Agriculture and Nutrition Resource Review

The first-ever Global Nutrition Report provides a comprehensive narrative and analysis on the state of the world’s nutrition and commitments made during the 2013 Nutrition for Growth Compact. Drawing on independent expert and stakeholder groups and an external peer review by The Lancet, the publication mixes data with key messages, including the role of nutrition-sensitive programs, in achieving global malnutrition reduction targets. 

The Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, an independent group of influential experts, released its inaugural technical brief, mapping a wide range of policies that affect agriculture and food systems’ influence on nutrition. Centered around a food environment capable of providing diet quality—described as diversity, adequacy and safety—the authors detail policies influencing agricultural production, markets and trade systems, consumer purchasing power and food transformation/consumer demand.

When Women Flourish argues that a major cause of hunger worldwide is persistent discrimination against women. It brings to light women’s powerful dual roles, predominantly working as subsistence farmers in the developing world and preparing the food that nourishes their households. Empowering women is essential, as ending hunger ultimately depends on working alongside and through women.

In preparation for the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), FAO pulled together a collection of tools and tips to help advocates inform and engage the public in nutrition-related activities. This list of hunger facts doesn’t simply demonstrate why nutrition matters, but allows you to broadcast some of these key messages through Twitter with a click of a button. Although global progress has been made, there are still opportunities for improvement. Help spread the word!

Nutrition and Food in Numbers may be a pocket-sized reference book, but it is filled with a large and diverse amount of nutrition-related data from all over the world. It includes indicators on the various connections between nutrition, health, and the environment. Among a substantial list of food and nutrition related topics, readers can reference detailed data on food prices, food consumption, and land use.

Patrick Webb with Tufts University describes the many pathways by which nutrition can support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and how the SDGs in turn can also benefit nutrition.  He seeks to accelerate and sustain new gains in places that have lagged behind and for vulnerable populations who have been neglected.

This is the policy brief based on the more extensive Technical Note, which calls for urgent action and a more prominent role for nutrition across the SDGs.  In addition, best practices at scale ensuring that all SDGs benefit from good nutrition for all is encouraged to quickly resolve the world’s nutrition challenges.

During the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) last month, FAO and WHO prepared to assist nations in addressing the massive global burden of malnutrition. This opinion piece by José Graziano da Silva, FAO director general, and Margaret Chan, WHO director general doesn’t solely focus on the shocking numbers on malnutrition, but uses them as a platform for a global call to action. The article underscores the need for translating commitment into action if we are to end the multiple burdens of malnutrition within a generation.

SPRING and the Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services (MEAS) project co-hosted a two-part webinar series exploring efforts to integrate activities promoting nutrition into agriculture extension programming in Malawi and Ethiopia. The series examined various programs and systems in place in to deliver integrated extension and nutrition outreach services, service delivery constraints and possibilities for addressing existing constraints.

The November 2014 AgNut Community of Practice call featured a report out on the first-ever agriculture-nutrition track at the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2014, held in October 2014 in Seattle, Washington, USA. Laura Birx with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Josette Lewis and Edye Kuyper, both with the UC Davis World Food Center, were involved in organizing the event, and presented a summary of the four sessions: Diets, Markets, Convenience, and Demand.

Geoff Tansey, an independent writer and consultant has put together a series of “talks” around various aspects of food systems and their links to human beings and the environment. Lectures can be played as part of a training and include the possibility of linking back with speakers for questions and answers.  Current topics include: An Overview of the Food System, Food Regimens, Understanding Intellectual Property.