Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

UNICEF estimates that 161 million children worldwide are stunted — that is, affected by a cumulative process created by insufficient diet that causes them to have normal body proportions but look younger than their age. To address food insecurity and stunting, agricultural policy has favored production of a small set of crops (rice, corn, and wheat) at the expense of neglected and underutilized crop species (NUCS) — diverse, regional, and nutrient dense plant species. Encouraging higher production of NUCS is a promising solution to the dual challenges of declining crop diversity and increasing hunger, particularly among women and young children (Heywood, 2011). This study aims to develop and evaluate an intervention to increase the uptake and consumption of NUCS in Tanzania, where 42 percent of children under the age of 5 are stunted. Because of the complex relationships among agriculture, food security, and maternal and child health, we conducted a Rapid Qualitative Assessment (RQA) to understand local barriers and challenges to growing and consuming orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP), a highly nutritious NUCS, among pregnant and lactating mothers. The RQA found that though pregnant women and mothers of young children were eager to learn about how to increase nutrient intake, they had little knowledge about nutritional values of crops, were unfamiliar with OFSP cultivation, and did not know how to prepare OFSP for consumption. These and other findings informed our approach to developing program activities to increase the likelihood of impacts on maternal and child health.