Impact pathways of a homestead food production programme on women’s dietary diversity in Bangladesh

Summary

This cluster-randomized controlled trial of 2,612 women across 96 rural Bangladeshi settlements evaluated a 3-year homestead food production intervention using multiple mediation analysis to decompose its effects on dietary diversity. The intervention increased dietary diversity by 0.4 food groups, with garden production accounting for 78% of this gain (β = 0.33), nutrition knowledge for 18%, and poultry production and market activity making smaller contributions. The findings suggest that direct production of diverse crops is the dominant mechanism through which homestead food production programmes improve women's dietary diversity in this setting.

Regional applicability

Whilst conducted in Bangladesh, the methodological approach of disaggregating intervention impact pathways offers valuable lessons for designing homestead food production programmes in comparable lower-income agricultural settings. The finding that on-farm crop production is the primary driver, rather than knowledge or market engagement alone, may inform programme design in similar contexts; however, transferability to United Kingdom conditions is limited given the fundamental differences in food systems, household livelihoods, and baseline dietary diversity.

Key measures

Dietary diversity score (10-point scale); garden production contribution; nutrition knowledge contribution; poultry production contribution; market activity contribution; measured as standardised regression coefficients (β) with 95% confidence intervals

Outcomes reported

The study measured women's dietary diversity score (on a 10-point scale) as the primary outcome, and investigated the relative contribution of multiple impact pathways (garden production, nutrition knowledge, poultry production, and market activity) through mediation analysis.

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