“Cabin crew, 10 minutes to landing”.  I peeked out of my window and was sure the pilot was mistaken.  My previous visit to Malawi was in the dry season, and below me was a luscious green landscape reminiscent of tropical islands in just about every other movie.  As we came into full view of Lilongwe city, the intense green foliage was refreshing to the eyes.  There had been heavy rains in December and January, with some areas flooding heavily.  I thought to myself that this harvest will be mega, which is great for a country whose stunting levels are well over 45% of the population.  How is this possible? With so much food about to be harvested? This is where nutrition simplicity ends, and term “hidden hunger” begins.

Our bodies require a variety of nutrients to function normally, and to grow consistently (or at least with respect to age).  As we came close to landing, I noted clearly that well over 70% of what my eyes were seeing was maize crop.  Hectares to square kilometres square of maize crop, which will support the Malawian staple of nsiima for quite a while.  It looks like nsiima is almost all that it will be, since Malawi has one main planting season that runs from about October/November to harvest around March.  Thereafter the country is significantly drier.

The single season, and the preference to growing maize means that there is less variety in the diets, and in the event of a failed crop, there are less food resources to go around.  This fixed staple diet (nsiima: mostly carbohydrates) means that many children lack key nutrients to develop all round during key growth phases.  The combination of a lot of starch (nsiima) with some protein (kampango fish and chambo fish) and insignificant sources of micro nutrients, leads to hidden hunger, when your body yearns for nutrients that it is not receiving, despite a tummy filled with a meal.  It is possible to be hungry in the midst of abundant crop.

GSMA’s mNutrition initiative seeks to have a positive impact on this situation by combining both health and agricultural interventions, aimed at increased nutrition, specifically for pregnant women and children.  On the agriculture side, farmers will be encouraged to grow nutritionally diverse crops in addition to their current cash crops, and consume them as well in order to diversify their diet.  On the health side, pregnant women and mothers of children under-two will be encouraged to consume a variety of crops that are key sources of required nutrition, based on the stage of pregnancy or age of the child.  This initiative helps support in-country MDG targets in 10 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, to reduce stunting in children under-five and increase the BMI of pregnant women.

So as I buckled up two days later and the pilot announced “flight time to Nairobi via Lusaka is…”, it was clear that hunger (hidden) and malnutrition still happen even where there is an abundance of crop, and that dietary diversity is key to tackling malnutrition.  Both health and agricultural interventions are therefore necessary for sustainable nutrition interventions in any country.

For more information on GSMA Mobile for Development mHealth, please see here or contact us on [email protected]. For information on global mHealth initiatives, click here.