Research Brief on Household nutrition effects of crop commercialisation in Uganda

Key findings

5. While commercialisation has contributed towards increasing agricultural income, its impact on nutrition has been adverse as neither production nor the accrued income resulted in nutrition sensitive consumption;
6. Agricultural policies and programmes seem to have focused more on market oriented production and less on nutrition sensitive agriculture;
7. There is inadequate nutrition knowledge among the population as no significant difference between nutrient intake of the more educated and higher income households and the less educated low income households was found;
8. While rural households potentially stand to gain more from the policies and programmes, they need support in order to gain from them as they lack the capacity to orient their production towards the market, confining them to subsistence agriculture;
9. Presence of agricultural markets was found as crucial for both commercialisation and household nutrition, reinforcing the need to develop more such infrastructure.