Public Education On Food and Nutrition for the Marginal and Small Farm Families in Bangladesh.

Imbalanced dietary habit of excessive rice consumption and low intake of proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals causes an alarming level of malnutrition particularly in the nutritionally vulnerable members of the marginal and small farm families (having 0.5 to 2.49 acres of cultivable land) in Bangladesh.  To improve this scenario, public education on food and nutrition was conducted through development of Farmer Trainers (FT) and training farm families in Farmers Field Schools (FFS) under Agricultural Extension Component (AEC) of the Agriculture Sector Program Support Phase II funded by the Government of Denmark.  During 2006-12, a total of 12,615 FFS were conducted in 152 upazilas in 22 districts.  Each FFS was attended by 50 individuals; one male and one female from each of 25 marginal/small farm families.  This paper discusses the impact of these activities evaluated on a representative sample of 496 adolescent girls, 600 non-pregnant and non-lactating women, and 496 under-five children in 756 households in 22 upazilas in the 22 operational districts of AEC through comparison of the post-program agricultural and nutritional data with the corresponding baseline data covering household profile, production and disposal of crops, income and expenditures, food consumption habits and household food security, and nutritional knowledge and status.