For the Chicago Council Global Food Security Symposium 2013
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| One of the panelist: Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro, |
“Finally! Finally! Finally! ” Cries a woman. “Nutrition is now
part of Food security discussions “ She continues.
Later on we come to discover she is no other than Prof Ruth
Oniang one of the panelist at the Agriculture and health nexus discussion panel at the Chicago
Council Global Food security symposium 2013 and a founding CEO of Rural
outreach Africa and African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and
Development; . Other panelists included:
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, the co-director of the Program in
Cardiovascular Epidemiology and associate professor of medicine at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School; and associate professor of
epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. He also doubled as the moderator.
Dr. Subbanna Ayyappan, secretary, Department of Agricultural
Research and Education, Government of India; director general, The Indian
Council of Agricultural Research
Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro, chief agricultural officer, Mars,
Inc.; senior fellow, plant sciences, University of California, Davis;
distinguished fellow, World Agroforestry Centre
How many times has the thought of nutrition crossed your
mind while enjoying that sumptuous meal over dinner, lunch or breakfast? Have
you ever thought of where you would get those vitamins you badly need if the
smallholders farmers in the world went on a strike say for a day, or for a week?
These are just some of the many questions that arose in the on
the Agriculture and the Health nexus discussion whose aim was to provide new
thinking on how current agricultural activities could interplay with health and
nutrition objectives.
Earlier on, Rajiv shah, the USAID administrator in his address noted
that to end hunger effectively, people need to work from farm to market to
table. High nutrient levels are needed at all these stages the produce passes
be it in production, processing and finally consumption. This brings to fore
the interrelatedness of food security and nutrition security. There cannot
exist one without the other.
Sharing her experiences working amongst rural women in
Kenya, Prof Ruth noted that if we have to build a solid foundation on nutrition
security, then we need to empower women as they are the majority of smallholder
farmers and hence determine what is consumed. Being decision makers ,its
becomes important for them to know that having or growing food is not enough rather focus should be on
growing and consumption of nutrient rich
food. She pointed out critical issues ailing nutrition security the likes of
gender mainstreaming, lack of funding, food insecurity at the household level
and a case of aging agricultural scientists with no young people to replaced.
She feared for Africa’s case being like Guatemala‘s where for every one hundred
agricultural scientists they had, only eight are left. Tackling these setbacks
could possibly set Africa as the global food basket in the near future.
“Africa might be looking like this abandoned child but she
might feed the whole world in the near future” she optimistically stated
Dr. Mozaffarian emphasized that as we align ourselves in
the nutritional security thinking, we need to keep in mind the core goals of
nutrition, which are reducing malnutrition and under nutrition. Across the
globe, approximately 2 billion people lack access to nutrients needed for their
bodies to healthy. Every five minutes a child dies from hunger related
diseases.
“We need to have a global view of health from utero to the elderly”
emphasized Dr. Mozaffarian
On the other hand, Dr Shapiro stressed on the importance of
knowledge sharing. He called out to private organizations to make nutrition
segments of plant genes public so crops can be improved through research
leading to better and nutrient full varieties.
“It was right to go after agricultural productivity early
on, but now have to shift from calories to nutrient-dense foods” he insisted.
Dr Ayyappan shared his insights on dietary changes and the
resultant ailments in India. He shared his views of encouraging gardening in
both schools and at homes as a way of promoting food security and hence subsequently
improving nutrition.
Summing up the discussion, Dr Shapiro acknowledged his shock
at the optimism expressed at the symposium and stated that feeding the world is
indeed a huge challenge.
Do you think so?
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