Global Food for Thought

Commentary - Walk The Talk

2013-05-19T21:34:45-05:00

This post is part of a series produced by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @globalagdev and #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21^st.

By Dr. Shenggan Fan

Dr. Shenggen Fan has been director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) since 2009.

The global food system continues to remain vulnerable. Progress to combat global hunger and malnutrition remains fragmented, as nearly 870 million individuals—about 1 in every 8 people on the planet—are undernourished and more than 2 billion suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. Moreover, hunger and malnutrition is disproportionately felt throughout the world, as roughly 98 percent of these individuals live in developing countries. As we move forward and the 2015 Millennium Development Goals deadline draws closer, progress toward halving the proportion of individuals suffering from hunger is not currently on track.

Although many notable commitments to agriculture and food and nutrition security have been made in recent years by various actors—including developing country governments, members of the international community, and other key stakeholders—progress in fulfilling these commitments remains mixed. It will be essential for actors to “walk the talk” and move from rhetoric to action. Several important actions will be needed including:

Investing in agricultural science and technology. These investments should include technologies for improved crop and livestock breeding; advanced biofuels derived from non-food feedstock; low carbon agriculture; resource-use efficiency which saves water and energy, as well as reductions in food losses and waste; and safe food systems. Technologies must be smallholder friendly and regionally applicable.

Advancing a “nexus” approach in policy planning and implementation that takes into consideration the agriculture, nutrition, and health nexus and the food, water, and energy nexus. Sectoral synergies must be explored that promote win-win solutions while minimizing trade-offs at the same time. Environmental sustainability goals, for example, should not come at the expense of achieving food and nutrition security.

Strengthening the capacities of developing countries through increased technical and financial support. These efforts should build the capabilities of national institutions to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate programs, initiatives, and policies. Experiences from Asian countries, like China and India, have shown that returns from these types of efforts are high.

The post-2015 development agenda must focus on poor people and build the resilience of global and national food systems. The agenda should also integrate coherent sustainable development goals. Unlike previous goals, the measurement of hunger should be redefined to include dietary quality and nutrition. With appropriate planning, investment, and actions, we can end hunger sustainably by 2025—a feasible goal when considering progress already seen in emerging and developing countries like Brazil, China, Ghana, and Vietnam.

Talk about overcoming hunger and malnutrition has gone on long enough, it is time to walk the talk.

2013 Symposium Edition of the Global Food for Thought News Brief

2013-05-19T12:07:59-05:00

Please click here;to view the special Symposium edition of the Global Food for Thought news brief.

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Sustainable Intensification: Making Science the Solution for African Agriculture

2013-05-18T07:48:32-05:00

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @globalagdev and #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21^st.

By Mr. Michael Hoevel

Michael Hoevel is the Deputy Director of Agriculture for Impact at Imperial College London.

As the expiration date of the Millennium Development Goals draws closer, our promise to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty remains largely unfulfilled. In sub-Saharan Africa, over 200 million people (nearly 23% of the population) are chronically hungry and 40% of children under the age of five are stunted due to malnutrition. As a global community, we urgently need to establish new models for addressing these challenges.

Science-based agriculture offers such a solution – not only tackling food insecurity but also overlapping with multiple, interacting global threats, from managing scarce supplies of land and water to minimizing carbon emissions and post-harvest losses. Whilst no silver bullet exists to eliminate these threats, scientific approaches can go a long way to manage them. Across the agricultural value chain from agricultural research laboratories to agronomists and extension workers in the field and processors and exporters, scientific interventions can help people at each step to make African agriculture a great deal more productive and resilient, as well as more viable as a livelihood and business for the continent’s farmers.

The Chicago Council’s Global Food Security Symposium and its upcoming report, Advancing Global Food Security: The Power of Science, Trade, and Business, will discuss this very question of how to capitalize on the power of science to end hunger. Similarly, a recent report from the Montpellier Panel outlines a new paradigm for African smallholders focusing on ‘sustainable intensification’. The term refers to equipping farmers with the innovations required to navigate the joint goals of producing more nutritious food and boosting incomes whilst preserving the environment, adapting to climate change and reducing food waste.

This concept is by no means new but has typically been associated with larger commercial farms and with other regions of the world. Conversely, crop yields in Africa have remained largely stagnant, only 4% of cultivated land in Africa is irrigated, and 75% of soils on the continent are classified as degraded. If African agriculture does not adapt, under current climate predications, even current yield levels will decrease by 1.5% by 2050.

Happily, we need not accept these bleak projections as inevitable. Science-based solutions can give African smallholders access to the context-specific innovations they need to reverse this reality. They will allow African farmers to boost their productivity sustainably – balancing higher production and productivity with socio-economic realities (especially amongst smallholders) as well as sound environmental management.

The Montpellier Panel report divides the sustainable intensification process into three categories. The first is ecological intensification, in which natural ecosystems are managed more effectively. Practices include the planting of faidherbia trees, a leguminous tree species which sheds its nitrogen-rich leaves during the wet season, thereby providing nutrients to crops planted below, allowing sunlight in as well as fixing two tons or more per hectare of carbon to the soil.

The second category is genetic intensification, that develops crops and livestock better suited to various challenges, for instance, achieving higher yields, withstanding extreme temperatures, and also being more nutritious, such as in the case of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes in Mozambique that have doubled citizens’ daily intake of essential mineral Vitamin A.

The final facet is socio-economic intensification, which looks to create more of an enabling environment for farmers and others to learn, share, collaborate and support. This encompasses efficient farmer organizations and co-operatives and robust land rights as well as improved infrastructure for storing and transporting crops, and high quality extension services to provide farmers with the training they need.

In order to realize this vision of sustainable intensification in a way that will work for African smallholders, several concrete actions can be taken. First, the policy environment for the food and agriculture sector must become more socially inclusive and business-friendly in order to promote participation and co-operation. Local enterprises in Africa should be encouraged, by both streamlining yet pressure-testing current legal requirements and regional trading regulations.

Investment can also be facilitated by encouraging the private sector, public sector, civil society and knowledge institutes to collaboratively determine the outcomes they all desire, which should also enable strategic partnerships to grow. Providing fundamental inputs such as good quality seeds and the right amount of fertilizers must be prioritized, especially oriented to reach smallholder farmers. Public services such as healthcare, education, water and sanitation are also crucial for a healthy and empowered agricultural workforce.

The challenges are great, but the window of opportunity is greater. Science-based solutions for African agriculture have the potential to achieve synergistic outcomes for a more prosperous and resilient Africa.

Commentary - The Nexus between Science, Business & Collaboration

2013-05-17T07:00:26-05:00

This post is part of a series produced by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @GlobalAgDev and use #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21.

By Dr. Margaret Zeigler

Margaret Zeigler is the executive director of the Global Harvest Initiative

On May 21, leaders from numerous sectors will participate in the Chicago Council Global Food Security Symposium to identify opportunities to alleviate hunger and poverty through agricultural development. In February of 2013, I visited the Philippines to conduct an in-depth look at how that nation’s government and civil society organizations are implementing new approaches to improve food and nutrition security. During meetings with policymakers, farmers, research institutions and the private sector, I witnessed a growing nexus among science, government and business as each sector begins to collaborate to advance the Philippine agricultural system, educate the next generation, and improve livelihoods of those in rural farming communities.

On the trip, I saw this nexus come to life through the CoCoPal Program. CoCoPal, named after the cocoa, coconut and Palayamanan concept of rice-based diversified farming, is implemented by ACDI/VOCA, one of GHI’s consultative partner organizations. In 2009, ACDI/VOCA was awarded a $6.6 million USDA Food for Progress grant. CoCoPal is improving the incomes and food security of 25,000 smallholder farmers and 125,000 indirect beneficiaries through value-chain growth and integration of diversified farming systems. The program also improves post-harvest processing facilities, and practices and standards for cultivation of cocoa, coconut and rice.

Let’s take a closer look at how the program is fostering science, business and collaboration.

A trainer at the Village Technology and Extension Farm provides helpful skills and knowledge for the CoCoPal Program

The program extends good science-based knowledge, building sustainable agricultural systems through the teaching of Palayamanan integrated farming systems. Developed by PhilRice, this concept combines rice with other high-value crops through the efficient use of farm resources, allowing farmers to produce more using sustainable agricultural methods.The core function is rooted in supporting the adoption of new technologies and improved farming and processing practices. The program established village technology and extension farms (VTEFs), which serve as demonstration hubs for introducing new practices, new plant materials, new technologies such has harvesting and drying, and innovations in pest and disease management.

This program develops and supports farmers as they grow their business operations. It improves farm-level productivity growth and teaches farmers good skills; it invests in post-harvest infrastructure facilities, and it

Recently constructed drying tables for cacao in Mindanao

connects farmers to local markets creating a sustainable supply chain.

A major key to success is collaboration among CoCoPal beneficiaries, Philippine national partners, private-sector, the U.S. government and local governments.

The CoCoPal program is producing results.

Increasing number of farmers planting two or more CoCoPal crops on their farm;

Foreign investors as well as local businessmen are interested in cocoa investment in the Mindanao region;

Cacao is now part of the high-value commercial crops promoted by local government units; and

More cacao nurseries are being established by cooperatives and individual farmers to supply the growing market demand.

Recent evaluations are showing this program has improved farm-level productivity and advanced farmer skills and knowledge, generated new local business, developed a more sustainable supply chain, and improved the livelihood of smallholder farmers.

At Global Harvest Initiative, we believe that the right policies and investments can improve productivity throughout the value chain. The CoCoPal program, made possible through innovative development assistance programs, is an important part of helping farmers in the southern region of the Philippines increase their income and job stability and provide new opportunities for local economic development. It advances the use of appropriate technologies, strengthens government extension services, engages the private sector in the program model, and facilitates a productive value chain. I was heartened to see the difference this program makes for so many farmers in Mindanao. It was truly a great example of power of science, business and collaboration at work!

Dr. Margaret Zeigler has dedicated her career to addressing global hunger and food security, currently serving as the executive director of the Global Harvest Initiative, a private-sector voice for productivity growth throughout the agricultural value chain to sustainably meet the demands of a growing world. The Global Harvest’s growing membership includes Accenture, DuPont, Elanco, IBM, John Deere, and Monsanto.

Commentary - Freezing the Footprint of Food

2013-05-16T16:34:03-05:00

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @globalagdev and #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21^st.

By Dr. Jason Clay

Jason Clay is World Wildlife Fund's senior vice president for market transformation.

By the year 2050, our planet will be home to another two billion people. How and where we will we feed everyone has become one of the most pressing conservation issues of the 21st century.

Farmers will need to produce twice as much food as they do now to meet population demands. Where will this food come from? Today, we use over a third of the planet’s surface to grow food. When you subtract deserts, mountains, likes, rivers, cities and highways, food production is spread over 58 percent of the land. Take out national parks and other protected areas and this figure rises to 70 percent of the planet’s available surface.

We need to freeze the footprint of food—find ways to double the productivity of farming, so that we can produce twice as much food and fiber on the same amount of land. This will require many actors working on several strategies simultaneously.

At WWF, we have identified eight steps, when taken together, could produce enough food for all and still maintain a living planet.
1. Eliminate Waste in the Food Chain
Today, we waste one out of every three calories produced. In developing countries, waste is a result of post-harvest loss, lack of infrastructure, and lack of storage. In countries like the United States and in the European Union, waste usually occurs in the home or in restaurants as unused food is thrown away.

If we eliminated waste in the food chain today—by recycling post-harvest loss, improving infrastructure and eliminating post-consumer waste—we could halve the amount of new food needed by 2050.

2. Harness Technology to Advance Plant Breeding

The study of genetics, combined with 21st Century technology, can help us scale up the amount of nutrients in different foods. At the same time, it will improve productivity, drought tolerance and disease resistance in an era of climate change.

WWF works with the African Orphan Crops consortium, including partners like the Beijing Genomics Institute, Mars, Incorporated and the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), to map the genomes of two dozen of the most important food crops in Africa. Once sequenced, this information will be put into the public domain so plant breeders can provide better planting materials for farmers.

3. Share Better Practices More Quickly

We must address the poorest-performing producers to improve food production, increase incomes and reduce environmental impacts. Today it takes about ten years to spread and implement better practices around the globe. We can do better in our digital age and spread this information faster and more efficiently.

We also need governments to deal with the bottom 25 percent of producers that are responsible for the majority of environmental impacts on the habitats and species we care about. The world’s governments must adopt policies that help shift the whole performance curve.

4. Use Less to Produce More: Efficiency Through Technology

We need to double the efficiency of every agricultural input—including water, fertilizer, pesticides, energy and infrastructure. Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of global water use. Right now, on average globally, it takes one liter of water to produce one calorie of food. We must do better. If we halved the water used and doubled production, we would quadruple efficiency. The technology exists to do this, and the best producers can already achieve these results.

5. Rehabilitate Degraded Land

Instead of farming new land, we need to rehabilitate degraded, abandoned or underperforming lands. Restoring and cultivating these lands would significantly reduce pressure on critical ecosystems such as rainforests, peat swamps and high-biodiversity savannas. Studies show that rehabilitating degraded land for agriculture can actually be more profitable than converting forest land. In Brazil, at least 10 million hectares of degraded land have been rehabilitated and planted with crops. The Brazilian government aims to do the same on 25 million additional hectares by 2020. What if more countries followed this model?

6. Establish Greater Property Rights

How many farmers will plant a tree or invest in sustainability if they don't own the land, not just for themselves but to pass on to their children? The lack of clear property rights is a significant barrier to food security in many places in the world. For instance, in Africa, women grow most of the food but rarely have property rights to the land in their name. Foreign assistance for economic development could be linked to the establishment of property rights for individuals. The African Union, NEPAD or the World Bank could take the lead in encouraging nations to ensure property rights.

7. Balance the Disparity Between Under and Over Consumption

One billion people in the world don't have enough food, while one billion people eat too much. About half of the people without enough to eat do not own land or produce their own food. Today they are split between rural and urban areas—but by 2050 most will live in cities.

The rural poor in Africa have always had access to “famine foods”—nutrient-dense leaves of common plants such as cassava and sweet potatoes. But for the urban poor there is no such buffer. About 40% of children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from malnutrition. These leaves of common plants, now often discarded, could be used to enrich flour in school lunch programs and in home cooking.

8. Restore Soil Carbon

Soil carbon—or organic matter—is key to conserving farmland for future generations. Indeed, the single best measure of rehabilitated soil is increasing organic matter. However, half of the world's top soil in the tropics, in which most soil carbon resides, has been lost in the past 150 years. Increasing soil carbon raises productivity, reduces input use, and increases farmer income.

Two approaches could help farmers conserve their soils. The first is a greater emphasis on tree crops and deep-rooted grasses, which build soil carbon and reduce erosion. The second is creating a carbon market for agriculture. Retailers or leading brands that purchase commodities like sugar, milk, coffee, cocoa, or palm oil could also buy the carbon that the farmer sequestered or avoided releasing during production. WWF, with support from the Dutch government, and food-linked companies including Unilever, Nutreco and Rabobank, are exploring the amount of carbon that could be bundled with commodities and sold in global markets.

Commentary - InterAction’s Food Security Pledge: $1 Billion of Potential Leverage

2013-05-16T07:19:37-05:00

This post is part of a series produced by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @GlobalAgDev and use #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21.

By Mr. Sam Worthington

Sam Worthington is the president and CEO of InterAction, an alliance of more than 180 U.S.-based NGOs.

Last fall InterAction pledged that its member NGOs would spend more than $1 billion in private resources on food security, agriculture and nutrition work over the next three years. It may come as a surprise that U.S.-based NGOs have this amount of private resources to commit to ensuring more families worldwide have the food they need. Thanks to support from the individuals, foundations and corporations who believe in their cause and approach, they do.

In fact, the U.S. NGO community is one of the largest donors in the world. Privately-funded international expenses for U.S. NGOs total $14 billion per year, according to the Hudson Institute. And in many countries, NGOs’ spending in the areas of food security, agriculture and nutrition exceeds that of the U.S. government.

Why highlight this with a pledge? Our hope is that the pledge will create opportunities for donors such as the U.S. government or corporations to partner with U.S. NGOs in new ways and, ultimately, to better leverage private dollars. By doing so, our goal is to increase the impact of food security, agriculture and nutrition efforts so that we are able to help more people lift themselves out of poverty. In a world where one in eight people is malnourished, innovative and effective partnering is a must.

With programs in every country in the world, U.S. NGOs are at the forefront on the issues of food security, agriculture and nutrition. They work alongside local communities to help people become more self-sufficient, and their efforts complement U.S. government programs such as Feed the Future. But U.S. NGOs cannot build local capacity or solve local food security problems at scale by working alone.

There is enormous potential for governments, the private sector, and U.S. NGOs to work together and align our efforts in sectors such as food security and nutrition. Governments bring public dollars and the ability to change public policy, while the private sector offers access to markets, value chains and large distributive capacity. U.S. NGOs’ added value includes decades-long connections with communities and expertise working with and strengthening local civil society, including farmer cooperatives —critical assets given the need for development dollars to deliver lasting results.

Starting this summer, InterAction will report spending toward the pledge on an annual basis in a format similar to the G8 donors’ L’Aquila food security pledge. This complements ongoing efforts at InterAction such as the Food Security Aid Map, which maps InterAction members’ food security interventions worldwide. These efforts are well worth the time invested, as we work to improve our accountability and pave the way for stronger partnerships.

At its core, the pledge is an invitation to partner, a demonstration of the potential leverage that InterAction members bring to the table. We look forward to continuing the conversation with the U.S. government and corporations on how we can better align public and private dollars to increase the impact of food security, agriculture and nutrition efforts. We must recognize the power of working with civil society, government and the private sector in smart ways to ensure that we help more people live better and healthier lives.

Sam Worthington is the president and CEO of InterAction, an alliance of more than 180 U.S.-based NGOs. For more information, watch InterAction's video. Watch the highlights from InterAction's 2013 Annual Forum here.

Commentary - Lesson from a Famine: Markets Matter

2013-05-14T06:00:03-05:00

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @GlobalAgDevand use #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21.

By Mr. Roger Thurow

Roger Thurow is senior fellow with Global Agricultural Development Initiative at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Roger Thurow’s reporting in Ethiopia was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Ten years after the Ethiopian famine of 2003, when international food aid rushed in to feed 14 million people, another World Food Program (WFP) tent has been erected on an open field. But this isn’t a scene of food distribution. It is a scene of food purchase.

The action happens on the grounds of the Sidama Elto Farmers’ Cooperative Union in Awassa, Ethiopia. Sidama Elto is one of 16 cooperative unions in Ethiopia that have signed forward contracts with the WFP for the purchase of more than 28,000 metric tons of maize grown by their smallholder farmer members. The maize, which is part of 112,000 tons of food the WFP purchased in Ethiopia last year, will be used for WFP relief distributions in the country. Ten years ago, many of those farmers and their families were receiving food aid from the WFP.

One of the major lessons in agricultural development over the past decade is this: Markets Matter. The 2003 famine tragically, and incomprehensibly, followed two years of bumper harvests in Ethiopia. The surplus production overwhelmed the country’s weak and inefficient markets. There were no export channels; the domestic market’s ability to absorb the harvests was crippled by woeful infrastructure. The food piled up on farms and prices collapsed, upwards of 80% in some areas. Farmers lost incentive to plant the next year. Then the drought hit, and feast turned to famine. The markets had failed before the weather did.

That gobsmacking turnaround triggered a reversal of the neglect of agricultural development that had set in since the 1980s, as I noted in my TedxChange talk last month. In the past decade, science and research geared toward improving the work of smallholder farmers (who produce the majority of the food grown in the developing world) have been reinvigorated; so too have trade and business efforts accelerated to provide greater market incentives and opportunities for the farmers. Prior to 2003, boosting agricultural production – growing more food -- was the primary focus and developing markets was considered to be a “second-generation problem.” Now, markets share top billing with production, as it should; markets provide incentive to produce more.

In Ethiopia, it started with the creation of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange in the wake of the famine. Now, the mantra spreads, in radio dramas, government pronouncements, business negotiations: If you grow it, someone will buy it.

The WFP’s partnership with Sidama Elto is part of its Purchase for Progress (P4P) program, which uses the WFP’s purchasing power to create markets for smallholder farmers. Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and implemented in collaboration with the government of Ethiopia through the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), P4P works with the farmers to improve the quality of their crops and the post-harvest handling. Simiret Simeno, deputy manager of Sidama Elto, says that for the first time its 13,000 farmer members see that better quality can bring better prices. And they can also see their contribution to healthier communities, as one of the markets is an expanding network of school feeding programs supplied by locally grown crops rather than food being shipped in from abroad.

The ultimate goal of the WFP purchases is to demonstrate to commercial buyers that smallholder farmers can reliably produce high-quality food worthy of their business. Sustainable success here could also bear witness to the potential impact of President Obama’s proposed food aid reform, which would allow for nearly half of the U.S. food aid budget to be used to buy food nearer to the hunger crises – providing markets for smallholder farmers -- rather than shipping it all the way from American farms (as has been the U.S. policy for decades).

These public-private ventures bring both maturity and modernization to markets that hadn’t changed much for centuries. Working with local banks and donor governments, P4P has introduced forward contracts to participating cooperatives and smallholder farmers. The ATA has also been crafting links between farmers and commercial buyers of several crops, like teff, barley, sesame and chickpeas.

Above all, says Khalid Bomba, the chief executive officer of ATA, “Smallholder farmers need confidence that there will be buyers for what they grow.”

And confidence that the misery of 2003 – the misery of failed markets -- won’t happen again.

Commentary - Prioritizing Reduction of Food Losses and Waste for Food Security

2013-05-13T13:05:22-05:00

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @GlobalAgDev and use #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21.

By Betty Bugusu

Betty Bugusu is the Managing Director for the International Food Technology Center (IFTC) at Purdue University.

Food security is one of the most pressing challenges in the world today. The challenge is particularly important as the world population is projected to reach over 9 billion people resulting in increased food demand by the year 2050. Over the years, increasing agriculture production and productivity has been viewed and supported as the solution for fixing the problem. Despite the great progress made in this arena, such as improved crop varieties and productive farming methods, many parts of the world are still food insecure. Furthermore production agriculture is constrained by diminishing natural resources (land, water, and energy) and climate change. Undoubtedly, food security is a complex issue that requires multiple solutions beyond production as well as beyond agriculture.

Reduction of food losses and waste is one of the key solutions to improving food security. According to the 2010 United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, about one third of the food produced worldwide is lost. Food losses occur in developing countries, predominantly after harvest, due to poor post-harvest handling and storage as well as limited or lack of value addition activities and markets. Waste is prevalent in industrialized nations, mainly at retail and consumer levels due to various reasons, such as large portion sizes, strict standards, and cosmetics issues. Reducing the amount of food lost requires increased investment in research and development to develop technologies and innovations in the post-production segment of the value chain. This is especially true in developing countries where reducing losses can have immediate and major positive impact on hunger, malnutrition, and poor health, affecting the population. It would effectively compliment the current incremental advances in agriculture production as well as reducing the strain on the available natural resources.

Until recently, limited attention was given to developing post-production programs to reduce these losses and waste. However, there is now a renewed acknowledgement of the role of food loss reduction efforts in improving food availability amongst governments, industry, and international organizations worldwide.
The first major recognition came in 2007 with the winning of the World Food Prize (WFP) by Purdue’s Dr. Philip Nelson for his work on bulk aseptic processing technology which reduced food losses of fruits by processing them to a shelf-stable form for local, regional, and international markets, and trade. Dr. Nelson is the first post-harvest scientist to win this prize. Since then, there have been several other new initiatives as well as increased awareness around the subject among various stakeholders. A few examples are:

World Bank Report 2011. Missing food: The case on postharvest grain losses in Sub-Saharan Africa.

U.S. Agency for International Development Feed The Future Initiative’s prioritization of reduction of food losses and waste in its research strategy - 2012.

The United Nations “Zero Hunger Challenge,” a new initiative launched at the RIO+20 conference in which zero loss or waste of food is one of the five objectives - 2012.

United Nations Environment Programme’s 2012 report on Avoiding Future Famines: Strengthening the Ecological Foundation of Food Security through Sustainable Food Systems highlights importance of reducing food losses and waste.

Despite these initiatives and discourses, efforts to reduce post-harvest losses and waste are still fragmented thus making it difficult to make significant headway. There is an urgent need to bring together key stakeholders in global food security to develop a comprehensive and effective strategy to streamline and mainstream post-harvest research and development in agriculture programs. The strategy should include a roadmap of prioritized challenges and opportunities relative to food loss post-harvest and market development issues for use by stakeholders, funding institutions, and policymakers working in food security and economic development. This approach will maximize use of resources, avoid redundancy in programs and encourage cooperation. It will also help establish a platform for continuous engagement by stakeholders to provide research and information updates for policy development around the issue of food losses.

This past month the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) of the United Nations convened an e-consultation on the issue of post-harvest losses and waste. The e-consultation’s purpose was to lay groundwork for the study on “food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems” to be conducted by a High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) for presentation at the CFS plenary in 2014.

This consultation is a good first step to initiate a formal dialogue among leading experts and stakeholders on food waste and losses. Engagement of various stakeholders is required to develop the proposed comprehensive systems approach.

This Week's Edition of the Global Food for Thought News Brief

2013-05-13T10:37:03-05:00

Please click here;to view this week's edition of the Global Food for Thought news brief.

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Roger Thurow - Outrage and Inspire - A Mother's Day Parable From Uganda

2013-05-10T14:10:45-05:00

By Roger Thurow

A mother knows.

“This child is brilliant,” Harriet Okaka says about her one-year-old son, Abraham. She isn’t bragging, just observing. “I can tell, just by looking at him,” she says, “the way he plays, the way he is.”

Harriet, 33, is a smallholder farmer in the northern Uganda village of Okii, near the town of Lira. Abraham is her sixth child.

“The other children started walking by the time they were two years old. Abraham is walking at one,” she says. The mother has noticed things. When Abraham sees an animal, he motions for it to come, she notes. When he hears music, he claps and dances. “These are indications that his brain is developing well,” she says.

On a hot afternoon, Harriet and Abraham are sitting under a mango tree, savoring the shade with a dozen other women and their young children. A mango falls from a branch and bounces in the middle of them. Abraham is the first to react, quickly crawling a couple of feet to grab the fruit. Abraham takes a bite. All the adults laugh. Harriet beams.

“You see,” she says.

It is no mere coincidence, Harriet believes, that Abraham was born on the day in April 2012 when she and other women farmers had completed their first training session in the art of planting orange-flesh sweet potatoes and a new variety of beans. They are crops rich in micronutrients essential for the health of women and their children: Vitamin A in the sweet potatoes and iron in the beans. The crops – particularly beneficial during the 1,000 Days period between when a woman becomes pregnant and the second birthday of the child -- were developed by an organization called HarvestPlus, pioneers in biofortifying staple foods with higher levels of micronutrients, and deployed by the humanitarian agency, World Vision.

They were different crops for the Ugandans, especially the sweet potatoes, which are normally white or yellow and lacking in micronutrient content. But Harriet eagerly planted and tended her fields. The harvest coincided with the time she was beginning to supplement Abraham’s breastfeeding with complementary foods. She fed him a mashed up combination of the orange sweet potato and the high-iron beans.

“It’s good for brain development,” she says a week after Abraham’s first birthday. Her youngest child hasn’t battled sickness as her other children did, she notes. She believes it must be the new crops.

She tells the story of her second youngest child, Isaac, now 5, how he was very sick at the end of last year. He was losing weight. His skin was rough. Harriet took him to the nearby clinic several times. Tests were performed. None of the doctors knew what was wrong. Isaac was so thin, so weak, his mother was terrified that he would die.

At wits end, she turned to the new food. “I just kept feeding him the beans and the orange sweet potatoes,” she says. “And he got better.”

With the seeds and the vines from HarvestPlus, Harriet had planted a quarter-acre of beans and a small plot of sweet potatoes in 2012. This year, convinced of the nutritional benefits, she is expanding her efforts. She rented an additional two acres and in March covered them with the high-iron beans. By the end of April, she waded through a lush carpet of green plants with Abraham perched on her back, wrapped in a white blanket. While she pulled weeds, he slept.

Harriet sees a market for the beans and orange sweet potatoes; the demand in the community is high. Everyone knows the story of Isaac, who has recovered and is once again wearing the chartreuse uniform shirt of the Good Luck Nursery School. They see Abraham, lively and healthy. Harriet wants everyone to share in the benefits of the micronutrient rich food.

A mother knows. “If my children are healthy,” she says, “then the neighbors’ children must also be healthy.”