Background –
Agricultural development plays an essential role in improving nutrition.
Recently, the term “nutrition-sensitive agriculture” has emerged as a way to define agriculture investments made with the intention of also improving nutrition.
Investments require deliberate and appropriate forethought and planning to yield impact on nutritional status and consequently good health and well being.
This technical guidance brief focuses on nutrient-rich value chains as a nutrition-sensitive agriculture investment.
Additional technical briefs are being developed to cover various other topics in agriculture and nutrition-sensitive agriculture.
Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture –
FAO’s mandate The importance of nutrition-sensitive food and agriculture-based approaches for overcoming malnutrition and improving nutrition in general is fully recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
FAO, a specialized UN agency, has as its mandate the raising of levels of nutrition and standards of living and ensuring humanity’s freedom from hunger by promoting sustainable agricultural development and alleviating poverty.
The Organization offers direct development assistance and policy and planning advice to governments for improving the efficiency of the production, distribution and consumption of food and agricultural products; collects, analyses and disseminates information and acts as an international forum for debate on food, nutrition and agriculture issues.
Focusing on the distinctive relationship between agriculture, food and nutrition, FAO works actively to protect, promote and improve established food-based systems as the sustainable solution to ensure food and nutrition security, combat micro-nutrient deficiencies, improve diets and raise levels of nutrition, and by doing so, to achieve the Nutrition related MDGs.
Situation Analysis At Global Level –
The combined effects of prolonged under investment in nutrition and in food and agriculture, together with the recent price instability and the economic downturn and exacerbated by the steady increase in the frequency and severity of natural disasters have led to increased hunger and poverty in developing countries, jeopardizing the progress achieved so far in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
FAO estimates that a total of 925 million people were undernourished in 2010 compared with 1.02 billion in 2009. Ten million children die before their fifth birthday every year, and that a third of these deaths are associated with under nutrition. One in three developing country children under the age of five (178 million children) are stunted due to chronic under nutrition and 148 million children are underweight. Micro-nutrient malnutrition or “hidden hunger” affects around 2 billion people (over 30% of the world population) with serious public health consequences.
Biofortification: The Nutrition – Revolution Through Agriculture Intervention
Biofortification is the process by which the nutritional quality of food crop is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding or modern biotechnology.
Hidden hunger describes a condition of under nutrition. Over two billion people worldwide are affected by hidden hunger.
Hidden Hunger means lack essential vitamins and minerals required for healthy growth. It can strike people who, on the outside, may appear to be consuming an adequate amount of food—mainly staple crops.
Deficiencies in micro-nutrients such as zinc, iron and vitamin A can cause profound and irreparable damage to the body—blindness, growth stunting, mental retardation, learning disabilities, low work capacity, and even premature death.
The effects of hidden hunger are acute during the first 1,000 days of a child’s life—from conception to the age of two years.
Micro-nutrient deficiencies are especially damaging to women.
Five hundred million women aged 15 to 49, at the peak of their productive years, are anaemic due to iron deficiency. This condition reduces their productivity, decreases their economic potential, and affects their reproductive health outcomes.
“Hidden hunger has no better friend than poverty.”
Poverty drives people to consume single staple crops to satisfy their basic hunger but these cannot provide the essential vitamins and minerals needed for a healthy body. This problem is exacerbated during periods of rising food prices when consuming a more varied diet—a problem even in the absence of economic shocks—is economically prohibitive.
Poverty, then, becomes both a cause and effect of hidden hunger.
Consuming poor diets of primarily staple foods lacking in essential vitamins and minerals has a negative effect on health.
Poor health not only decreases the productivity of the people, but can drain the limited resources of the household, the community and, ultimately, the nation
The Science of Biofortification: Producing Nutrient Rich Food- HarvestPlus
How the process works ?
Conventional plant breeding is not new—it began hundreds of years ago. Early farmers chose the best looking plants and seeds and saved them for next year’s planting.
As the science of genetics became better understood, plant breeders were able to select certain desirable traits in a plant to create improved varieties of plants.
HarvestPlus focuses on three crucial micro-nutrients that are most limited in the diets of the poor—vitamin A, zinc, and iron—and breed these into key staple crops.
Nutritional geneticists use tools such as marker-assisted selection to help speed up the breeding process with specific nutritional and agronomic traits.
HarvestPlus, together with farmers and public- private sectors , test these new varieties in the target region.
The national government then officially releases the best-performing varieties of micronutrient-rich crops for farming communities to grow, eat, and sell in local markets. Ex In India Pearl Millet Dhanshakti ICTP- Fe.
Advocacy for Biofortified Pearl Millet in India Biofortified Peral Millet trials in Hungary
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Ending Hidden Hunger: Reaching a Billion People by 2030 –
Just imagine a world where staple foods such as potatoes, rice, wheat, and maize are micro-nutrient-rich—ending the hidden hunger that takes such an enormous toll on the health and well being of poor households.
Today we are imagining reaching a billion people with Biofortified foods by the year 2030.
Tomorrow we are imagining a world free of hidden hunger.
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Wholesome Foods – Millet’s & Amaranth –
Good for the consumer: Full of nutrients to meet your daily requirements.
Good for the planet: They have a low water footprint, are able to survive in the hottest driest climates and will be important in coping with climate.
Good for the farmer: Millet crops are pest resistant and don’t require use of pesticides so help to adopt clean farming practices.
The Global Health & Wellness Market –
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Wholesome Food –
Foods Have Generally Been Categorized Into :
Whole means unrefined.
Fresh means unprocessed.
In Season means without preservatives, additives.
Organic means produced with best practices or “enriching“.
Natural means not genetically-modified.
Wholesome foods are the ones that your body appreciates, the ones that help you stay healthy.
Foods without additives, pesticides and chemicals. Foods which are minimally processed.
Wholesome eating simplifies our eating choices. A transition is required for health
White (refined) to coloured
Packaged (processed) to fresh/minimally processed Dead (cooked) to living (raw) or without additives.
Nutritionally depleted to nutrient-rich.
Redundant to the incredible variety of colors, aromas, textures and flavor’s of Wholesome foods !
Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture
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