Background

Biofortification is a proven and essential nutrition strategy designed to maximize the nutritional content of available foods, especially staple crops, which form the cornerstone of diets worldwide. This strategy is pivotal in addressing the global issue of hidden hunger. As a pioneer in this field, HarvestPlus, a part of the CGIAR consortium, is leading a global movement aimed at rapidly expanding the production and consumption of biofortified staple crops and foods derived from them. These crops have scientifically demonstrated an enhancement of nutrition and health outcomes, especially among vulnerable populations, such as women and young children.

Operating in India since 2011, HarvestPlus has fostered close collaborations with both public and private sector partners. Its mission is to enhance nutrition and public health by spearheading the development and promotion of biofortified crops while simultaneously establishing robust seed and crop value chains. The adoption of biofortification as a comprehensive strategy to combat widespread micronutrient deficiencies and their adverse health effects has received resounding support at the highest echelons of government.

Since 2019, HarvestPlus has intensified its focus on scaling up biofortification, leveraging existing agricultural and nutritional policies and expanding commercialization efforts. However, for biofortified crops to be universally accessible, there is a need for supportive policies and mechanisms. In this context, HarvestPlus has been undertaking two policy pilots – one of main meals integration under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme in Gorakhpur with the Akshaya Patra Foundation and the other with the JEEViKA program in Bihar.

Objective

HarvestPlus seeks to collaborate with a consulting firm to facilitate a series of strategic actions to scale these two complementary pilots in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and also high priority aspirational districts in other states (e.g. Odisha). The key strategic actions are:

1. Develop a strategy strawman to scale out the two pilots in consultation with a small group of stakeholders (8-10) and the HarvestPlus state and country teams.
2. Refinement of strawman –
   1. Identify public investment routes for scale up – direct support, seed distribution, or preferential procurement.
   2. Organize a round table with select stakeholders in the Niti Aayog and PMO to create an enabling environment and recomment investment route for scale up.
3. Deliver a strategy brief and facilitate the identification of a nodal engagement or relationship point within the nutrition and agriculture space to represent policy development and scale up of the pilots.

Outline of Tasks

Developing the Integration Strategy

Main output – Strawman/draft strategy for consultation

Outline of tasks:

Two ongoing pilots offer lessons for a forthcoming project that will allow Akshaya Patra to procure biofortified grain. In a new partnership with World Bank funded Government of Bihar’s livelihood initiative – JEEViKA – HarvestPlus is testing a model which trains existent local farmer producer companies to produce biofortified seed and market this to other local farmers to grow biofortified grain. A second pilot focuses on testing the acceptability and additional nutrition benefit of biofortified grain in India’s school feeding program in collaboration with one of the largest distributors of school meals globally, Akshaya Patra (AP) and NIFTEM.

Akshaya Patra has already tested the acceptance of a millets-based lunch menu in Karnataka and found strong acceptance for millets-based preparations in the treatment group. HarvestPlus has tested the nutritional efficacy of integrating iron pearl millet in school meals and has found this very impactful. Currently AP and HarvestPlus are expanding trials with biofortified millets and zinc wheat in Gorakhpur to improve the nutritional profile of AP’s MDMS program. This ongoing sensory evaluation will be completed by March 2024. Initial results are highly promising both in terms of potential elevated nutrition, student acceptance of recipes, and operational feasibility of integrating with AP kitchens.

The three key pain points of integration policy are: policy approval for substitution of biofortified grian in MDMS; recommending workable solutions for traceability of biofortified seed and grain; and scaling up aggregation for procurement by the state civil supplies body. The Consultant should facilitate backgound discussions with high level stakeholders in MDMS at the state and national level to have a targeted discussion on how to scale the integration of biofortified grain including substitution of existent reccipes on three feeding days, (reduction) of normal grain, and integration of biofortified grain procurement. It should connect with state CS ministry to assess whether FPO based or aggregator-based procurement can be tested in multiple aspirational districts for MDMS. Simultaneously, the consultation should reveal the key traceability requirements under MDMS that can facilitate high quality integration with existent government mechanisms (e.g. SEDEX) and any other. The JEEViKA model offers opportunities for better integration with state civil supplies and the consultant should understand how FPOs can be leveraged for nutritious procurement in aspirational districts in collaboration with the state civil supplies ministry.

Refinement of strawman strategy

Main outputs – High level cost benefit analysis for integration in input subsidy and FPO support programs. Consultative workshop and report.

Outline of tasks

1. Work closely with Head of National Policy at HarvestPlus to understand different integration and public investment pathways, e.g. input subsidies, FPO level aggregation and supply at premium procurement price or direct support.
2. Collaborative, focused, detailed high-level workshop to determine path forward. Based on the workshop, the consultant will deliver a strategy brief. If needed, HarvestPlus will utilize the brief to develop a quantitative ex ante model for subsidy allocation. Any technical papers on this basis are to be done outside the scope of this contract led by HarvestPlus.

Key Outputs

• Notes from consultative engagement
• Strawman strategy
• Workshop documents/backgrounder
• Workshop delivery
• Strategy note finalization
• PoC in Government identified

Timeline

Submission of Proposals – March 4, 2024

Review and selection – March 8, 2024

Contracting and launch of study – March 29, 2024

Consultations by – April 19, 2024

Strawman strategy – April 26, 2024

Workshop – May 13, 2024

Final output – June 3, 2024

To Apply

Submit a proposal (not exceeding 10 pages in size 12 Arial font), including a detailed capability statement for sector of focus (staples and nutrition-smart agriculture), profile of team members, approach, methodology, work examples, and detailed budget, by March 1, 2024 on Taleo. Selection will be based on experience with similar work, team qualifications, delivery approach, timeline, and reasonable cost.