Attachments
Quinn Marshall and Budni H. Hewavidana
Background
As a sub-study within the R5N evaluation, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), University of Peradeniya, and Johns Hopkins University collected food environment data in 45 Grama Niladahari (GN) Divisions across 5 Districts of rural Sri Lanka from December 2020 to March 2024. These communities were in areas where the World Food Programme was targeting a nutritionsensitive resilience program (R5N) to smallholder farming families. The communities were in the agroecological dry zone of Sri Lanka. The R5N program sought to increase their access to water for irrigation via creation and rehabilitation of community and household irrigation schemes, while also improving nutrition through a behavior change communication activity. In these contexts, the primary access points for food purchases are through periodic open-air markets (known as pola) and small village retail shops. Many of the communities were in relatively remote areas where the density of food vendors was Photo credit: Budni H. Hewavidana low. Data collected primarily focused on food prices and food availability as a means of monitoring the cost of a healthy diet and the availability of nutritious food through monthly follow-ups.Other data collected have described market and shop characteristics—such as size, access to roads, electricity, and cold storage.
IFPRI and University of Peradeniya would now like to conduct similar food environment research in urban and peri-urban areas of Sri Lanka. This would enable comparisons of food environments across the rural-urban continuum, including how they may influence diets. However, food environments in urban contexts are thought to be more complex, consisting of an array of food vendor types, more densely located, and potentially offering different types of foods. Thus, a feasibility exercise was conducted as part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Initiative on Resilient Cities to gather necessary information about the basic make-up of food environments in urban areas of Sri Lanka. Of special interest was refining a food environment typology, which classifies different vendor types and provides short description of each, as well as refining a pre-specified food lists to ensure major product categories availability in urban areas are not missed. This information will inform possible adjustments that may be needed in sampling strategies and survey tools used in the R5N assessment, which were designed with a rural context in mind.