Agriculture and Health:
Addressing the Vital Links
(PDF 99K) Agriculture produces food essential for human life and livelihoods. A large proportion of people experiencing malnutrition and disease in the world work in agriculture. The process of agricultural production has inherent environment effects that influence the health of vulnerable groups. Hence agriculture and health are interlinked: agriculture influences health, and health influence agriculture.

There are three core linkages between agriculture and health. First, being an agricultural producer (farmer or worker) is a major determinant of health. Agriculture affects the income earned and the labor supplied by producers, and it may entail specific occupational health risks, all of which affect the health status. In turn, the health status of producers and workers affects agriculture: those in poor health are less able to work, denting both productivity and income, and perpetuating a downward spiral into ill-health and poverty. Second, different agricultural production systems and technologies interact with the environment in a variety of ways that affect determinants of human health. Third, agriculture produces outputs that can be the source of health problems - such as food-borne illnesses and diet-related chronic diseases - but also a means of addressing ill-health, such as food for undernutrition and medicinal plants for a range of illnesses. In brief, agriculture-health linkages are complex, location specific and have an important potential in achieving both development and health improvements.

Despite the importance of these linkages, the health and agricultural sectors remain disjointed: health considerations play little part in decisions either farmers make about production, or agricultural ministries make about policy; the health sector too often lacks sufficient awareness of the nature and magnitude of the links and fails to reach out to the agricultural sector. The reasons for the disjuncture include not only lack of awareness, but also policy conflicts and competition over limited resources. The intersectoral gap is undermining efforts to improve the livelihoods of agricultural producers, and giving short shrift to agriculture's potential role in contributing to the solution of many of the world's most serious health problems.

IFPRI's Food Consumption and Nutrition Division (FCND) is thus developing a new initiative on the linkages between agriculture and health. It builds upon IFPRI's tradition of exploring the linkages between agriculture and nutrition (presentation - PPT 415K) and its more recent work on the linkages between HIV/AIDS, nutrition and agriculture. It also builds on work on the linkages between agriculture and health within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) as a whole. The CGIAR has long been concerned with nutrition, and over recent years, has also been examining other health issues of concern to agriculture, such as malaria, food safety, worker health, water-related health and HIV/AIDS. Divisions, units, initiatives and themes have been set up in, and between, different centers to address these issues. Yet the health-related work in the CG remains insufficiently coordinated.

Following the aims of IFPRI and the CGIAR, the overarching goal of the initiative is to improve the health of the poor, reduce malnutrition and food insecurity, and promote pro-poor agricultural development through improved co-ordination of the agricultural and health sectors. More specifically, the initiative aims to:

• Develop, publish and disseminate a conceptual framework on agriculture-health linkages and a range of associated publications
• Help coordinate health-related work in the CGIAR and forge partnerships with the health sector
• As a result of these activities, generate knowledge on the linkages between agriculture and health as a global public good, and encourage greater synergies between agriculture and health in research, policy making, donor investments and community-level programs.

The roundtable workshop: "Agriculture and Health Linkages: Towards Improved Co-ordination", held at IFPRI Washington DC on June 23-24, 2005, was the first activity in this initiative. The objective of the workshop was to move towards improved co-ordination on health-related work within the CGIAR, in partnership with the health sector.