Speakers - 2025

Abstract

Remote communities in the world face challenges of availability and access to vegetables and fruits that promote a healthy diet. This is due to many reasons including lack of knowledge and skills of planning healthy daily diets and lack of nutrition-sensitive agriculture/horticulture education.  The effects of this lack of nutritional diversity are detrimental to people’s health at every stage in their development. Cases of stunting and vitamin and mineral deficiencies among children caused by food deficiency or diet-related non-communicable diseases are on the rise. Horticultural interventions in the form of integrated school, family and community gardens offer a sustainable solution to improving nutritional outcomes. Diversified production systems are part of climate change adaptation and techniques of kitchen gardening and intercropping can provide a continuous source of nutrient dense crops. Consumption of a more balanced diet will reduce deficiencies, and decrease the incidence of nutrition-related disease. Examples of these horticultural interventions will be shared and the benefits discussed.

Improving nutrition is often associated with women’s empowerment (time, labor, assets, income control) as a key to achieve desirable impact. Women are significant contributors to household food security and nutrition but are also particularly adversely affected by food insecurity and malnutrition.