Globally, agriculture is failing by not
delivering sufficient nutritious food to meet the nutritional needs of women,
infants and children, especially in developing countries. Today micronutrient
malnutrition or hidden hunger afflicts billions of people, resulting in poor
health, obesity, increased rates of non-communicable diseases and low worker productivity.
Agriculture is responsible because it has
never held nutrition as an explicit objective of its production systems.
Agricultural policies, which have promoted cereal led food security goals, have
enabled the decline in micronutrient intake and eroded dietary diversity for
the poor.
Science led progress in agriculture in the
last century yielded technological solutions that raised productivity to
provide adequate calories per person. We have developed new cultivars,
chemicals ranging from mineral fertilizers to pesticides and synthetic plant
hormones. The production paradigm of the last century was essentially the green
revolution, an effort for which one of the leaders, the late Norman Borlaug
received the Nobel Prize in 1971.
Rachel Carson in her famous book, Silent
Spring, showed that indiscriminate use of chemicals and pesticides in modern
agriculture was harmful to land, soil, water and living organisms that are
critical to maintaining the delicate web of life as we know it. Rachel Carson
helped cultivate and energize the sustainability conscience and move modern
agriculture beyond the narrow focus warding off starvation.
The monumental failure of our food systems
to deliver sufficient nutrition has come into sharp focus. The success of the
green revolution must be re-evaluated because hybrid cereals, it magic, has
replaced traditional crops, which are higher in iron, zinc and vitamins. It is
estimated 26 percent of the world’s children are stunted, 2 billion people
suffer from one or more micronutrient deficiencies and 1.4 billion people are
overweight, of whom 500 million are obese.
In the push to deliver calorie security,
little attention or thought was given to nutritional value and human health. My
view is that the scale of malnutrition, especially in the developing world has
created a daunting but not insurmountable challenge for agronomists,
nutritionists, healthcare practitioners and policy makers.
Malnutrition in all its guises – under
nutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity – imposes high
economic and social costs on society at all income levels. The cost to the
global economy caused by malnutrition, due to lost productivity and direct
health care costs, account for about 5 percent of global GDP, equivalent to
US$3.5 trillion per year or twice the annual GDP of all African countries.
Improving nutrition and reducing these costs
requires urgent and coordinated action. The production paradigm of the first
green revolution must be replaced by a new nutrition focused paradigm. More
importantly for the developing world, we must elevate micronutrient
malnutrition to a population health and human development question. Here is
why. The deficiencies of iron, iodine, vitamin A and zinc not only undermine
the immune system, but also can irrevocably retard brain development in the
womb.
The causes of malnutrition go
beyond agricultural production. They are complex and multifactorial. These factors
include inadequate availability of and access to safe, diverse food; inappropriate
child feeding and adult dietary choices, lack of access to clean water,
sanitation and health care. Moreover, malnutrition encompasses the wider socio-economic,
political, cultural, ecological and physical environment. Addressing
malnutrition, therefore, requires coordinated integrated action in broader
policy domains. Because the necessary interventions cut across the portfolios
of several government institutions, high-level political support is required to
sustain the necessary coordination across key sectors.
Building research and development linkages
among agriculture, nutrition, population health and economic growth is critical
to overcoming the adverse effects of past policy failures of the food security
paradigm. In the 21st century, a green revolution must deliver more
than food security. A 21st century green revolution must be
predicated on a food systems paradigm. A food systems paradigm is about
sustainable agriculture that meets environmental, food sufficiency and
nutrition goals.
Agricultural research and development in the
developing world must ensure productivity growth while paying attention to
nutrient-rich foods. In a food systems paradigm, traditional and modern supply
chains can enhance the availability of a variety of nutritious foods and reduce
nutrient waste and losses.
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