A Review of the Effectiveness of Agriculture Interventions in Improving Nutrition Outcomes

Publication Year: 2008
Author: Peter R Berti, Julia Krasevec, Sian FitzGerald

Objectives: To review the impact of agriculture interventions on nutritional status in participating households, and to analyse the characteristics of interventions that improved nutrition outcomes. Design: We identified and reviewed reports describing 30 agriculture interventions that measured impact on nutritional status. The interventions reviewed included home gardening, livestock, mixed garden and livestock, cash cropping, and irrigation. We examined the reports for the scientific quality of the research design and treatment of the data.We also assessed whether the projects invested in five types of ‘capital’ (physical, natural, financial, human and social) as defined in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, a conceptual map of major factors that affect people’s livelihoods.