(OR20-06-24) A Food Systems Intervention in Rural Timor-Leste Increased Household Fish Purchases and Women’s Fish Consumption: Results From a Randomized, Controlled Trial

Objectives: Fish-aggregating devices (FADs) are simple devices commonly placed nearshore to attract fish and make them easier to catch. FADs help fishers adapt to climate change-related fishery declines and have been established as a tool to increase fish catch, but no study has evaluated whether this increase in catch makes its way into local households.

Methods: We conducted a randomized, controlled trial in Timor-Leste to address this gap. Six municipalities were randomized to the treatment (FAD placement) or control group. Households in those six municipalities were randomized at the village level to receive a year-long, community-level social behavior change (SBC) program promoting fish, or to no SBC, resulting in four treatment arms: 1) FAD placement only 2) SBC only, 3) FAD+SBC combination, or 4) control. The primary outcome variables were the prevalence of household fish purchase in the previous week, and the prevalence of women’s and children’s fish consumption in the previous day. We used logistic regression models, with robust standard errors at the village level, to assess differences in the study arms.

Results: We surveyed 683 households at endline. Controlling for household wealth and the season of data collection, households in the FAD+SBC arm were almost twice as likely to purchase fish during the previous week compared to the control households at endline (PR; 1.90, 95% CI; 1.14, 3.20, p< 0.05). Women in the FAD+SBC arms were 4 times as likely to report consuming fish the day prior as compared to women in the control arm (PR: 4.17, 95% CI 1.88, 9.29; p< 0.001), but there was no effect among children. We saw no effect on fish purchase or consumption in the FAD or SBC only arms.

Conclusions: Our findings are consistent with other studies, showing that food systems interventions that target an increased production of nutrient rich foods only work to increase household nutrition security or improve diets when paired with a demand side intervention (e.g., a social and behavior change program). This model of FAD placement combined with a community-level SBC program promoting fish in diets is an important tool to improve the dietary quality of people living in Timor-Leste and other small island developing states.

Funding Sources: This work was funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta and by the Aquatic Foods CGIAR Initiative led by WorldFish.