nutritional related issues and the gender related issues. In the case of the nutrition, we have a lot of challenges because the people who are in poverty, they have malnutrition issues. They don't have any awareness regarding the balanced diet, about the healthy diets.

In our last study, we found that the 80% of the income the people invest on consumption. Then we realize that it's okay, they have used this for consumption, but what about the quality? Where is the healthy diet? So that was missing. So, this workshop gave me a good opportunity that immediately I will go back, and I'll develop a video on the healthy diets. Here I'm going to give you the example that actually the milk companies are collecting the milk from these small farmers. So, we have 80% livestock beneficiaries. So, these small farmers actually sold all their milk previously, and they start to give the milk whitener (powdered milk) to the children's. So, it is a big issue in the community. So, the Healthy Diets campaign will allow us to go back to what the nutritious milk for the children's. So similarly, we will develop these healthy diets campaign on area wise. So, we have six regions. So, in the regions we are going to develop this video messages and also include into our nutrition manual and disseminate in the target population.

It's important to share a very good news from a sustainability point of view and from an institutional point of view that NPGP (National Poverty Graduation Programme). On the basis of the current programme approach Islamic Development Bank, they’re another donor for the funding to address the poverty issue of the other people in the 25 districts and within that project, it is $134 million project, and in this project, we are now moving one step ahead. We are actually integrating the nutrition with the climate change, and we have designed the intervention to address the rainwater, rainwater harvesting and filtration of that water for the drinking of these beneficiaries, as well as use this water for irrigation purposes and for livestock.

Yamini: 15:39

Good luck with all of that. And is there a particular success story or an example that comes to mind?

Muhammad: 15:45

Women get chingchi rickshaw from the project as a livelihood asset. So, her husband runs this rickshaw and then we provide them, financial assistance through the EFL interest free loan. So, from this loan, she started a kitchen gardening, and then she produced a lot of good vegetables at the home level and that they are using not for the sale, but they are using for their home consumption. And then she realized that the health status of their children is improved, and mainly she mentioned that the expense, which is mostly go towards their saving, go towards the treatment of their children, now they are using for the other purposes because of this kitchen gardening. Now they have a balanced basket to provide the nutritious food to the children and the whole family.

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Yamini: 16:37

Thank you, that’s a powerful example of how even small changes, like promoting nutritious milk, can have a profound impact on a community’s well-being.

And that’s what’s been happening in communities in India as well. Our final guest, Maryam Barodawala's work in Maharashtra is an example of how gender-sensitive approaches in agriculture are helping women improve not only the economy but also nutrition in their homes.

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Yamini: 17:03

So, Maryam, can you tell me a little bit about the nutrition challenges that the community that you work with in Maharashtra face?

Maryam Barodawala: 17:12

So basically, Nav Tejaswini project is working across all 34 districts of Maharashtra. So, there are different challenges with each of these districts, okay, but in general, since our major work is with women, I mean, you know, they are our primary beneficiaries along with their households, gendered food consumption practices is one of the major challenges. Like, you know, women, women do not have enough access to food. They are usually the ones who tend to eat at the end. So that's one of the major challenges that is there. Secondly, lack of access of information about nutrition and lack of access to enough resources as well. We raise their income so that they can have access to nutritious food. We also try to create awareness amongst those communities about diversified food options, diversified cropping. We are promoting millets, organic farming, sustainable agricultural practices.

Some of the key interventions that we are doing in terms of working on nutrition related aspects… The first one to start with is Tharanga Thali campaign, where we try to create awareness amongst the communities of importance and significance of like, you know, incorporating different sort of food groups feed the greens, the carbs, the proteins, leafy vegetables, fruits, dairy products as well. You know, we are even trying to do competitions to promote traditional recipes. So, women come up with their traditional cuisines and all of that, and we also give them recipe books. Currently, we are glad to share that we have almost 1.5 lakh families who have adopted homestead gardens. And yes, even the FCS scores are quite promising – that's like the Food Consumption Scores – we are glad to share that there has been an increase of consumption of vegetables, especially amongst our households.

Yamini: 19:00

Thanks Maryam, that sounds very interesting. Can I also ask you if there are any particular success stories that you'd like to share or a campaign?

Maryam: 19:10

ite recently, as in September: 2024

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Yamini: 19:52

Thank you, Maryam. It’s inspiring to see how engaging with communities in creative ways can promote sustainable nutrition practices.

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Brian: 20:05

Thanks, Yamini for that report packed with great takeaways.

Michelle: 20:08

Yes… I love how local solutions are sparking big change at a global level.

Brian: 20:13

Exactly! The most innovative ideas often start small, at the community level…

Michelle: 20:19

…which is where real impact happens.

And that brings us to the end of this episode.

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Brian: 20:30

Thanks as always to our producers and editor here in Rome, Rosa González, Francesco Manetti, Jianing Zhang, and to our reporter, Yamini Lohia. 

Michelle: 20:41

But most of all thanks to you for listening to this episode of Farms Food Future brought to you by the International Fund for Agricultural Development. 

Brian: 20:50

We’ll be back in just two weeks tackling a trend that’s turning expectations upside down: reverse migration.

Michelle: 20:58

People aren’t just leaving rural areas; they’re going back, and they’re building real opportunities where they once seemed impossible.

Brian: 21:05

And on the last Monday of May, we’re talking fashion. But not just any fashion… GREEN fashion.

Michelle: 21:11

Clothes made from farm waste? Sounds unlikely.

But it’s real, it’s happening, and it might just change the industry as we know it.

Brian: 21:20

Who’s making it work? How? And could this be the future of sustainable style? We’ve got the answers, so…

Brian and Michelle: 21:28

Stay tuned! 

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Brian: 21:34

This is Farms. Food. Future. – a podcast that’s Good for you, Good for the Planet, and Good for Farmers.  Brought to you by the International Fund for Agricultural Development. 

You can find out more about all of our stories at www.ifad.org/podcasts

Remember we want to hear from you – what you think about our stories and who you want us to be talking to – so please get in touch at podcasts@ifad.org. Send us your voice or text messages to this address and we'll be happy to play you out in the next show.

Also, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast via your favourite podcast platform and please rate us.

And once again, we'll be trying to be Good for you, Good for the Planet, and Good for Farmers.  Brought to you by the International Fund for Agricultural Development. 

Until then from me, Brian Thomson, and the team here at IFAD.

Thanks for listening.