Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/287394 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Citation: 
[Journal:] Food Security [ISSN:] 1876-4525 [Volume:] 14 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] Springer Netherlands [Place:] Dordrecht [Year:] 2021 [Pages:] 395-409
Publisher: 
Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht
Abstract: 
In the quest to reduce global under- and malnutrition, which are particularly high among smallholder farmers, agriculture-nutrition linkages are receiving increasing attention. Researchers have analyzed the link between the quantity and diversity of food that farmers produce and nutritional outcomes but paid limited attention to a third agriculture-nutrition link: the link between how food is produced and nutritional outcomes. This neglect persists despite the majority of smallholder farmers relying on hand tools for farming, which implies heavy physical work and, thus, high energy requirements. To address this research gap, this study compares the energy requirements of farm households in rural Zambia that are characterized by three different levels of mechanization: hand tools, animal drought power, and tractors. 1638 days of detailed time-use and nutrition data were collected from 186 male and female adults and boys and girls during different seasons (land preparation, weeding, and harvesting/processing) using an innovative picture-based smartphone app called "Timetracker". This data served to calculate different proxies for physical activity and energy requirements using "Ainsworth's Compendium of Physical Activities". The results suggest that detailed time-use data offers great potentials to study physical activity and energy requirements. The findings show strong linkages between farm technologies, physical activity levels, and energy requirements, suggesting that this agriculture-nutrition link deserves more scientific and political attention to reduce under- and malnutrition among smallholder farmers.
Subjects: 
Food systems
Time-use
Africa
Nutrition-sensitive agriculture
Agricultural mechanization
Caloric requirements
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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