Blog From Family Farming to Facing Africa’s Malnutrition: The Journey of Christine Chege

Having grown up on a farm in rural Kenya, Christine Chege has always been aware of the challenges of food production in Africa: “I remember asking my dad, ‘Why do you always plant maize? I don’t see the economic benefit of maize’”, she remembers. But it wasn’t until years later that Chege became interested in the other side of the food systems equation: consumers. 

While working on a nutrition project in Western Kenya, Chege recalls, “More than 80% of the children we interacted with were malnourished or underweight, and many were stunted or had edema.” These figures made her wonder about the systemic problems that were creating such severe nutritional deficiencies. “No one was addressing the problem of the food environment or unsafe foods. I realized there was a big challenge, and I thought: I can contribute here”, she says. Shortly afterwards, Chege began a PhD in agricultural economics, focusing on the intersection between agriculture and nutrition.

Today, Chege works on a variety of projects that tackle these problems by linking nutrition and agriculture. Her focus is on urban consumers, although she also works with governments, vendors, and other stakeholders in Africa’s food systems. “Many people in urban areas have unhealthy diets”, she explains. “My goal is to help address the many challenges these consumers experience, especially when they influence the foods they consume.” Chege's work involves not only examining public policy, but also engaging with consumers themselves to provide guidance on food selection, understand the causes of malnutrition, and develop interventions. “We collect data, then design solutions to the problems we identify”, says Chege. “It’s important to connect these two dots: we call it research for development.” 

Africa’s urban poor face what is often called the triple burden of malnutrition: undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overnutrition. “Even in the same household, you can find, for example, that the mother is overweight, the father is obese and the child is malnourished. Why is this the case? The problem can arise from one of the many components of the food system,” Chege explains. These can include the availability of diverse and nutritious foods, as well as food safety. Many vegetables available in markets are grown in polluted areas, even in sewers, and are sprayed with dirty water to keep them fresh. “Many of these challenges are happening in slums”, she says. “People in these areas don’t usually know where their vegetables come from. Even when they know the food might be unsafe, they don’t have any other choice.” 

One of the projects Chege has been working on, called Hungry Cities, involves engaging private-sector food vendors to ensure they supply more nutritious, diverse and supply-safe commodities to markets across Nairobi. Another project in Kisumu focuses on optimizing food value chains for efficiency and affordability, as well as educating consumers on topics such as nutrition and small-scale fish and vegetable production: “A lot of fish is produced in Kisumu, but most is sold to people outside the county”, says Chege. “It is not affordable for local people, especially in urban areas; this project helps people to consume fish locally.” The project also aims to build low-cost cooling centers for vegetables, making fresh produce more available in the city. “It’s meant to be a model for what’s possible”, she says. 

Thoroughly researching consumer behavior is critical to work in food systems. Chege highlights that when this component is not well understood, even the best-intentioned interventions are likely to fail. She points to recent efforts to improve supply chain and produce quality, in which “lots of technology and cooling systems are being used. But, consumers don’t like bigger vegetables - they don’t want to have to use a whole big onion or tomato at once, and they don’t like cold fruit that they can’t eat immediately. So, we might see as developments is not necessarily what people want. Understanding consumer preferences is very important.”