Increase the HDDS of smallhloder farmers through training extention agents and smallholder farmers on food diversification with gender-sensitive awareness raising of nutrition.

In parallel with the intervention on the goals 1 and 2 above, extension agents and smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria and Uganda will receive awareness raising activities of nutrition. SAA will conduct the trainings by the cascade extension model with ToT-educated extension agents in collaboration with health workers and social affair agents. The trainings will range from basic knowledge of nutrition to cooking demonstration for daily balanced diets using nutritious crops (e.g. indigenous vegetables, introduced biofortified crop varieties) and be conducted in a gender-sensitive manner. As a result of the trainings, improvement of the food diversification at the household level can be expected from two different factors: increased self-consumption of nutritious crops and increased purchase of nutritious foods.