Bulawayo, Zimbabwe — Hunger shadowed Mercy Lung'aho's childhood, fueling her campaign to promote nutrition as a foundation for Africa's development.
As lead for the Food Security, Nutrition and Health Program at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), this certified nutritionist and researcher, with more than 20 years of championing development, is advocating for an integrated approach combining agri-food and health systems for food and nutrition security on the continent.
In a continent where one in three children are stunted, providing nutritious food is urgent for the development of Africa. For Lungaho, nutrition research is everything.
"I want to leave a legacy of a nourished Africa," Lung'aho says, emphasizing that at IITA, nutrition is not a buzzword but the core of its programs across Africa.
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According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), approximately 307 million people in Africa were undernourished in 2024. Malnutrition is the lack of correct and adequate nutrients, like vitamins, proteins, and minerals, needed to stay healthy and functional. Signs of malnutrition include stunted growth, wasting and being underweight.
"Regardless of how you define it, nutrition begins with what we eat," she says. "Health begins with what we eat. Agriculture produces what we eat and it is really important that one of the lenses that agriculture and agricultural research have is nutrition."
Despite its vast arable land and abundant water resources, Africa is a net food importer. Africa is off the mark on SDG2 and SDG3 relating to zero hunger, health and wellbeing. Projects indicate that nearly 60% of all chronically undernourished people will be in Africa by that time. It gets worse; Africa is the only region where the number of children under five suffering from chronic malnutrition is increasing.
Mercy Lung'aho, International Institute for Tropical Agriculture's (IITA) Food Security, Nutrition and Health Programme lead.
Excerpts:
IPS: What breakthroughs in nutrition research have you made at IITA and what has been their impact on food security?
Lung'aho: One of the things that we advocate as IITA is food safety. If food is not safe, it is not food. There are now several products that help ensure food safety, like Aflasafe, which inhibits the growth of aflatoxin (a toxin produced by fungi), and farmers use it when they plant either soybeans, groundnuts, or maize. Aflatoxin is one of the most poisonous things in our food--it stunts the growth of children and can lead to cancers like liver cancer. In my country, Kenya, we have had episodes where acute toxicity from aflatoxin has been fatal.
There is one product I am really excited about. Our breeders have also worked on provitamin A maize and it is orange in color. The grain inhibits the growth of aflatoxin. Provitamin A maize is not just to reduce vitamin A deficiency, which causes night blindness--it is also coming in as a safety measure for populations and also reduces exposure to aflatoxins in communities. With a grant from Harvest Plus, we are doing a study in northern Nigeria, where we are now assessing real-life evidence in communities that have eaten ProVitamin A maize and whose exposure to aflatoxins has been limited.
Not only do we provide nourishment to the population, but we also ensure the safety of the food system.
How does IITA integrate traditional knowledge with modern nutrition science to enhance crop quality?
Lung'aho: I think IITA is one of the few centers that value consumer research. For example, the tricot methodology (triadic comparisons of technologies) is a participatory research approach where farmers act as researchers to test and identify the most suitable agricultural technologies, such as crop varieties, for their performance under local conditions.
It involves comparing small sets of three technologies at a time in "triads" and collecting data on their farms under their normal practices. We don't call the consumer a 'beneficiary,' but a core designer. We view farmers and consumers as integral members of the team, understanding that their work is a collaborative effort. We always try to understand the consumers' perspective first before we say we have understood a problem. We ensure that their voices are heard and their opinions are included even in some of our methodologies. We then go to the farmers and inform them of our findings, compare what is available on the market with what consumers want, and ask them for their opinions. Such feedback is integrated into the research.
How do you measure the success of nutrition integration interventions in farming communities?
Lung'aho: We have globally recognized indicators for measuring impact, such as the Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women (MDD-W)--a population-level indicator of diet diversity validated for women aged 15-49 and the proportion of the population who can afford a healthy diet.
I look for evidence in the community to see if the interventions are effective, and I observe food availability in the market. Working in communities and around lunchtime, you can see women cooking, and you can see fires in homes--but you have communities where at lunchtime nobody is cooking and in the evening, families have nothing to eat.
When you go to economists, they look at impact; they prioritize the indicators--that's what they look at.
I am very practical. I know hunger not just by name, but because I've slept hungry. There was no food at home and we would go to bed hungry.
For me, the presence of food in the home and in the market is evidenced by seeing children at schools during lunchtime with packed food, even if it consists of a small portion of ugali and vegetables--this indicates that we are making progress. We are moving the needle. However, the high-level evidence, which examines the SDGs and evaluates our progress, indicates that more work is needed.
How has IITA leveraged technology and data analytics to enhance nutrition outcomes in agricultural projects?
Lung'aho: In IITA, data is currency. We generate a lot of data and we have a lead for data who is very interested in making sure that that data doesn't sit on shelves, but we are able to learn from past data and new data is talking to past data to anticipate the future.
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So for that, we're leveraging a lot of artificial intelligence and machine learning. We are using systems thinking and systems dynamics that look at the whole system rather than its elements alone.
How can systems work better? I think we are among the first institutions in the world to really ask the question of how artificial intelligence and machine learning can work better for diets and nutrition in Africa.
There is a need to standardize tools so that we are collecting the same data--not comparing apples and oranges--as well as the harmonization of tools and indicators. Countries need to create a nutrition data ecosystem. Governments will respond by saying, "You (already) have so much data. Why are you not using that?" If data cannot communicate with each other, we are left in the dark. Having that ecosystem will show countries why data is important and how they can leverage existing data and new data to move forward.
Data has to be in the forefront of what we collect to understand nutrition problems. If you want Africa to grow, nutrition is the answer, and I'm the number one advocate. This is a call to action to all African countries. We need to take nutrition seriously. In our generation, we must leave a legacy of a nourished Africa.
IPS UN Bureau Report
