This blog was originally featured on Agrilinks.

The authors would like to note that the Market Systems Midline assessment, specifically around the Ecological Factors index, received major contributions from Larissa Schneider and Tasnuva Ahmed Oni, and the many enumerators who masterfully interviewed respondents in Rwanda.

Decisions that we make every day about the food we eat are not fully under our own control. As part of the Orora Wihaze (Raise Animals for Self-Sufficiency) Activity in Rwanda, we recently examined behaviors at various levels of the market system that could influence the potential for people to consume Animal-Sourced Food (ASF). 

The five-year Feed the Future Orora Wihaze Activity focuses on the livestock market systems. MarketShare Associates and Orora Wihaze developed the Ecological Factors that Affect ASF Food Intake Index based on research by the WIC program in the United States and PhotoVoice work in Canada. This index helped us understand the different factors that affect food intake and the opportunities to influence them, and the role that different market system functions and actors are playing in influencing ASF consumption. Most importantly, we learned that the public sector’s work in raising awareness of and encouraging ASF consumption is relatively more prominent and recognized by consumers compared to our baseline... View the full blog here.