Definition of food security is combined with nutrition security
RECODA applies the definition by the World Food Summit in 1996: “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” The definition describes what are known as the four pillars of food security: accessibility (having food purchasing power), food availability (ability to produce food), utilization (eating habits or consumption), and stability (resilience or sustainability) of the availability.
Project designing and implementation
Most projects implemented by the organization apply the RIPAT approach whereby designing of the project starts with undertaking the situation analysis in order to understand the situation before start of project. The projects then consider the food and nutritional security of the communities and also the enhancement of income and this leads to the selection and implementation of a wide range of relevant technologies (basket of options) for crops and livestock production. The projects apply agroecology principles (terrestrials), which ultimately enhance food security and income for smallholder farmers.
The basket of option developed ensures that it takes into consideration the nutritional needs of the communities but also the environmental capacity to support nutrition. Training on nutrition for all project participants is undertaken in order to enhance good health and this includes also, utilization of local foods. Hence, the projects engage in nutrition sensitive agriculture and considering the available resources together with training and demonstration, build the capacity of the community to understand and step-up nutritional security