2013 Chapters (Layout Features)

Ensuring agriculture biodiversity and nutrition remain central to addressing the MDG1 hunger target

Fanzo, Jessica C.; Mattei, Federico; Mattei, Federico

With less than five years left to accomplish the Milennium Development Goals (MDGs), it is with great hope that nutrition remains a central theme in achieving them. One of the targets of the first MDG is to reduce the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half between 1990 and 2015, with hunger measured as the proportion of the population who are undernourished and the prevalence of children under five who are underweight. In low and middle income countries progress has been mixed. With one billion people hungry, 129 million and 195 million children are underweight and stunted respectively. Of the 117 countries analysed by UNICEF in late 2009, 63 are on track to meet the MDG1 target based on the proportion of children underweight. From this review, most strategies being implemented and scaled are focused on the direct nutrition-specific interventions –critically important and ne cessary. However the “nutrition-sensitive” interventions are less clear, particularly those in agriculture and agricultural biodiversity. This review provides an overvi ew of the role of agricultural biodiversity in food and nutrition systems and its potential importance in a ddressing the determinants of malnutrition and a road to ssutainable progress in achieving MDG1 and beyond. Integrating agriculture and agricultural biodiversity practices with broader nutrition-sensitive interventions to address underlying causes of nutrition insecurity is critical for generating durable and longer-term gains. Such an approach would inherently build on the knowledge and capacities of local communities to transform and improve the quality of diets for better child health and nutrition. Success in achieving the MDG1 hunger target will hinge on addressing the root causes of poor nutrition – through evidencebased and contextually relevant food system approaches that can rapidly be taken to scale.