organized by IFPRI and its 2020 Vision Initiative in New Delhi (htp://
2020conference.ifpri.info/). At this conference, participants took stock of available knowledge on the interactions among agriculture, nutrition, and health; explored opportunities for enhancing nutrition and cuting health risks along
the value chain; identified key levers and incen- tives for leveraging agriculture; and assessed critical research and action gaps. Ultimately, they catalyzed a process to reimagine how to make these linkages work beter to enable more nutrition- and health- friendly agricultural investments (see Box 7).
BOX 6 Agricultural Research Takes on the Nutrition and M
alnutrition and disease are wide- spread and persistent global chal-
lenges. Agriculture is central to both, but agricultural growth alone has been insufficient to achieve targets for reduc- ing malnutrition and improving health, such as United Nations Millennium Development Goal 1 on underweight children or Millennium Development Goal 4 on child mortality. One-third of children in South Asia are underweight, and more than 33 percent of childhood deaths in low-income countries are linked to undernutrition, most significantly in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. To enhance the agricultural contribution, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has developed a pro- gram to research agricultural actions for improving human nutrition and health.1 This new research program, launched
in January 2012, has four interlinked components. One integrates agriculture, nutrition, and health programs and poli- cies, while the other three components focus specifically on developing agricul- tural solutions that improve nutrition and health:
• Production and distribution of more nutritious staple crops, biofortified with pro-vitamin A, iron, or zinc, to
56 CONNECTING THE DOTS
address the most severe micronutrient deficiencies
• Improvement of value chains to increase foods’ nutritional value from production to consumption, including food-value-chain analysis and develop- ment done by other CGIAR programs
• Reduction of the risk of agriculture- associated diseases by enhancing food safety and controlling zoonoses as well as emerging diseases, and by mitigat- ing diseases associated with agricul- tural intensification
Research outputs will contribute to
development impacts along three path- ways: improving the nutritional quality and food safety of food value chains, providing knowledge and technologies to improve the performance of agriculture- nutrition-health development programs, and providing knowledge and evidence for improved policymaking and invest- ment decisions. For better nutrition and health for
the poor, agricultural researchers will need to work closely with nutrition and public health researchers and link with food-value-chain actors, development program implementers, and policymak- ers. Behind these partnerships will be a
Health Challenge John McDermott, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health
fundamentally new perspective on agri- food system research and development, including
• looking beyond food production to processing, distribution, and consump- tion through deeper engagement with the private sector and other value- chain actors;
• taking a more integrative view through joint efforts of agriculture, health, and social development sectors using new metrics and tools for joint planning and assessment; and
• focusing on the perspective of the poor—by, for example, assessing live- lihood and risk tradeoffs rather than using the standard hazard-avoidance perspective.
This new agricultural research program
will focus on South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Through investing in new tools, approaches, and evidence to usefully guide agricultural policy and practice, the CGIAR expects to have a major impact on enhancing agricultural contributions to global, regional, and national efforts to accelerate better nutrition and reduce agriculture-associated disease burdens among the poor.
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