Abstract
Historically, agricultural systems have been as-
sessed on the basis of a narrow range of criteria,
such as profitability or yields. Yet, these metrics do
not reflect the diversity of nutrients provided by the
system that is critical for human health. In this study
we take a step to demonstrate how ecological tools
can play a role in addressing nutritional diversity as an
overlooked ecosystem service of agricultural systems.
Data on edible plant species diversity, food security
and diet diversity were collected for 170 farms in
three rural settings in sub-Saharan Africa. Nutri-
tional FD metrics were calculated based on farm
species composition and species nutritional com-
position. Iron and vitamin A deficiency were deter-
mined from blood samples of 90 adult women.
Nutritional FD metrics summarized the diversity of
nutrients provided by the farm and showed variabil-
ity between farms and villages. Regression of nutri-
tional FD against species richness and expected FD
enabled identification of key species that add nutri-
ent diversity to the system and assessed the degree
of redundancy for nutrient traits. Nutritional FD
analysis demonstrated that depending on the orig-
inal composition of species on farm or village,
adding or removing individual species can have rad-
ically different outcomes for nutritional diversity.
While correlations between nutritional FD, food and
nutrition indicators were not significant at house-
hold level, associations between these variables
were observed at village level.
This study provides novel metrics to address nutritional
diversity in farming systems and examples of how
these metrics can help guide agricultural interventions
towards adequate nutrient diversity. New hypotheses
on the link between agrodiversity, food security and
human nutrition are generated and strategies for fu-
ture research are suggested calling for integration of
agriculture, ecology, nutrition, and socio-economics.
- Introduction
While great strides in reducing hunger through in-
creases in agricultural productivity have been made
worldwide, more than 900 million people are un-
dernourished (FAO, 2010), over 2 billion people are
afflicted by one or more micronutrient deficiencies
(WHO, 2007) and over 1 billion adults are overweight
(WHO, 2003). In addition to producing sufficient
calories, a major, often overlooked challenge in
agriculture and food systems is to provide an ade-
quate diversity of nutrients necessary for a healthy
life. A human diet requires at least 51 nutrients in
adequate amounts consistently (Graham et al.,
2007). It has been argued that changes in agricul-
tural production systems from diversified cropping
systems towards ecologically more simple cereal-
based systems have contributed to poor diet diver-
sity, micronutrient deficiencies and resulting
malnutrition in the developed as well as developing
world (Graham et al., 200 7; Frison et al., 2006 ;
Negin et al., 2009; Welch and Graham, 1999). Suc-
cess of agricultural systems has historically been
evaluated primarily on metrics of crop yields, eco-
nomic output and cost-benefit ratios (IAASTD,
2009 ). Yet, these metrics do not reflect the diversity
of nutrients provided by the system that is critical
for human health. In this study we take a step to
demonstrate how ecological tools can play a role in
addressing nutritional diversity as an overlooked
ecosystem service of agricultural systems.
In nutritional sciences, several methods have been
developed that look beyond the single nutrient or
food item to capture the broader picture of diet di-
versity (FAO-FANTA, 2008; Drescheret al., 2007;
Waijers et al., 2007; Roseet al., 2008; Kennedy et
al., 2010). Count measures are frequently applied to
assess diet diversity, where the number of con-
sumed food items and food groups is recorded
(FAO-FANTA, 2008). Diet quality indices have also
been developed that take into account consumption
pattern and nutritional composition of food items135