In the third of her blog reports from Vietnam, Jessica Raneri, Nutrition Programme Specialist, Bioversity International, explains some of the emerging findings from research in the Mai Son district in Son La Province to assess local food biodiversity and identify opportunities for improving diet quality and diversity. In my last blog, I reported on collecting baseline data from 400 households in four rural and farming communes of Mai Son district in Son La Province. This stage was to identify the current availability, access and use of agricultural biodiversity, nutrition knowledge and … [Read more...]
Improving Dietary Diversity and Quality through Systems Innovation: a Pilot Study from Vietnam
As part of her research for Humidtropics, Jessica Raneri, Nutrition Programme Specialist, Bioversity International, explains some of the challenges in gathering baseline data in the Mai Son district in Son La Province, Vietnam, to assess local food biodiversity and identify opportunities for improving diet quality and diversity. The focus is on women of child-bearing age and children between 12-23 months – an age group part of the critical 1000 day window for child development and the stage where they are able to consume a more diverse diet. As such, it is from this age group that … [Read more...]
Improving Nutrition and Dietary Diversity in Vietnam
Assessing the nutrition potential of diverse local foods I am currently working on a nutrition initiative through the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics (Humidtropics) to assess the potential of diverse local foods in Vietnam. We are looking at the potential of using diverse local foods to improve diet quality and diversity, especially for women of reproductive age and for children between 12-23 months. Malnutrition rates are high in Vietnam with a lack of dietary diversity thought to be a crucial factor. In the developing world diets often consist of … [Read more...]