Nutrition for Sale: Solutions that are Feeding Bellies, Brains and Businesses

Writers: Giselle Aris, Jennie Lane

How do we feed an ever-growing population with healthy, nutritious, affordable, accessible, and sustainably-raised food? And how can we leverage the development and business sectors to meet not only SDG 2 – Zero Hunger – but also impact at least 12 other SDGs through markets, agriculture and livestock? These questions are central to our work at Land O’Lakes International Development and to our global partners. 

A few facts

It’s estimated that 795 million people globally are undernourished. Stunting, protein energy malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies of iron, zinc, Vitamin A, and iodine are blamed for over 50 percent of deaths of children under five years old. It is estimated that loss in adult income from being stunted is 22 percent, and when growing up both stunted and in poverty, 30 percent. In Asia and Africa, undernutrition costs 11 percent of GDP annually. We also know that adding even a small amount of high quality, animal source protein to a mostly plant-based diet can increase nutritional adequacy considerably. Animal source foods are nature’s packaged foods that provide an array of essential micronutrients that are efficient and easily digestible. 

The marketplace

The base of the pyramid. The most vulnerable household. The bottom billion. These terms all refer to the same(ish) population. Most often, they are also the target of development initiatives focused on agriculture, nutrition, and water/sanitation/hygiene. These households – both rural and urban – are a powerful customer base whose buying power and demand for nutritious food is growing. Rural farmers, particularly in Africa, still produce the majority of food consumed across most of the developing world, but as crops are commoditised, poor producers often can no longer afford to consume their own products. Urban consumers are also increasingly demanding more animal source foods while having a growing awareness of food safety and nutrition issues. The opportunity exists to supply even the poorest households with high quality, affordable, safe, nutrient rich food in a model that can pay for itself. This model includes marginalised populations and has the foundation to enter formal economies. 

The evidence in Rwanda

In Rwanda, Land O’Lakes International Development is implementing the Rwanda Dairy Competitiveness Program II (RDCP II), a five-year program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). RDCP II works with various levels of government in Rwanda and private enterprise partners to improve food safety, build capacity of the dairy value chain, and scale up the dairy sector. RDCP II focuses attention on integrating nutrition by partnering program staff with the USAID Ethiopia office leadership to help it to become not only value chain focused, but also nutrition sensitive and inclusive. Nutrition sensitive value chains address the underlying drivers of malnutrition – including access to safe, affordable, and healthy food. A central objective of RDCP II is to generate income and employment, specifically for rural small holder farmer households. The overarching goal and mission for RDCP II is: to increase the competitiveness of Rwanda dairy products in regional markets to positively impact rural household incomes associated with dairy related enterprises.

This approach extends the benefits of safe and nutritious milk beyond direct beneficiaries and includes consumers from districts across Rwanda. Fundamental to the project’s success was engaging and building private sector enterprises in the dairy value chain. Also critical, was increasing consumer demand. Throughout the life of the program, RDCP II reached 1.6 million consumers through the Shisha Wumva dairy consumption campaign and by messaging the nutritional benefits of milk on Urunana, a popular radio program.

Enter Inyange Industries. A grantee recipient and integral partner with RDCP II, Inyange Industries exemplifies the potential for supporting rural small holder farmers while increasing access to more nutritious – and safer – milk products. Inyange Industries is building on their Milk Zone model, which offers bulk milk sales at affordable prices. Already there are 78 active urban Inyange Milk Zones and one rural Milk Zone, selling an incredible 580,000 litres of milk monthly. An equal opportunity employer, Inyange Industries tackles inclusivity from another angle too – by offering an affordable, safe, and nutritious product to an expanded customer base who otherwise would not be able to access it through traditional grocery stores in larger prepackaged sizes. Inyange Industries already buys milk through 12 milk collection centres across the country, providing a reliable, transparent and inclusive market for rural farmers across Rwanda. Inyange hopes to continue to expand the Milk Zone model.

The Gaps

It remains to be determined if expanded access to milk and dairy products across Rwanda can help drive down stunting prevalence and undernutrition in Rwanda. Attribution of certain projects to national stunting data is an active area of debate and research among the donor and academic communities. Pragmatic approaches as well as well robust and rigorous impact evaluations are necessary to determine if large scale, national nutritious value chain interventions will impact rural household nutrition at the individual level. That said, increasing the accessibility of milk for poor households in quantities in harmony with household income, is, at least in theory, good for the consumer – and good for business. 

Beyond Milk

Land O’Lakes International Development is best known for its dairy sector programming, leveraging decades of dairy cooperative expertise. But our work goes far beyond dairy. In Tanzania, our Innovations in Gender Equality to Promote Household Food Security (IGE) is supporting women led enterprises and leadership in agriculture. Entrepreneurs such as Nancy Kaaya and the rest of her team at SIWATO enterprises are scaling up solar driers in rural areas of Tanzania to produce high quality and nutritious dried fruits and vegetables specifically for rural communities. Not only do innovations like this provide increased access to nutritious foods previously only available seasonally, they also provide valuable income for households to purchase other nutrient-rich foods.

In Kenya, our USAID-funded Kenya Feed the Future Innovation Engine project (KIE) provides small businesses catalytic grants to help harness the power of the private sector while incubating new approaches in agriculture to address poverty and food security. At the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, speaker Marion Moon, and her company Wanda Organic, spoke about mainstreaming bio-fertilisers for rural farmers in Kenya, contributing to agricultural productivity while providing smallholder farmers with a climate smart alternative. Driven with the mission to improve soil fertility, improve health, and support livelihoods, Wanda Organic stays true to its Swahili roots – wanda meaning “thriving bush.” Improved soil fertility equals increased crop productivity and crop quality, resulting in improved food security, higher nutrient content of crops, and increased farmer profitability.

Conclusion

When a small business becomes a large business, it creates an average of 200 jobs. When that business model is inclusive and focused on nutritious value chains, the opportunities to improve the livelihoods and nutrition of the worlds’ poor are magnified. Identifying those businesses and helping them overcome the financial and technical barriers to achieve success are the foundation of Land O’Lakes International Development’s Inclusive Finance and Enterprise Development practice area.

This blog is part of the December 2016 series on Inclusive Business models delivering nutrition, in partnership with DFID and GAIN.Don’t miss the webinar series in January 2017 on Marketing nutrition to the BOP.