From Intent to Action: Aligning Agriculture Interventions to Nutrition Goals

Throughout history, agriculture has remained central to food security, with a primary focus on increasing food production and availability. Yet food production and availability have not consistently translated into improved nutrition outcomes. According to the 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, more than 2 billion people worldwide suffer from one or more micronutrient deficiencies. Across many contexts, obesity, undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and poor dietary diversity, particularly among women and children, remain widespread.

In Nigeria, the nutrition situation remains critical. According to UNICEF, approximately 30 % of children under five are stunted, and high rates of anemia and other micronutrient deficiencies persist across households, with food insecurity affecting around 79% of surveyed households. Meanwhile, the  Cadre Harmonisé analysis indicates that nearly 3 million children under five and women (pregnant and breastfeeding) currently suffer from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, with ongoing acute needs across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states affecting roughly 5.9 million people facing crisis or worse conditions.

Beyond malnutrition, Nigeria faces acute food insecurity, with the FAO estimating  27.2 million people food insecure, and a possible rise to 34.7 million during the June–August 2026 lean season if timely, coordinated support is not scaled.

Addressing this gap requires moving beyond intent to deliberately designing inclusive agriculture interventions that place nutrition at their core. This is necessary because more food does not automatically mean better nutrition. Barriers like limited dietary diversity, unequal food access within households, and overlooked local preferences often limit adequate nutrient intake. By intentionally integrating nutrition objectives into agricultural planning, policies, and programs, we can ensure that increases in food production translate into improved nutrition outcomes.

Through the Impacting Gender and Nutrition through Innovative Technical Exchange in Agriculture Plus (IGNITE+) project, led by Tanager, Ikore is embedding gender and nutrition-sensitive practices into agri-food enterprises and value chains by supporting African Agricultural Institutions (AAIs) to re-imagine their policies, systems, strategies, resourcing, and programmes to ensure agriculture delivers measurable nutrition outcomes.

Ikore’s support is delivered as technical assistance to AAIs, handholding them through a number of critical steps and a bundle of service packages, including systems diagnostic assessment, capacity building, and on-field technical support during implementation.  Through capacity building on designing and measuring nutrition-sensitive agriculture, the development of nutrition strategies, and training on social and behavior change to increase the consumption of nutritious foods.

But what does it take to move to real impact?

Understanding Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture (NSA)

Nutrition-sensitive agriculture is a food-based approach that intentionally prioritizes nutritionally rich foods, dietary diversity, and food biofortification to improve nutrition outcomes. Unlike conventional agricultural programming, which often focuses on yields and productivity, nutrition-sensitive agriculture intentionally works with agri-food system actors to prioritize the production and consumption of nutrient-dense foods. The goal of NSA is to achieve dietary diversity, support maternal and child nutrition, reduce micronutrient deficiencies, and promote safe and equitable food access.

Within the IGNITE+ project, this means embedding nutrition goals at every stage of agricultural program design and implementation so that food systems deliver not just more food but better diets for improved nutrition outcomes.

Nutrition-Specific vs. Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions

Nutrition programming has a longstanding emphasis on nutrition-specific interventions, such as micronutrient supplementation, breastfeeding promotion, complementary feeding, and treatment of acute malnutrition. While these interventions are essential, evidence shows that they address immediate causes of malnutrition and are therefore insufficient on their own. The 2013 Lancet Maternal and Child Nutrition Series reveals that even with scaling up 10nutrition-specific interventions to 90% in 34 high-burden countries, chronic malnutrition would reduce by only about 20%.

Nutrition-sensitive interventions address this gap by tackling the underlying causes of malnutrition, including food insecurity, low income, gender inequality, poor sanitation, and limited access to health services. Agricultural interventions, when intentionally designed, play a critical role in addressing these root causes.

So, what makes agricultural interventions nutrition-sensitive?

The IGNITE+ project recognizes that increased production alone does not guarantee improved diets. A well-designed nutrition-sensitive agricultural intervention intentionally includes:

• Clear nutrition objectives embedded within agricultural activities
• Targeted actions that influence what foods are produced, processed, and consumed
• Measurable indicators that track nutrition outcomes alongside economic performance

Without these elements, nutritional outcomes remain incidental rather than intentional.

Key Pathways Linking Agriculture to Nutrition

Effective nutrition-sensitive agriculture is grounded in an understanding of how farming systems influence nutrition outcomes. IGNITE+ aligns its interventions with three well-established agriculture-to-nutrition pathways:

1. Food Production: Increasing the availability, diversity, and nutrient density of foods to improve access to healthy diets.
2. Income Generation: Enhancing household income to enable food purchases, health care, and education investments.
3. Women’s Empowerment: Strengthening women’s control over resources, decision-making, and time use to improve household nutrition and caregiving practices.

By deliberately working across these pathways, the IGNITE+ project supports more sustainable and meaningful nutrition outcomes.

To turn these pathways into actionable interventions, Tanager developed the Nutrition-Sensitive Intervention Selection (NSIS) Tool, which guides users through the design and implementation of context-specific, evidence-based agricultural interventions. The tool integrates gender considerations and supports food system actors to embed nutrition and women’s empowerment from the outset.

From Intent to Action

Integrating nutrition-sensitive approaches into agriculture is essential for building resilient and inclusive food systems. The IGNITE+ project, led by Tanager, is advancing this shift across five countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania. To accelerate women’s economic empowerment and improve household nutrition across Nigeria, Ikore is providing technical assistance to eight (8) AAIs – Diamond Development Initiative, Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF), Agriculture Graduate Association of Nigeria (AGAN), Cosharis Farms Limited, TracTrac MSL, and CHC Agritech Africa Nigeria Limited.

At the institutional level, this support focuses on strengthening internal systems, building staff capacity, and developing policies and strategies to guide design and execution. Our support at the program level focuses on designing and delivering formative research, facilitating tailored capacity-building sessions, and providing on-field advisory support during implementation.

– Written by Calista Iheoma Geoffery