Why is it important to locate health in an agricultural context? And agriculture in a health context? Primarily, because agriculture and health are intrinsically linked, and these linkages have significant implications for the well-being of people around the world, especially poor and vulnerable people.
The interactions between agriculture and health are two-way: agriculture affects health, and health affects agriculture. The process of agricultural production and the outputs it produces can contribute to both good and poor health, among producers as well as the wider population. Agriculture is in fact associated with many of the world’s major health problems: undernutrition, malaria, HIV/AIDS, foodborne diseases, diet-related chronic diseases, and a range of occupational health hazards.
In the other direction, the occurrence of these health conditions has tremendous implications for agriculture. In the general population, the prevalence of malnutrition and disease influences market demand for agricultural products. In the agricultural population, workers in poor health are less able to work, denting productivity and income and perpetuating a downward spiral into ill-health and poverty. In a vicious cycle, this further jeopardizes food security and economic development for the wider population.
This initiative aims to improve the health of the poor, reduce malnutrition and food insecurity, and promote pro-poor agricultural development, by encouraging closer collaboration between the agriculture and health sectors. It will focus both on illuminating existing synergies between the two sectors and also on identifying where and how synergies can be improved, thus improving health and poverty outcomes for developing countries. The emphasis is on communicating the need for these synergies, dissemination of important research and publications, and fostering partnerships between the health and agricultural sectors.
We gratefully acknowledge the International Development Research Center (IDRC) for their support to the AHRP for 2008-10.