Strengthening food and nutrition security through family poultry and crop integration in Tanzania and Zambia

INTERVENTION: This is a cluster randomised controlled trial. Interventions include two components: (1) Community‐based Newcastle disease control programs Members of participating communities, selected in consultation with local leaders, will participate in a three‐day theoretical and practical training workshop to prepare them to work as “community poultry vaccinators”. Workshops will be led by government personnel, with tertiary qualifications in animal health and production, and experience in the training program in question and in approaches to adult learning who have participated in initial master trainer workshops led by USyd veterinary personnel. The thermotolerant I‐2 Newcastle disease vaccine (produced by Tanzania Vaccine Institute in Tanzania and Central Veterinary Research Institute in Zambia) will be administered to chickens via eyedrop on a fee‐for‐service basis, during vaccination campaigns conducted every four months. (2) Strategic interventions to improve crop production and reduce crop losses Analysis of existing farming systems and participatory discussions with community members will inform a series of crop interventions within each project cluster, according to identified constraints to agricultural production. Interventions such as improved seed varieties and crop diversity, storage methods and cultivation and weeding practices will be demonstrated in centralised farming plots, presented during training workshops and made available to community members. One two‐day training workshops will be held in each project cluster, led by government agricultural officers, with involvement of local agricultural extensionists. No intervention will be applied to humans. Communities will be randomised to receive or not receive village chicken ND vaccination campaigns in the first year and a crop intervention in the second year. For ethical and logistical reasons interventions will be offered to “control” (delayed intervention) communities after a delay of 12 months. CONDITION: Childhood stunting PRIMARY OUTCOME: Height‐for‐age Z‐scores (HAZ) of children. ; ; Length or height measurements will be conducted by trained health personnel, using a portable child measuring board (sourced through UNICEF supply division) to the precision of 0.1 cm. SECONDARY OUTCOME: % Minimum dietary diversity, measured by proportion of children 6‐23 months of age who consumed foods from four or more food groups. ; ; This will be determined from a 24‐hour food recall collected through structured interviews with the mother (or primary caretaker) of enrolled children on a six‐monthly basis. % any breastfeeding (breast milk, with or without other forms of food or liquids) among children recruited at less than 12 months of age. ; ; The status of each child as exclusively breastfed / receiving breast milk and other foods or liquids / non‐breastfed will be recorded on a fortnightly basis, by trained enumerators from each project cluster, based on mother’s self‐report. Iron in blood spots and haemoglobin in capillary blood from children. ; ; This will be performed in a subset of four communities (clusters) in Tanzania and four communities (clusters) in Zambia. Vitamin A in blood spots from children. ; ; This will be performed in a subset of four communities (clusters) in Tanzania and four communities (clusters) in Zambia. INCLUSION CRITERIA: Children aged under 24 months of age at the time of enrolment, from households which currently keep chickens or which have kept chickens in the previous 2 years and intend to keep chickens again in the future, and which intend to reside within the project site for the duration of the study.