Despite rapid economic growth in South Asia, rates of child undernutrition remain the highest in the world. Nearly half of South Asian children are stunted or underweight, and progress on reducing rates of undernutrition is extremely slow. While agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for half the population in the region, the potential for using agriculture to reduce undernutrition has not been fully realised.
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) was an international research partnership. We worked together to discover how agriculture and food-related interventions can be better designed to improve nutrition, particularly for children and adolescent girls.
LANSA examined and made recommendations on how agriculture and food-related interventions can be better designed to improve nutrition, with particular focus on children and adolescent girls. The six year (2013 – 2018) research programme was funded by the UK Development for International Development.
Led by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation in India, partners included:
- BRAC (Bangladesh)
- Collective for Social Science Research (Pakistan)
- Institute of Development Studies (UK)
- International Food Policy Research Institute (USA)
- Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (UK).
