Course Details - Fostering agricultural systems towards sustainable food security and healthy diets
Millions of individuals all over the world rely on subsistence farming and / or dairy sector for their livelihoods and their food and nutrition security. However, agricultural and dairy programs and policies do not automatically lead to better nourished populations. In this course, participants are guide to have better understanding how to design nutrition-sensitive dairy or agricultural value chains / sector interventions, strategies, or policies in their own context?
Dairy track - Designing sustainable and profitable dairy systems
The large variety in agroecosystems, socio-economic factors, and policies makes it impossible to develop a single model for dairy development. The global growing demand for dairy products has led to a significant increase in public and private involvement. Therefore it is essential to understand the (new) opportunities for dairy sector development as well as the limiting factors that could harm sustainability and profitability in the long term.
In this track we will analyse the dairy sector at different levels, from animal to farm and up to country level. We will look at the challenges and opportunities the sector faces in your own situation. Moving beyond the technical realm, you will learn how to involve multiple stakeholders for inclusion of social, environmental, economic and political aspects.
Dairy opportunities and trade-off issues
Together we will explore and challenge the pertinence and the underlying opportunities and trade-offs of questions like:
✓ Investing in the formal or the informal dairy chain?
✓ Focus on dairy imports or local milk production?
✓ Work with smallholders or with larger farms?
✓ Improving the local herd or importing grade cattle?
✓ Building inclusive dairy chain to the benefit of young and female individuals?
✓ Producing milk in a natural resource (water, land) scarce environment ?
✓ How to better acknowledge food and nutrition challenges in dairy strategy?
✓ Can the potential of camels, buffalos, goats and sheep be better exploited?
✓ Adding value to the product: Liquid milk or processing? Niche products or conventional?
✓ How to create responsible value chains when it comes to milk quality and safety?
✓ How to better coordinate dairy stakeholders to co-create concerted dairy strategy?
Nutrition sensitive track - Making agricultural programs nutrition sensitive
In this track, the role of agriculture in the provision of safe, nutritious food to consumers will be addressed. Together we explore and discuss the agricultural pathways to sustainable healthy diets, the dietary gaps and policies and programmes that stimulate the production, processing and consumption of nutritious foods for your context. After this exploration, we will work in groups to apply the knowledge, evidences and your own experience through different tools to practice and discuss how to make agricultural projects nutrition-sensitive. Special attention will be given to gender, youth, inclusion and climate change issues. In the last week discussions and practice are focussed on how to demonstrate the results of nutrition-sensitive agricultural projects.
Food systems, a thematic approach
Source: Food Security to 2040 – What’s coming down the track - John ingram
The nutrition-sensitive track addresses issues through the food system approach with state of the art concepts, tools and background information.
A mix of interactive lectures, group work and field visits
The course will use a mix of lectures on the latest scientific and theoretical evidences, discussions and group work to offer background, as well as practical approaches for projects and programmes development. Visits to local farms and interaction with various stakeholders will give you opportunities for developing new ideas that you can transfer to your own real case during the group work exercise either for the dairy or nutrition-sensitive track. The course is highly interactive, building on the participant’s own experiences and cases. The thematic approach in the program offers the flexibility to elaborate on specific themes participants would like to address. This will include many opportunities to expand networks and access literature as well as to learn up-to-date pedagogical methods.
At the end of the course you will take home: tangible results for your cases and new in-depth insights to address dairy or nutrition issues within dairy or agriculture development programs within your own context. f issues like:
This course is taught in a blended format: partially online and partially in Egypt.
Our courses are currently taught blended and follow this format:
- Online pre-course assignments to ensure that you have acquired pre-required knowledge, understand the technical requirements of the online / hybrid learning.
- Interactive plenary sessions where we share content, facilitate exchanging experiences, challenge each otherthrough debates and discussion. During those interactive sessions we work witha number of online tools like Mentimeter, Jam Board and Mural.
- Group work either online, offline and face-2-face where you with other participants work jointly to answer specific questions and / or complete an assignment. During theface-2-face part of the course, the content and skills acquired during the online/hybrid part will be applied to a concrete case. Using backcasting each group will be guided and challenged to find innovate solutions for the identified problems, which will be presented at the end of the course.
- Individual assignments where you will read literature, watch videos, do exercises and take quizzes. These assignments are an essential part of the learning and most of them count for getting the certificate. They are meant to introduce or deepen knowledge and make the link between theory and your own situation.
- We offer coaching trajectories where we support you one-on-one or in small groups to review your individual learning paths in the course and help with any basic questions you may have.
The course is taught in partially online and the face-to-face part will take place in Egypt.
Online platforms: Zoom and TalentLMS/Padlet
Internet connection is important for the completion of the course. Not sure about the connection in your area? Send training.cdi@wur.nl an e-mail about your situation.
We use Zoom as the virtual classroom for the online part.
Our learning system will be TalentLMS and Padlet. Everything you need — our course programme, assignments, background information are in this system. TalentLMS and Padlet are easy to operate, can also be accessed by your phone and has an on-and offline functionality. To access TalentLMS and Padlet you will receive a temporary WUR account.
We organise a technical check-in before the course starts, to test your facilities and get familiar with the tools.
Course planning and certificates
The course workload is approximately 16-20 hours a week (2-2.5 workdays).
The exact programme of your course will be available 2-3 weeks before the start of the course. If you’ve successfully completed your course we send you a digital certificate.