The world has a nutrition problem. Though great strides have been made toward the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of undernourished people in developing countries, the problem remains persistent, pervasive and complex. After all, the issue goes beyond merely providing more food; effective efforts to reduce undernourishment must ensure that people have access to enough of the right types of food — those that give them the nutrients they need to live healthy, productive lives.
Since 1945, food production has tripled, and food availability has risen by 40 percent, on average, per person. Over the past decade alone, vegetable production in the Asia-Pacific region, where more than three quarters of the world’s vegetables are grown, increased by one quarter.
However, despite these gains in expanding the food supply, at least 805 million people still go hungry every day, of whom about 791 million live in developing countries. Many more go hungry seasonally or intermittently. And more than 2 billion people suffer from “hidden hunger” — one or more micronutrient deficiencies.
Illustration: Mountain People
Hunger and undernourishment damage the health and productivity of adults, undermining their ability to learn and work. Moreover, they impede children’s physical and cognitive development, and leave them more susceptible to illness and premature death. Stunted growth due to malnutrition affects one in four children under the age of five.
Adequate nutrition is most vital during the first 1,000 days of life (from conception to a child’s second birthday). However, even after that, hunger and undernourishment continue to diminish children’s chances of surviving to adulthood, much less reaching their full potential.
Ironically, in many parts of the world, pervasive hunger coexists with rising levels of obesity. More than 1.5 billion people are overweight, with one third of them considered obese. These people are particularly vulnerable to non-communicable diseases like heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
Contrary to popular belief, obesity is often related less to an overabundance of food than to inadequate access to affordable, diverse and balanced diets. The challenge facing the international community is thus to ensure adequate consumption of the right kinds of food.
This means developing food systems that are more responsive to people’s needs, particularly those of the socially excluded and economically marginalized. Mothers, young children, the elderly and the disabled are among the most vulnerable to the pitfalls of undernourishment, and should be given special attention in efforts to end food insecurity and undernourishment.
In order to ensure that today’s efforts benefit future generations, strategies to improve global food systems must emphasize environmental sustainability. Specifically, world leaders must reassess prevailing food-production processes, which often put considerable stress on natural resources by exhausting freshwater supplies, encroaching on forests, degrading soils, depleting wild fish stocks and reducing biodiversity. Making matters worse, the lack of adequate infrastructure for storing and transporting food to consumers contributes to massive losses.
Of course, it is essential to strike the right balance between producing enough nutrient-dense food and preserving the environment. Consider livestock production, which accounts for many foods — including milk, eggs and meat — that have enriched diets in developing countries and provide livelihoods for millions.
Unsustainable production systems, combined with wasteful and excessive consumption in some regions of the world, have had serious consequences in terms of climate change, disease transmission and nutritional balance.
However, with a strong political commitment, global food-production systems can be transformed. An obvious step would be to ensure that all food-related programs, policies and interventions account for nutrition and sustainability.
Likewise, food-related research and development should focus on facilitating the production of nutrient-rich foods and the diversification of farming systems. Finding ways to use water, land, fertilizer and labor more efficiently, and with minimal adverse impact, is essential to ecological sustainability.
Equally important will be interventions that empower local communities to improve their diets. This requires comprehensive public health and education campaigns, social protection to enhance resilience, and initiatives to boost employment and income generation.
Finally, producers and distributors need support and encouragement to transform their existing systems. After all, a shift toward sustainability cannot come at the expense of farmers’ livelihoods.
Better nutrition makes economic sense. Malnutrition in all of its forms reduces global economic welfare by about 5 percent annually, through foregone output and additional costs incurred. The economic gains of reducing micronutrient deficiencies are estimated to have a cost/benefit ratio of almost 1:13.
The upcoming Second International Conference on Nutrition in Rome [Nov. 19 to Nov. 21] provides a historic opportunity to galvanize political commitment to enhance nutrition for all through better policies and international solidarity. Failure to make the needed investments in food access, nutrition, and sustainability is morally — and economically — unjustifiable.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram is assistant director-general and coordinator for economic and social development at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
What began on Feb. 28 as a military campaign against Iran quickly became the largest energy-supply disruption in modern times. Unlike the oil crises of the 1970s, which stemmed from producer-led embargoes, US President Donald Trump is the first leader in modern history to trigger a cascading global energy crisis through direct military action. In the process, Trump has also laid bare Taiwan’s strategic and economic fragilities, offering Beijing a real-time tutorial in how to exploit them. Repairing the damage to Persian Gulf oil and gas infrastructure could take years, suggesting that elevated energy prices are likely to persist. But the most
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
The Legislative Yuan on Friday held another cross-party caucus negotiation on a special act for bolstering national defense that the Executive Yuan had proposed last year. The party caucuses failed to reach a consensus on several key provisions, so the next session is scheduled for today, where many believe substantial progress would finally be made. The plan for an eight-year NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.59 billion) special defense budget was first proposed by the Cabinet in November last year, but the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers have continuously blocked it from being listed on the agenda for
On Tuesday last week, the Presidential Office announced, less than 24 hours before he was scheduled to depart, that President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned official trip to Eswatini, Taiwan’s sole diplomatic ally in Africa, had been delayed. It said that the three island nations of Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar had, without prior notice, revoked the charter plane’s overflight permits following “intense pressure” from China. Lai, in his capacity as the Republic of China’s (ROC) president, was to attend the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession. King Mswati visited Taiwan to attend Lai’s inauguration in 2024. This is the first
RSS