Humanitarian emergencies (e.g. due to natural disasters, conflicts, pandemics) are characterised by serious disruptions of food value chains (VCs). These can result in shortages of food delivered due to physical loss along the value chain, but also a decline in the food’s nutritional quality i.e. as a result of inappropriate or extended storage conditions. Relief food distributed to beneficiary populations can also be shared unequally, for example at the household level, hence penalising the most nutritionally vulnerable such as women and children. In this context, nutrient losses have strong implications on the nutrient intake, and consequently nutritional status of exposed populations. There is a need for validated metrics, tools, and methods to mitigate these effects.

NUTRI-P-LOSS, a Round 2 IMMANA Grant project was the first to offer an estimation tool for nutritional postharvest losses (NPHLs) throughout agricultural VCs. Our proposed research (NUTRI+4AID) will validate the previous tool in a different setting – the humanitarian setting. NUTRI+4AID will focus on key-nutrient loss in locally procured relief food: macronutrients (protein, lipid, carbohydrate) and problematic micronutrients in terms of deficiencies (vitamin A, zinc, and iron) in key-staple crops: maize, sorghum, cowpea, bean, sweet potato, in two FCDO-priority countries, Uganda and Zimbabwe, which are currently experiencing humanitarian assistance. In addition to the validation of our previous project (NUTRI-P-LOSS) in humanitarian settings, NUTRI+4AID will evaluate various disruption and crisis scenarios. Sit

The NUTRI+4AID methodology and tool designed for estimating NPHLs both in ‘normal’ agricultural VCs and unstable global contexts (i.e. humanitarian crises), will bring reliable and critical missing food security information to agriculture practitioners, humanitarians, researchers, and policy makers to help build more resilient and nutrition-sensitive food systems.

Click here to read about the Round 2 IMMANA Grant project that developed NUTRI-P-LOSS.