The roles of community nutrition scholars in changing mothers' child feeding, food preparation, and hygiene practices in southern Bangladesh.

Introduction: This qualitative study evaluates a nutrition and hygiene education program led by trained community nutrition scholars for 5,000 mothers of small children in the Khulna and Satkhira districts in southern Bangladesh. The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) understanding the processes and reasonings behind mothers' improvement in child feeding, food preparation, hygiene, and homestead garden production, (2) understanding men's roles in facilitating women's behavioral changes, and (3) assessing the degree of changes in subjective notions of self-confidence, decision-making, and recognition among mothers and nutrition scholars.

Methods: Data were collected through 14 focus group discussions with 80 participants and in-depth interviews with 6 women community nutrition scholars.

Making room for manoeuvre: addressing gender norms to strengthen the enabling environment for agricultural innovation.

Local gender norms constitute a critical component of the enabling (or disabling) environment for improved agricultural livelihoods - alongside policies, markets, and other institutional dimensions. Yet, they have been largely ignored in agricultural research for development. This viewpoint is based on many years of experience, including a recent major comparative research initiative, GENNOVATE, on how gender norms and agency interact to shape agricultural change at local levels.

Determinants of household food access among small farmers in the Andes: examining the path.

Objective: Household food access remains a concern among primarily agricultural households in lower- and middle-income countries. We examined the associations among domains representing livelihood assets (human capital, social capital, natural capital, physical capital and financial capital) and household food access.

Design: Cross-sectional survey (two questionnaires) on livelihood assets.

An agriculture and health inter-sectorial research process to reduce hazardous pesticide health impacts among smallholder farmers in the Andes.

Background: The use of highly hazardous pesticides by smallholder farmers constitutes a classic trans-sectoral 'wicked problem'. We share our program of research in potato and vegetable farming communities in the Andean highlands, working with partners from multiple sectors to confront this problem over several projects.

Methods: We engaged in iterative cycles of mixed methods research around particular questions, actions relevant to stakeholders, new proposal formulation and implementation followed by evaluation of impacts.