2. Overview: Sustainable agriculture
production and diversification for
healthy diets
Dr. Anna Herforth Independent Consultant, USA

3. Food systems are not adequately supporting
nutrition
Approximately…
• 800 million hungry
• 2 billion affected by hidden hunger
• 2 billion overweight or obese

4. Nutritious food shortage
• Given world food supplies, it is possible, in theory for all
people to consume sufficient calories, but it is impossible for
all to consume healthy diets.

5. Source: Keats and Wiggins 2014; 2009 data from FAOSTAT

6. Food Supply in Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Herforth, A. In: Sahn, D. (Ed.) The Fight Against Hunger and Malnutrition. Oxford University Press (2015). Data from FAOSTAT.
Dotted lines represent need

7. Food Affordability in rural Bangladesh
Slide Source: Howdy Bouis; Food and Nutrition Bulletin, Mar 2011

8. Dietary problems mirror food supply
Source: Global Burden of Disease Study, GBD-compare tool

9. Supply side actions are critical
• Supply side policies influence what is produced in
agriculture, and how
• Currently, supply side policies are often not aligned
with the food needed to support healthy diets and
nutrition

10. Doesn’t production reflect consumer
demand?
• In a perfect market system, it should
• In reality:
– There are numerous supply-side barriers to
production, especially for perishable foods
– Public investment/support policies do not clearly
mirror demand
– Private companies influence both supply and
consumer demand

11. Supply side barriers
• Perishability
– Good transportation and strong market linkages are essential
for producers to risk investment in perishable foods
• Disease and pest resistance issues
• Access to quality seeds, land/water/forest
 Low supply response; unmet demand for diverse nutritious foods
 Public support needed for R&D, infrastructure, farmer organizations
“High value crops”
are higher value – so
why isn’t everyone
growing them?

12. Public investment priorities: More of the same
http://ccafs.cgiar.org/bigfacts2014/#theme=food-security
No other food groups mentioned…
Food for 2050

13. Whose demand?
Food companies act as script-
writer and translator between
consumers and producers
Producers
Food
companies
Consumers

14. Homogenization of crop varieties
• Over the past 50 years:
– per capita food supplies have expanded in calories, protein, and
fat, with increased proportions from energy-dense foods
– National food supplies worldwide became more similar in
composition, correlated with an increased supply of a small
number of cereal and oil crops
• Nutritionally important diversity is eroding
Source: Khoury et al., 2014, PNAS

15. More of the same and the planet
• Increasing production and consumption of refined starches and
sugars, fats, oils and meats  Biodiversity loss
– By 2050 these trends  approx. 80% increase in agricultural greenhouse
gas emissions (Tilman and Clark 2014)
• Impossible to avoid 2°C increase if trends in meat consumption
continue (Hedenus et al. 2014)
– Sustaining trends depends heavily on abundant cheap staple grains and
unsustainable methods of animal production

16. Future supply: Climate change
Source: Springmann et al., Lancet 2016

17. In sum, nutritious non-staples are:
• Harder to grow and sell (lack of infrastructure, R&D)
– Will become even more challenging (climate change)
• Not supported by subsidies and other forms of public
support equivalent to staple crops and oilseeds
• Being displaced in diets by aggressive marketing of
ultra-processed foods that require low-cost staple crops
and oilseeds
Imbalanced diets, imbalanced support!

18. Supply side policies can do more
• to remove barriers to diversified production
• to incentivize production and consumption of nutritious
foods most lacking in diets around the world
• The focus needs to be on horticulture, legumes, and small-scale livestock
and fish – foods which are relatively unavailable and expensive, but
nutrient-rich – and vastly underutilized as sources of both food and
income.

19. Key Recommendations
• Facilitate production diversification, and increase production of
nutrient-dense crops and small-scale livestock (for example,
horticultural products, legumes, livestock and fish at a small scale,
underutilized crops, and biofortified crops)
• Improve processing, storage and preservation to retain nutritional
value, shelf-life, and food safety, to reduce seasonality of food insecurity
and post-harvest losses, and to make healthy foods convenient to
prepare.
• Expand market access for vulnerable groups, particularly for
marketing nutritious foods

20. Food security
• when all people, at all times, have physical and economic
access to sufficient, safe, nutritious foods to meet dietary
needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life
(FAO, 1996).

21. Accountability
• Monitor availability and access to diverse, and nutritious foods.
– Not just calorie supply, or supply of a few crops
• Our targets need to match our goals.

22. We face a nutritious food shortage: Given world food
supplies, it is impossible for all to consume healthy diets.
• “More of the same” is unsustainable for human and environmental health.
• Policies need to support diversified production for healthy diets and
sustainability.