Fiorella et al.  also reported that agricultural interventions to diversify production to improve nutrition status by supporting consumption of diverse nutritious foods, which are often vitamin A rich food, and/or dark green leafy vegetables. Nutrition security therefore has to bead dressed by both availability and accessibility of nutrient rich foods at household level, and nutrition awareness. This is the central concept behind the Farming System for Nutrition  approach.A feasibility study on a Farming System for Nutrition  approach to address the problem of under nutrition was undertaken in India by the M S Swamina than Research Foundation , under a research consortium programme on “Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia” ,from 2013-18. LANSA was a multi country research programme consortium funded by Department for International Development, UK. FSN as defined by Professor M S Swaminathan, envisages the introduction of location-specific agricultural remedies for nutritional maladies by mainstreaming nutritional criteriain the selection of farming system components involving crops, animals and wherever feasible fish .

It is an interventional approach that includes a combination of sustainable measures including advanced crop production practices,bio-fortification, promotion of nutrition gardens of fruits and vegetables,livestock and poultry development, and setting up of small-scale fisheries, combined with nutrition awareness, as stimulant for rendering consistent output of higher income and better nutrition. At the end of the study, the uptake of FSN interventions had also expanded beyond the core group of villages by 2017, to 25more villages in Ward ha and 18 more villages in Koraput, reaching out to more households. Farm men and women emerged as spokespersons of the FSN approach within the community and at different stakeholder forums.This paper shows changes in energy and protein intake and micro-nutrients per consumer unit per day among households that participated in FSN intervention. In this study comparison is on the household nutrient intakes,vertical grow system adjusted for age-sex composition of the household,as reported by the households,before and after the introduction of FSN interventions. Detailed results of the study were published as a working paper and can be found at Nithya et al.. The FSN interventions were carried out from 2014-2015 to 2016-17. Detailed information on FSN interventions in Koraput and Wardha is reported elsewhere .

The main objective of the interventions was to improve household dietary diversity through widening the on-farm crop diversity. For instance, zinc and iron enriched wheat varieties were introduced for the first time in Rabi season in Wardha, in farms where irrigation was available , promotion of vegetable cultivation through household and community level gardens with naturally bio-fortified fruits and vegetables species and nutrient-dense varieties especially green leafy vegetables to address micro-nutrient malnutrition. Nutrition awareness was given on the nutritional importance of consuming fruits and vegetables.Orange fleshed sweet potato  )was newly introduced, to be grown in the Kharif  season. Promotion of animal based food interventions included fishery in community and ndividual ponds in Koraput and backyard poultry in Wardha. Nutrition awareness was focused mainly on improving household dietary diversity and promoting hygienic practices. The awareness was done with the help of “Community Hunger Fighters ” approach; villagers were selected and trained on nutrition security in general and educated them about the FSN pathway to improvenutrition. Further, awareness in schools was done by commemorating nutritionand health related days.

In order to understand the feasibility of FSN interventions on household food consumption pattern, an endline survey was conducted in 2017. Sub-sample of 190 households each in Koraput and Wardha were purposively selected based on households that had at least one child below the age of five years in 2014. Among the 190 sample households in each location, 34 in Koraput and 32 in Wardha were households who did not partake in the intervention out of their own choice. The remaining 156 and 158 households in Koraput and Wardha respectively had at least one intervention. They are hereinafter referred to as FSN households. Two FSN households in Koraput and four households in Wardha were not taken for the analysis in the present paper as they were found to be outliers with regard to reported food consumption.