Since 2015, Agri-agence Fert, the Fifata group and L’Appel have been working together in Madagascar to improve the nutrition of farming families. Based on training in the use of Nutricartes ®, these organizations are pooling their skills and experience to combine agricultural advice and nutritional education.
Fert, an association for agricultural cooperation in developing countries, has been active in Madagascar since 1986, supporting an agricultural organization, Fifata, in the development of services to meet farmers’ needs: land security, training, marketing of agricultural products, etc.
L’Appel is a French association with over 50 years’ experience serving children in vulnerable situations. Since 2006, it has been working in Madagascar to combat malnutrition with a simple educational tool: Nutricartes, deployed with its Madagascan partner, the Miray association.
In 2013, an initial meeting between Fert and L’Appel led to the integration of a “nutrition education” dimension into the Fifata group’s agricultural advisory services.
To achieve this, Appel has developed the “Nutricartes” educational tool, presented in the form of a support divided into 4 parts and a set of cards representing the foods to be placed in each category:
- In the center: water, to be boiled for 20 minutes or treated to prevent illness and diarrhea.
- In red: building foods, useful for the body’s development (proteins…)
- In green: protective foods, providing vitamins and micronutrients (vegetables, fruit…)
- In yellow: energy foods, provided by cereals, which are more important in terms of quantity both on the plate and on the carrier (carbohydrates and lipids, notably in rice and corn).
At the start of the partnership, Fert, Fifata and L’Appel quickly realized that the first 20 agricultural advisors trained were unable to run Nutricartes events themselves. The advisors then worked with Community Nutrition Agents (AC), a scheme supported by the government via the Office National de Nutrition (ONN).
Over the years, a careful selection process has been carried out to ensure that the CHWs are chosen from people close to the producers they support.
To date, more than 225 agricultural advisors and CAs have been trained in nutrition education, using the Nutricartes tool.
According to Fifata: “Often, the CAs are members of the POs that the advisors support, which facilitates the link and mutual interest between producers”.
With the support of agricultural advisors, CAs organize nutrition education sessions for their peers. In a fun way, participants place photo cards of foods in the right category to compose balanced meals.
The message conveyed by the Nutricartes tool is simple: “to eat a balanced diet, you need to eat three colors every day”, in reference to the red/green/yellow food categories.
These animations not only allow us to measure participants’ knowledge, but also to supplement what they have learned with appropriate advice.
In September 2023, a ten-day mission was organized. Paul SANYAS and Dr. VOAHANGY from the Miray association were able to assess the project’s progress, particularly in terms of how the AC – Agricultural Adviser pairing works. They visited eight communes near Antananarivo, and a Fifata group agricultural college in the Amoron’I Mania region.
During the assessment mission, it was noted that young people can also play an important role in raising awareness among their families. For example, the young people trained in the Fifata group’s agricultural colleges are effective ambassadors of the approach to their families.
The strengths of this partnership lie in the synergy and sharing of experience between agricultural advisors and health workers. Nutritional education through Nutricartes is achieving its goal, as changes in meal composition are noticeable at all the sites visited. Another positive sign is that farmers are gradually changing the way they plan their crops to take account of their dietary needs.
