As the country is facing enormous challenges to deal with malnutrition, it needs to promote dietary diversity to improve nutritional status of under-5 children.Around 40 percent children in Bangladesh are suffering from different magnitude of malnutrition and this rate of undernourished children is even higher than many Sub-Saharan countries, speakers told a symposium on “Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture in Bangladesh” at the auditorium of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council here on Sunday.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in cooperation with Helen Keller International, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and World Fish Centre organized the symposium.
Agriculture Secretary Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah, Food Secretary AM Badrudduja, FAO Representative in Bangladesh Mike Robson, Executive Director of Power and Participation Research Centre Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman, Executive Chairman of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Dr Abul Kalam Azad, Chief Party of IFPRI Dr Akhter U Ahmed and Director of Office of Food of Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance of USAID Michael Satin, among others, addressed the symposium.
Director of Nutrition and Food System Division of FAO Anna Lartey presented the keynote paper at the symposium.
The nutrition experts suggested ensuring quality diets through promoting nutrition sensitive agriculture to overcome the challenges of malnutrition.
Badrudduja said in Bangladesh, 36 percent of children under five are considered to be short for their age or stunted and one third of women are under-nourished, with many becoming pregnant while anemic.
The issue of malnutrition is multi-sectoral and needs to be addressed through targeted policy and programming in health, water, sanitation and hygiene, social protection and agriculture, he said.
In her keynote paper, Anna said, “Good nutrition begins with good food, that is, food which is self-sufficient in terms of quality and diversity to provide all the individuals in a family with essential nutrients in appropriate amounts.”
Good food comes from agriculture, beginning with choices in production and cropping systems, and including processing and marketing as well, she added.
Food habit are getting worse around the world, Anna said adding appropriate feeding practices need food diversification, which ultimately help maintain nutritional status of people.
“There are various adverse consequences of malnutrition… Some consequences are short-term and some are long-term. Short-term impacts of malnutrition include poor performance of children and maternal mortality while long-term impacts include short height of adult, low productivity and poor cognitive development,” she added.
Mike Robson stressed the need for promoting crop diversification to change dietary habits of people of Bangladesh. Crops with high nutrition values should get good prices to encourage farmers to grow more production, which will address malnutrition problem in the country.
Zillur Rahman said, “There are knowledge gap over nutrition and food security in the country and we need to address it to overcome malnutrition problem.” Alongside increasing productivity, the country needs to increase skills in whole food processing and supply system for ensuring food security and maintaining nutritional status of the people.
