Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
place and a further 150 households. Evaluation covered 180 households because
approximately 120 respondents had either moved or, for others, children were
older than five years of age. Still others refused to be interviewed because they
were not selected for the interventions.
Interview sessions, observations and focus group discussions
The interviews were carried out in a face-to-face situation using Kiswahili
language. They were conducted during a baseline survey between June and July
2005 and at the end of the project (March-April 2006) during the evaluation
process. Monitoring was continuously carried out throughout the duration of
the project and observations were recorded on the observation checklist. The
characteristics observed were: farming systems, labour providers, crops
produced, tools used for food production, general sanitation of the household
compounds and cooking facilities. Focus group discussions were held during
problem analysis in September 2005 and also during evaluation on 16 April
2006. The researcher and research assistant guided and tape-recorded these
sessions.
Awareness campaigns, demonstrations and intervention
To sensitize the community members on the objectives and importance of this
project, an awareness campaign was held on 25 July 2005 in collaboration
with the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Livestock and
Fisheries Development. The 30 households chosen for intervention were those
that had children with high levels of wasting, and these households were
divided into two groups, which were trained in two separate sessions. The
first session was on organic farming while the second was on nutrition
education with a bias on macronutrients (carbohydrates and proteins) and
micronutrients (vitamin A and iron).
The first group was trained by the researcher and an organic farming
expert in collaboration with the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture and
Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development on 29 October 2005,
followed by a demonstration on 2 November. The second group, which was
trained on 16 November, was facilitated by one of the participants who had
been trained in the first session, who was assisted by the researcher. The
second demonstration was done on the same plot on the same day. Small
livestock were kept on the two demonstration plots. The other 28 participants
in the intervention were guided on how to plant crops and rear small livestock
on their plots.
This study focused on the actual intake of calories, proteins, iron and
vitamin A. The intakes were assessed using a 24-hour dietary recall of children
who were less than five years old. Adequacy was determined by assessing
those children whose intakes were below and above the RDA.
Data analysis
The quantitative data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social
Sciences (SPSS) programme. The food production systems were determined by
