of a major research program called “Agricul- ture for Improved Nutrition and Health” by the CGIAR. Several development agencies— USAID, with its Feed the Future Initiative, and the United Kingdom Department for Inter- national Development—also began to design or redesign their programs to beter tap the links among agriculture, nutrition, and health. During 2011, 24 countries with high rates of undernutrition joined the Scaling Up Nutrition initiative, a movement bringing together govern- ments, civil society, the private sector, research institutions, and the United Nations to sup- port countries in their efforts to develop nutri- tion- sensitive national plans. More than 100 organizations also endorsed the movement. In Sub-Saharan Africa, efforts to integrate nutrition and health into agriculture development strate- gies were made on the continental, regional, and country level in the form of workshops, confer- ences, and action plans. Tese efforts included an agreement between the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition to develop a five-year joint program to fully integrate nutrition security into the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Develop- ment Program. The links among food, water, and energy
also gained attention in late 2011 with the con- ference “The Water, Energy, and Food Secu- rity Nexus” in Bonn, Germany. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched a new addition to its State of the World report series with a report called The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources, examin- ing the availability of cultivable land, the state of land degradation, and institutions for managing scarce land and water.5 Despite progress, more can be done to maxi-
mize the opportunities presented by the links among agriculture and other sectors. One barrier to collaboration between agriculture and other development fields is a lack of common metrics for measuring the impact of agricultural inter- ventions on other development outcomes such as health, nutrition, and natural resources. And more research is needed to identify viable opportunities
6 MAJOR FOOD POLICY DEVELOPMENTS IN 2011
for strengthening linkages across sectors and achieving win–win outcomes.
LAND
A rising world population, growing demand for food, fiber, and biofuels, and recent spikes in global food prices have placed increased pressure on land, resulting in more land degradation and increas- ing land prices, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and parts of Latin America. Several major land policy developments trans-
pired in 2011. Te United Nations General Assem- bly convened a high-level meeting to address desertification, land degradation, and drought, with government representatives highlighting not only the threat posed by land degradation to social, economic, and environmental sustainability, but also the need for future investment in sustainable land management. Several initiatives—specifically, the FAO’s Global Soil Partnership as well as the Economics of Land Degradation initiative under- taken by Germany, the European Commission, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification—were launched as mechanisms for strengthening sustainable land management through knowledge building and sharing. New evidence presented at these events by IFPRI researchers shows that policymakers should pay atention to land degradation not just in dry areas, but also on many high-quality irrigated lands. More should be done to assure the availability of fertilizers in areas where additional fertilizer use is needed and appropriate to improve soil fertility. One dimension of land management policies
that particularly occupied public discourse in 2011 was the issue of foreign land acquisitions— oſten described as “land grabbing”—especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Such acquisitions have the potential to inject much-needed investment into agriculture in developing countries, but they can also harm the food security and livelihoods of the local poor. Large-scale land deals may also have negative impacts on gender equity if they erode women’s customary land rights.6 Reports on the issue in 2011 by the FAO, the World Bank, and the International Fund for Agricultural
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