agricultural university

Published on 11 March 2019 . The recent EAT-Lancet review of the global food system has been widely welcomed. By connecting, for the first time, scientific targets for both global healthy diets and sustainable food production, the report outlines what a sustainable and healthy food system for 10 billion people, all within planetary boundaries, by the middle of the century, could look like. See PAEPARD blogpost  Food in the Anthropocene In this ANH Academy webinar co-hosted in collaboration with Ag2Nut, two of the co-authors of the EAT Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, and Health - Dr. Jessica Fanzo and Dr. Fabrice DeClerck - joined talk about the report. Related:  

HarvestPlus has launched the Iron Works campaign , timed around International Women's Day 2019, to raise awareness about #irondeficiency and how we are addressing it through nutritious biofortified foods in close collaboration with CGIAR centers, NARS, and many other partners. References: The Iron Works page on the HarvestPlus website provides access to all resources. These currently include: A multimedia digital feature on how HarvestPlus and its many partners within the CG system and beyond improve lives with Iron-Biofortified Crops. An infographic summarizing the problem and the biofortification solution. A toolkit for use on social media and elsewhere. A quiz to test one’s knowledge of iron deficiency. A recipe card for biofortified bean stew. There will be much more to come, including more recipe cards, videos, additional graphics, and several iron-focused stories from the field. Keep an eye on the HarvestPlus social media channels. Iron-biofortified crops are a practic...

26 February 2019.  IFPRI Egypt Seminar in partnership with the National Nutrition Committee (ASRT). "100 million healthy lives: Scientific evidence on double burden of malnutrition in Egypt" The seminar discussed the current status of malnutrition among children and adults; providing a policy framework for managing determinants of malnutrition and obesity; and identifying options for preventive action to reduce the costs of nutrition-related diseases. In that respect, the seminar provided the occasion for researchers, decision makers and other stakeholders to discuss and inform the 100 Million Healthy Lives Initiative on state-of-the art nutrition and health related policies and interventions. Presentations took stock of the available nutrition data and provide an overview of the latest nutrition research findings from IFPRI and CAPMAS. The seminar also presented a multidimensional framework to control obesity and non-communicable diseases developed by Egypt’s National Nutrit...

14 February 2019 . Washington. IFPRI.  Transforming Food Systems to Deliver Healthy, Sustainable Diets : The View from the World’s Science Academies The InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), a global network of science academies, recently brought together regional networks of science academies from four continents—Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. This project aimed to spark a new global commitment to research the opportunities and challenges facing food and nutrition security and agriculture today. This seminar provided details on the scope and priorities of the IAP project, the regional perspectives of participants, and a global synthesis. During the discussion, participants explores mutual interests in increasing the sciences’ contribution to informed policy development, innovation, and practice. Volker ter Meulen , President, InterAcademy Partnership ( Presentation | Video ) Joachim von Braun , Director, Center for Development and Professor for Economic and Technological Chang...

11 February 2019 . Addis Abeba.  AU and AfDB launched African Leaders for Nutrition Accountability Scorecard  The African Union Commission, the African Development Bank  and global partners launched the Continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard to raise awareness and reinforce commitments by African governments to help end malnutrition. The Continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard is produced by the African Leaders for Nutrition Initiative (ALN), headquartered at the African Development Bank , in collaboration with ALN's partners including the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The scorecard launch presented key findings and recommendations, including calls for governments to increase budgetary allocations for multi-sectoral nutrition plans. The scorecard also calls for the enhanced empowerment of women and adolescent girls and the provision of nutritional support at the most critical time ...

Published: January 16, 2019 Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems Prof Walter Willett,   Prof Johan Rockström,  Brent Loken,  Marco Springmann,   Prof Tim Lang,   Sonja Vermeulen,  et al.  Show all authors The recent EAT-Lancet review of the global food system has been widely welcomed. By connecting, for the first time, scientific targets for both global healthy diets and sustainable food production, the report outlines what a sustainable and healthy food system for 10 billion people, all within planetary boundaries, by the middle of the century, could look like. Aligning such a complex system, driven by multiple interests from across the sectors, with both the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate agreement, is a big task. Meeting such goals will require unprecedented collaboration and true transformation of an ill-equipped system. The global agricultural sector occupies 40...

Assessing the Role of Cattle in Sustainable Food Systems Nutrition Today: July/August 2018 - Volume 53 - Issue 4 - p 160-165 Balancing agriculture production with nutrition goals and environmental concerns forms a complex trilemma for food policy decisions. Critical questions within the trilemma debate revolve around (1) what is the optimal measure of environmental impact, (2) what is the optimal target for diet quality, and (3) what constitutes optimal land use? For each of these questions, the essential information remains incomplete and controversial. The current environmental debate about agriculture is focused on the cost and impact of producing grains versus meats. This is an overly simplistic view of both agriculture and nutrition. Grains appear beneficial in LCA models because they produce lower GHGE/kcal, but they also have low nutrient density, whereas meats have comparatively high GHGE, but also have high nutritional value and are rich sources of protein and EAAs. Sustainabl...

The Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Initiative shares a new open-access guide that collects lessons learned from four partner countries to help others harness agricultural biodiversity to transform the food system for development, food security and nutrition. At the recent 2018 UN Biodiversity Conference COP14 in Sharm El-Sheikh (COP14 of the CBD), the BFN team hosted a side event in which it launched an open-access toolkit entitled “Biodiversity Mainstreaming for Healthy ; Sustainable Food Systems”. This guide compiles case studies from all four countries, key resources and methodologies to share the knowledge accumulated by the BFN Partners, promoting the conservation and sustainable use of local biodiversity. It is free to view and download from the BFN website and CGIAR CGSpace Repository . Throughout its six years of experience in Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Turkey , the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Initiative ( BFN Project ) has pioneered a partner-based methodology...

5 December 2018. The African Development Bank (AfDB) launched a Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Action Plan , which aims to expand the bank’s primary focus on infrastructure into the realm of nutrition.  The Bank has adopted the Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Action Plan to guide and coordinate the implementation of the nutrition dimension encapsulated in its strategy documents, particularly the Feed Africa Strategy  (2016, 74 pages) and the Human Capital Strategy . In Sub-Saharan Africa, 53.7 million children are currently stunted, but the AfDB predicts that new investments could reduce that number by 24 million people. The bank will scale up nutrition-smart investments in education, agriculture, and health . Through its 2018-2025 action plan, AfDB has committed to scaling up the proportion of nutrition-smart investments in five sectors that account for more than 30 percent of government spending: education and skills; WASH; social protection; health; and agriculture.  One example i...

28-30 November 2018 . Bangkok, Thailand.  The IFPRI-FAO Global Event: Accelerating the end of hunger. 29 November Side event  LAUNCH OF THE REPORT “ALL HANDS ON DECK: REDUCING STUNTING TROUGH MULTISECTORAL EFFORTS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA” Organized by: The World Bank The report “All Hands on Deck: Reducing Stunting through Multisectoral Efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa” lays the groundwork for more effective multisectoral action on reducing stunting by analyzing and generating empirical evidence useful for informing the joint targeting and, if necessary, the sequencing of sector-specific interventions in countries in SSA. Dr. Purnima Menon  (Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI) Dr. Emmanuel Skoufias  (Lead Economist, The World Bank) Elan Satriawan  (Head of Policy Working Group TNP2K, Office of the Vice President, Republic of Indonesia) Harold Alderman  (Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI, USA) Main Report Report Annex

28-30 November 2018 . Bangkok, Thailand.  The IFPRI-FAO Global Event: Accelerating the end of hunger. 30 November Side event  HOW TO BUILD URBAN FOOD SYSTEMS FOR BETTER DIETS, NUTRITION, AND HEALTH IN LOW AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES Organized by: IFPRI Diets of poor urban dwellers in low and middle-income countries are rapidly shifting from traditionally rich in coarse grains and pulses to highly concentrated in refined sugar, salt, saturated fats, animal-sourced foods, refined grains, and (ultra-)processed foods. These dietary changes, which are believed to unfold faster in urban than in rural areas, increase the risks of malnutrition in all its forms and diet-related non communicable diseases. Contributing factors include the rapid expansion of modern food retail systems, and the abundance of convenient, cheap, ultra-processed yet nutrient-poor foods. This side event will provide in-depth perspectives from research and industry on how to build food systems that provide ...

28-30 November 2018 . Bangkok, Thailand.  The IFPRI-FAO Global Event: Accelerating the end of hunger. How can we accelerate progress in transforming our agri-food systems to meet the needs of the hungry and malnourished and achieve the SDGs? With rising levels of global hunger putting the goal of ending malnutrition in all its forms by 2030 in serious jeopardy, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) organised a global conference aimed at urgently accelerating efforts to achieve Zero Hunger worldwide. The conference highlighted how great strides have been made in many countries in reducing hunger and malnutrition, rapidly and sustainably, through improvements in public policies, focused investments and the harnessing of new technologies. Bangladesh, for example, has achieved one of the fastest reductions in child underweight and stunting in history, largely by using innovative public policies...

13 November 2018 . Brussels. DevCo InfoPoint Lunchtime conference.  Empowering stakeholders in rural development/agriculture .  The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) is a multilateral partnership of equals that pools financing for country-led priorities, competitively channels funds through its implementing partners, and de-risks investments to unlock the private sector, all to realize SDG2. The presentation featured almost 10 years of analytical evidence of the Program's outcomes and impact in Africa and other places regarding GAFSP’s flexible mix of public and private sector investments along the agricultural value chain helping to create jobs, respond to climate change, leverage private sector finance, and address the root causes of migration. The GAFSP Steering Committee has agreed to carry out a major replenishment - $1.5 billion over five years -in 2019. The next call for proposals will be launched in January 2019 . Introduction: Leonard Mizzi Head...