DFM Working Group 2: Food and nutrition security

Working Group 2 explores food and nutrition security in dried fish value chains.

According to the Committee on World Food Security:

Food and nutrition security exists when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to food, which is consumed in sufficient quantity and quality to meet their dietary needs and food preferences, and is supported by an environment of adequate sanitation, health services and care, allowing for a healthy and active life.[1]

Meetings

• January 18, 2020. At this meeting the Working Group discussed a summary of the five sub-themes identified at the previous meeting; MARE conference options; and logistics of institutionalizing the Working Group activity. (See the minutes.)
• Next meeting: March 10, 2020 (TBC).

Current action items

Defining themes and outcomes

Derek and Eric will summarize what has been discussed so far, including the list of WG sub-themes, and develop a list of proposed key outcomes for circulation to the group.

• See the document DFM WG2 Themes for a working list of themes to be explored by this group.
• The first key outcome: MARE conference panel with Fish4Food, SmallFishFood, and IKAN-F3 on small fish and nutrition security. There would be a summary paper on dried fish and nutrition security from DFM as part of this panel (Sami, Rotimi, Amal, Priya, Ben, Shakuntala, Kirit, Sai Leela)
• Other outcomes: ???

Graduate student recruitment

Derek, Ben, and Shakuntala will work with Rotimi to recruit a graduate student at the University of Manitoba for September 2021, application to be submitted by March.

• A meeting was held February 8 to discuss proposed recruitment of a graduate student to work with Rotimi at the University of Manitoba for September 2021 intake.

• Nutrition and contaminant research are not comparable areas of research. The former is more straightforward and can be accomplished by a Master’s student. The latter is more technically complex and requires more time and care, and thus a PhD or post-doc level of skill and commitment.
• In order for Sami to be able to deliver on his analysis of the population-level contribution of dried fish to nutrition security using HIES data in Bangladesh, Sami will need data on the nutritional and contaminant properties of dried fish in Bangladesh by the end of 2022.

Derek (in consultation with Ben, Shakuntala, and Ranu/Mostafa) will work with Rotimi to recruit a Master’s student to do nutritional analysis of a representative sample of the most important dried fish products in Bangladesh.

• That student could start as soon as this summer, if we could recruit from the current pool of graduating undergraduate students in Rotimi’s program.
• That option would be most desirable but, if need be, we could seek to recruit a student from elsewhere, such as through Ranu (Mostafa) at BAU.

Rotimi and Shakuntala will work out a protocol and sample for exploratory contaminant analysis.

• This analysis would give Sami rough reference data from which he could make some general extrapolations about how the contaminant risk of eating dried fish in Bangladesh might offset the nutritional benefit of doing so. From a cost point of view, it may be possible to run the contaminant analysis more cheaply through a lab that Don Griffiths used in Thailand.
• Rotimi agreed that he could interpret the results of the contaminant analysis. It would be crucial before doing so, however, to have a clear idea of what specific contaminants to look for, as each contaminant leaves a specific signature.

During the coming year (2021), Derek, Ben, Shakuntala, and Rotimi will work on a plan to recruit one or more PhDs for the final phase of the project to build on the learning from the Master’s student’s research and the exploratory contaminant study.