Sustainable livelihoods for nutrition

By 2025, Concern will help 5 million extremely poor people across 20 countries to achieve sustainable livelihoods and improved food and nutrition security.

Concern will support the development of nutrition-focused and equitable food systems working on food value chains from input supply, the production of diverse foods and food products to facilitating the access and consumption by those who are living in extreme poverty.

To achieve this Concern will:

(1) Support farmers to adopt climate smart agriculture, increasing extremely poor farmers’ and pastoralists’ resilience to climate change and improve food and nutrition security. Participatory farmer-led approaches are used in order to prioritize contextualized and indigenous agricultural knowledge and practices. Home gardens coupled with the rearing of small livestock and poultry will be used as a key tool to strengthen the capacity of poor families to produce and consume more diverse and nutritious foods year round. Access to inputs will be through a market-based approach, and high quality technical trainings will be provided to support improved outcomes.

(2) Support market system development and income generation, alongside sustainable and equitable nutrition sensitive value chains and through these, strengthen food systems for all, thus supporting the most vulnerable people to meet their health and nutrition needs. Through the diversification of livelihoods and linking them to saving and loan schemes, households will become more resilient to hazards contributing to improved food and nutrition security throughout the year.

(3) Work with households living in extreme poverty to increase their consumption of more nutritious and diverse foods by strengthening the capacity of agriculture extension agents, lead farmers, social workers and participants of community groups such as Farmer Field Schools, saving and loan groups and mother support groups.