Abstract for: Assessing the Impacts Interventions on Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in Urban Kenya Using Participatory Systems Modeling

Average fruit and vegetable consumption in Kenya is estimated to be well below the 400 grams per person per day recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO. This study uses a participatory stakeholder process to identify priority interventions and to develop a quantitative systems model of the value chain to assess their potential impacts on fruit and vegetable consumption during 2020 to 2024. Stakeholders adopted a supply-chain perspective on the problem and identified three interventions with potential to increase consumption: increase consumer awareness of health benefits, reduce post-harvest losses on farm and increasing yields of farm production. Increasing consumer awareness would increase vegetable consumption by (5 grams/person/day from a base of 131 grams/person/day) under mean assumed parameter values. Reducing perishability was simulated to reduce consumption due to the higher costs required to reduce losses. Increasing farm yields had the largest impact on consumption at assumed parameter values (about 40 grams/person/day), but also the largest range of uncertainty under stochastic analyses. Moreover, increasing farm yields would have a large negative impact on farm profits, which could undermine efforts to implement this intervention. This study is one of the first to apply GMB and simulation modeling to issues of public health nutrition.