Changing Perception through a Participatory Approach by Involving Adolescent School Children in Evaluating Smart Food Dishes in School Feeding Programs – Real-Time Experience from Central and Northern Tanzania

ABSTRACT

The study aimed to test the prospects for, and acceptance of, pigeonpea and finger millet-based dishes in a school feeding program for 2822 adolescents’ in Central Tanzania. The focus was on incorporating nutritious and resilient crops like finger millet and pigeonpea through a participatory approach involving series of theoretical and practical training sessions, for the period of 6 months on the nutritional quality and sensory characteristics of these two unexplored foods in Tanzania. Sharing knowledge on the nutritional value of these crops and involving students in the acceptance study changed their negative perception of finger millet and pigeonpea by 79.5% and 70.3%, respectively. Fifteen months after the study period, schools were still continued feeding the dishes and more than 95% of the students wanted to eat the finger millet and pigeonpea dishes at school. Around 84.2% of the students wanted to include pigeonpea 2–7 times a week and 79.6% of the students wanted to include finger millet on all 7 days in school meal. The study proved that it is possible to change food perceptions and bring about behavior change by sharing knowledge on their benefits and by engaging the consumers through a participatory and culturally appropriate approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Perception
• pigeonpea
• finger millet
• acceptance
• Smart Food

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of the Australian Government for funding this research, through the Innovation Exchange. The authors thank the school’s principals, teachers, chefs, parents, students, extension staff, and the district council office who participated and supported in this study. Authors also thank the Prime Minister’s office for their engagement, advice and support to be able to conduct this study, especially, Mr Augustine K Olal. There is also a wide range of people who believe in the importance of this work and willingly contributed their time to help. Appreciation goes to Dr. Takuji W. Tsusaka for his review comments and Mr Ashok Jalagam and Mr Sridhar Iriventi for their involvement and support during the scoping study. Participants of the workshop were integral in selecting and fine-tuning the approach and methodology to be used. This included Harold Lema, AMDT; Cosmas Maganga, ETG Farmers Foundation; Dr Elifatio E Towo, Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre (TFNC); Nehemiah Taylor Mburu, Africa Harvest; Agatha T Laizer, Halisi products; Joyce Mmasi, Daniel Loiruck and David Elias, Fed Foods; Acquiline Wamba and Muviwata, Farmers Network; John Msuya, Sokoine University of Agriculture; Nehemiah Taylor Mburu and Doreen Marangu, Africa Harvest; Yusto M Nkandila, SARI; Alaik Laizer and Julius Ochieng, World Vegetable Center; Jovinus E Mbowe and Lameck M Nyaligwa, SOMNI-SARI project; and other ICRISAT staff Edward Bikketi, Mavis Eleanor Manyasa, Njeri Maina, Nathaniel Kioko, and Oscar Kololi.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no potential conflict of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of the article.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Australian Government for Smart Food initiative.