Covid-19 triggers largest disruption of livelihoods in human history

The Covid-19 pandemic in South Asia has triggered the largest disruption of livelihoods in human history, affecting over 1.7 billion people. The disruptions to supply chains, lack of access to health and nutrition services, and overwhelmed social protection system is leading to increased food and nutrition insecurity in the region. To address many of the long-standing issues underpining food insecurity and poverty the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) officially released the 2020 Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) today.
The IFPRI 2020 Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) highlights the central role that inclusive food systems play in meeting global goals to end poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, and offers recommendations for making food systems more inclusive for four marginalised groups including smallholders, women, youth, and conflict-affected people. The report also provides analysis on transforming national food system in several countries like Bangladesh and Ethiopia, and advice on development of food system in different regions worldwide.
 “Over the past two decades, Nepal has gone through atypical structural transformation, marked by desertion of agriculture and epic out-migration of young people,” chair of IIDS and former vice-chair of NPC Swarnim Wagle said, adding that after Covid-19, reliance on remittances will fall, and there is urgency to find gainful jobs for millions. “Renewed agriculture can become a source of inclusive growth if we incentivise high-value-to-weight products and food processing, streamline the subsidy regime through targeted digital transfers, and invest heavily to combat deficits in hard infrastructure as well as the softer menace of childhood malnutrition.”
“These efforts need to be undergirded by enhanced capacities across all tiers of Nepal’s newly federated governance structure,” he added.
“Food systems provide opportunities to improve food and nutrition security, generate income, and drive inclusive economic growth, but even in prosperous times too many people are excluded from fully participating in them and securing these benefits,” said director general of IFPRI Johan Swinnen. “In times of crisis like today, inclusion is an even greater imperative for protecting the most vulnerable.”
“Covid-19 has struck the world at a time when experts were already deliberating on the need for a paradigm shift in the agri-food sector that could address the broader challenges of sustaining the humanity,” member NITI Aayog of India Ramesh Chand said, adding that Covid-19 is expected to lead to a significant shift in dietary preferences, adding new dimensions to the food system thinking.
South Asia’s steady progress has reshaped the region’s diverse food systems over the past decade. This regional transformation has been marked by strong economic growth, rising real wages, and the expansion of nonagricultural sectors. In recent years in South Asia the growth rate of high-value foods has been greater than that of cereals. The increase in income and greater diet diversity has also led to growth of the food processing sector. Yet post-harvest losses continue to be high in South and Southeast Asia compared to other regions.
“South Asian economies are transforming. Real wages are rising, shares of agriculture in GDP are declining, and nonfarm employment in much of the region has surpassed that of farm employment,” director of South Asia, IFPRI Shahidur Rashidsaid, adding that these structural changes will bring about changes in food system with new challenges, the challenges of ensuring that food system transformation is efficient, inclusive, and sustainable.
The report recommends three key policy levers which will be critical in making the food system transformation inclusive and sustainable: (1) reforming agricultural input subsidies and price supports; (2) improving the targeting of social protection programs; and (3) building effective institutions for governing the emerging food system. Reforming some of the age-old programs on agricultural subsidy and price policies could free up public funds, to invest in fostering more inclusive, equitable, and gender- and nutrition-sensitive food systems.
In South Asia, social safety net programmes can be effective platforms for making food systems inclusive. “IFPRI-WFP’s Transfer Modality Research Initiative in Bangladesh found that providing young mothers cash transfers combined with nutrition behaviour change communication reduced child stunting by three-times the national average decline,” senior research fellow and country representative of IFPRI-Bangladesh Akhter Ahmed said, adding that this is substantial evidence on the potential of social transfers to enhance nutrition.
Establishing effective institutions for food system governance is another strong policy lever for inclusive food systems. “Food system governance have significant potential for promoting an inclusive food system but the political will is required to provide adequate funding and to respond to bottom-up pressure from consumer rights groups and civil society organisation,” programme leader at the Pakistan Strategy Support Programme of IFPRI Abdul Wajid Rana said.
“Indian agriculture has shown great resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic,” secretary at the DARE and director general at ICAR Trilochan Mohapatra said, adding that it has, however, also highlighted the needs for policy thinking beyond staple food to ensure nutritional balance and environmental sustainability. “The current pandemic will accelerate the process of nutrition-sensitive, inclusive and sustainable agricultural growth.”
The report also features chapters analysing developments in agri-food systems in Africa south of the Sahara, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
A virtual event was co-organised by IFPRI South Asia, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Trust for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences (TAAS) yesterday, to present the highlights of the report in the South Asian context. The policy makers and thought leaders shared their perspectives in light of the Covid-19’s impacts on our food systems.
The Covid crisis has accelerated the importance to reshape our food systems making them more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient. The disruptions to supply chains, lack of access to health and nutrition services, and overwhelmed social protection system have led to increased food and nutrition insecurity in the region. Consequently, the awareness and need to work towards inclusive food systems have been amplified for all countries in the region.

Inclusive food systems needed to boost development, resilience

The rapid spread of Covid-19 and efforts to contain it are generating growing concerns that food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty may escalate, particularly among marginalised people in the developing world. “To build more resilient, climate-smart, and healthy food systems that help people withstand these types of shocks policymakers must prioritise making them inclusive,” according to the 2020 Global Food Policy Report, released today by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
“Food systems provide opportunities to improve food and nutrition security, generate income, and drive inclusive economic growth, but even in prosperous times too many people are excluded from fully participating in them and securing these benefits,” said director general of IFPRI Johan Swinnen. “In times of crisis like today, inclusion is an even greater imperative for protecting the most vulnerable.”
The report highlights the central role that inclusive food systems play in meeting global goals to end poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, and offers recommendations for making food systems more inclusive for four marginalised groups – smallholders, women, youth, and conflict-affected people – as well as analysis on transforming national food system.
More than 60 per cent of people in low income countries are employed in agriculture and smallholders comprise more than 70 per cent of farm units in Africa south of the Sahara and 85 per cent of farms in South Asia. “The rapid expansion of food markets across Africa and Asia offers tremendous potential for many of these smallholders to benefit, if they can increase farm production or engage themselves in food distribution, processing and other parts of the supply chain where ample well-paying employment opportunities will emerge,” it reads, adding that many smallholders lack the means and kind of support to gain from growing food demand, currently. “Initiating and sustaining a process of inclusive transformation requires supporting smallholders’ market access by investing in basic infrastructure, creating market incentives, and promoting inclusive agribusiness models.”
“But it is as important to invest in the ‘hidden middle’ of supply chains where millions of small- and medium-scale enterprises already operate in food processing, storage, logistics and distribution,” director of IFPRI’s Markets, Trade and Institutions Division Rob Vos said, “Getting this right will be essential to lift smallholders from poverty and food insecurity.”
Women are already making significant contributions throughout food systems, but these contributions are often not formally recognised, and women often face constraints that prevent them from engaging on equitable terms. Increasing women’s decision-making power and control over resources and assets such as credit, land, and training helps empower them to contribute to food systems in ways that benefit both men and women. “Women’s empowerment can spur a wide range of improvements that often reverberate throughout households and societies – from agricultural productivity, to household food security and dietary quality, to maternal and child nutrition,” said senior research coordinator at IFPRI Hazel Malapit.
Across the developing world national food systems are already transforming rapidly, creating challenges and opportunities to make them more inclusive to all these groups. Case studies of these transformations in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Viet Nam provide useful examples of the drivers and components of change, as well as the promising entry points for actions that can increase inclusion. “Approaches to food system transformation must be country specific, as each country’s food system is unique,” said director of the CGIAR Research Programme on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health John McDermott.
Governments can foster these inclusive food systems by enacting laws, policies, and regulations that provide basic infrastructure, create the right market incentives, promote inclusive agribusiness models and leverage the potential of digital technology. Additionally, investments in human capital in areas such as secure land tenure rights, improved access to information, and stronger social protections can lower the barriers to participation that man marginalised groups face.
“The spread of Covid-19 has highlighted how vulnerable we all can be to global shocks,” Swinnen said, adding that greater inclusivity in food systems is not a panacea for this or any other crisis, but it is a critical part of strengthening our resilience. “Times of crises also offer opportunities for change and it is essential that we act now so that everyone, especially the most vulnerable, can recover from the Covid-19 shock and be prepared to withstand future shocks.”
The report also features chapters analysing developments in agri-food systems in Africa south of the Sahara, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

EAT-Lancet diet too costly for 1.58 billion people

At an estimated $2.84 per day, the cost of diet for human and environmental health exceeds daily per capita income in many low-income countries
A diet meant to improve both human and planetary health would be unaffordable for at least 1.58 billion people, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, estimates a new study from researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts.
Earlier this year, the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health published recommendations for a universal diet that addresses both human and planetary health. The Commission suggested that adherence to this diet could ensure that our future food systems can sustainably and nutritiously feed the estimated population of 10 billion people in 2050.
The study, Affordability of the EAT–Lancet reference diet: a global analysis, published today in The Lancet Global Health – from William Masters  and Yan Bai at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts and Kalle Hirvonen and Derek Headey at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) – sought to address what many felt was one of the main components lacking in the creation of the recommended diet, namely affordability.
“When formulating this pioneering benchmark diet – addressing individual health outcomes as well as the health of the planet – the Commission deliberately did not take its cost into account,” said senior  author William Masters, an economist at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
The research team also found that the EAT-Lancet diet was 64 per cent more costly than the lowest-cost combination of foods that would provide a balanced mix of 20 essential nutrients. The EAT-Lancet diet has higher quantities of animal-source foods and fruits and vegetables than the minimum required for nutrient adequacy, and much higher quantities than are now consumed in low-income countries.
“We found that the global median of the proposed diet would cost $2.84 per day based on 2011 prices,” the lead author and development economist in Ethiopia at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Kalle Hirvonen said, adding that in low-income countries, that amounts to 89.1 per cent of a household’s daily per capita income, which is more than people can actually spend on food. “In high-income countries, we found that the EAT-Lancet reference diet would cost 6.1 per cent of per-capita income, which is often less than what people now spend on food.”
In Africa south of Sahara, nearly 57 per cent of people earn less than the local cost of the EAT-Lancet diet, in South Asia 38.4 per cent, Middle East and North Africa 19.4 per cent, East Asia and Pacific 15 per cent, Latin America and Caribbean 11.6 per cent, Europe and Central Asia 1.7 per cent; and North America 1.2 per cent.
The EAT-Lancet Commission diet consists of a large amount of vegetables, fruits, whole grain, legumes, nuts and unsaturated oils, some seafood and poultry, and little to no red meat, processed meat, added sugar, refined grains, and starchy vegetables.
Fruits, vegetables, and animal-source foods are often the most expensive components of a healthy diet, but prices vary widely around the world, report the researchers.
To compute the affordability of an EAT-Lancet diet in each country, the researchers drew on retail prices for standardized items obtained through the International Comparison Program, a collaboration between the World Bank and country statistical agencies. They used prices for 744 food items in 159 countries, from which they could identify the lowest-cost combination of items in each country to meet EAT-Lancet criteria. They then did the same for nutrient requirements and compared the cost of food in each country to survey data on household expenditure and income per capita from the World Bank’s PovcalNet system.
“Although 1.58 billion is a lot of people, it is actually a conservative lower limit on the total number who cannot afford the diet recommended by the EAT-Lancet Commission,” Masters said, adding that the cost of food preparation and of non-food necessities ensure that an even larger number of people cannot afford that kind of healthy diet.

Call to address the challenges posed by climate change

The international agency has called to address the challenges posed by climate change.
Agri-food systems have been central to recent unprecedented reductions in poverty, hunger, and undernutrition. Yet agri-food systems face mounting climate impacts that threaten their ability to feed a growing population, all the while global hunger and food insecurity are once again on the rise, according to director general of International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Shenggen Fan.
“Furthermore, IFPRI’s projections indicate that, if unaddressed, climate change may make 80 million more people food-insecure by 2050, mostly in the global South,” he said, adding that averting a global crisis is possible but the window is closing. “Implementing the right evidence-based policies and investments is urgently needed.”
Research to inform these policies and investments will be crucial, particularly in light of declining funding to agricultural research in Africa, which threaten to decrease productivity and increase risks of food insecurity and malnutrition, migration, deforestation, and biodiversity loss, he added.
In order to meet the Global Commission’s call to action, the CGIAR, the world’s largest agriculture research network, will need greater support to continue supporting 300 million small-scale farmers and to feed the world nutritiously to withstand the impacts of climate change. “To meet the challenges that confront billions of people around the world, the key is to begin scaling up solutions now,” Fan said.
Likewise, according to director of Environment, Production and Technology Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute Channing Arndt, food systems worldwide face unprecedented production, resource preservation, climate adaptation, and climate mitigation challenges - threatening the livelihoods of billions, particularly the poor.
“The good news is we have a system for confronting these challenges; the CGIAR system operates at the scale needed; in the places where the threats loom largest; and has a strong track record of success,” Arndt said, adding that scaling up the CGIAR is a ready and powerful lever for confronting climate change.

Major regional meeting examines new approaches to improve fertilizer use in South Asia

Government officials, researchers and other experts from across South Asia are gathering in Nepal to share their experiences with effective ways to promote the balanced use of fertilizers and explore innovative approaches that improve the application of these important nutrients in the region.
The regional policy dialogue, ‘Innovations for Advancing Farmers’ Use of Balanced Nutrient Application in South Asia,’ will include presentations on the experiences of India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka with balanced application of nutrients. Senior government officials, policy advisors, researchers, representatives of the fertilizer industry, digital innovators in the extension space, grassroots organizations, and donors engaged in soil nutrient management are set to participate in the discussion.
“Balanced fertilizer application is a vital issue for the region,” country director for India at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Arabinda Padhee, said, adding that the proper application of these nutrients can increase farm productivity and boost profitability for farmers without compromising quality and environmental outcomes. “These discussions will help us develop recommendations on improving fertilizer policy in South Asia.”
Imbalanced fertilizer use has been a widespread problem in South Asia, due largely to distortionary subsidies and a lack of scientific information and adequate extension messaging on soil health and crop nutrient requirements among farmers. Over the last decade, countries in South Asia have tested an array of policies, technologies and extension approaches to address fertilizer prices and the information farmers have about using them effectively. Some of these changes have come to stay while others were quickly reversed.
“Today, we are seeing important market innovations in the fertilizer industry, including customized blends, the implementation of direct benefit transfer (DBT) programmes, and changes in the structure of subsidy programs,” said research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Avinash Kishore. “Our colleagues across the region have vital information to share about these new approaches, and the role that national policy can play in promoting them.”
The dialogue will also address the advancement of new technology for detecting existing soil properties and generating recommendations for balanced nutrient use, including soil health cards, digital soil maps, and new extension services.
“Technology is giving us new tools to speed up the soil testing process, increase its accuracy, and share this information with farmers,” senior research fellow at IFPRI David Spielman said, adding that the question now is what role national policies can play in expanding the use of these tool and reducing their cost.
Organisers say they hope the deliberations will encourage cross-country learnings from successes and failures and enable researchers and policy makers to take concrete actions in successful implementation of policy priorities.

Crises in rural areas threatens progress in hunger, poverty reduction

Marked by deepening cycle of hunger and malnutrition, persistent poverty, limited economic opportunities, and environmental degradation, rural areas continue to be in a state of crisis in many parts of the world, threatening to slow the progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global climate targets, and improved food and nutrition security, according to the 2019 Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) released today by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Rural areas remain underserved compared to urban areas and face a wide array of challenges across the globe: rural areas struggle with environmental crisis in China; severe agrarian crisis in India, and acute shortage of jobs for the growing youth populations in Africa. The report calls for rural revitalisation – to overcome these challenges –highlighting policies, institutions, and investments that can transform rural areas into vibrant and healthy places to live, work and raise families.
“Revitalising rural areas can stimulate economic growth and begin to address the crises in developing countries, and also tackle challenges holding back achievement of the SDGs and climate goals by 2030,” said director general of IFPRI Shenggen Fan. "Rural revitalisation is timely, achievable, and, most important, critical to ending hunger and malnutrition in just over a decade," added Fan.
A majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas: rural populations account for 45.3 per cent of the world’s total population, but 70 per cent of the world’s extremely poor. The global poverty rate in rural areas is currently 17 per cent, more than double the urban poverty rate of 7 per cent.
"Rural transformation requires a holistic economic approach to connect rural and urban economies," administrator at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and co-author of the lead chapter in the report Achim Steiner said, adding that strengthening these connections can spur growth and diversification in the farm and non-farm sectors, closing socio-economic and quality-of-life gaps between urban and rural areas.
The report emphasises that rural areas could become premiere hubs of innovations in just under a decade. It recommends revitalising rural areas with a focus on five building blocks: creating farm and non-farm rural employment opportunities, achieving gender equality, addressing environmental challenges, improving access to energy and investing in good governance.
"In south Asia, there is a greater emphasis on growth in rural employment, and agricultural productivity by strengthening of the agriculture-based rural nonfarm economy," said director for South Asia at the IFPRI, and co-author of the report chapter on South Asia, Pramod Joshi. To ensure all can participate and benefit from growth and transformation of rural areas, the report recommends investing efforts in reducing general disparities. “Empowering women can improve agricultural productivity, overall well-being of mothers and children, and increase their capacity to contribute to rural revitalisation,” said researcher at IFPRI, and co-author of report chapter on gender equality, Hazel Malapit.
Beyond economic progress and human capital, rural environments must also be restored and improved to secure the many services they provide. “To engage rural residents as custodians of valuable natural resources, their rights to these resources should be recognised in law and practice,” said deputy division director, and co-author of the report chapter on environment, Claudia Ringler.
Achieving these policy goals require investments in good governance. The report identifies three aspects of governance critical for rural revitalisation: appropriate and predictable laws and regulations; effective policy implementation and enforcement; and accountability of those in positions of power and authority. 

Nepal's fight against hunger gets tougher

Unlike last year, this year Nepal performed poorly in the fight against hunger as its score increased to 20.3 from last year's 19.9, according to the Global Hunger Index 2012.
The country still ranks among serious hunger affected, though it had managed to climb one category up from alarming situation last year.
The lower the score, the better the condition of hunger in the country, according to International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) that calculates the GHI every year. Countries with extremely alarming have scores of over 30, whereas alarming situation has a score between 20 and 29.9, and serious falls in a score between 10 and 19.9 hunger situation. Similarly, countries with scores of under 10 are moderate and under five are ranked under low. It is based on three equally weighted indicators – the proportion of undernourished as percentage of the population, the prevalence of underweight in children under the age of five, and under five mortality rate.
The index that is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger globally, and by country and region, highlights successes and failures in hunger reduction and provides insights to the drivers of hunger. By raising awareness and understanding of regional and country differences in hunger, the GHI will, it is hoped, trigger actions to reduce hunger. But no one really knows how many people are malnourished. The statistic, most frequently cited, is that of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which measures 'undernutrition'.
The 2012 Index focuses in particular on the effects that land, water, and energy stress have on global food security, particularly for the world's poorest people. To feed nine billion people — the projected world population in 2050 — who will consume at the rate of 12 billion people if they follow the current consumption pattern of industrialised countries like the United States, it is clear that more food must be produced with fewer resources, and wasteful practices and policies must be eliminated.
The index lays out clear policy recommendations on how to use land, water, and energy for sustainable food security including improving governance of natural resources, scaling up technical approaches to food production and natural resource protection, and addressing the drivers of natural resource scarcity.
Similarly, South Asia has the highest regional 2012 GHI score at 22.5, making it the highest hunger levels of the regions covered in the index.
However, compared with the region’s 1990 GHI score, its 2012 GHI score is 26 per cent lower, indicating improvements in the region’s hunger situation.
Bangladesh, India, and Timor-Leste have the highest prevalence of underweight children under five – more than 40 per cent in each of the three countries, according to the report. "From 2005-2010, India ranked second to last on child underweight, below Ethiopia, Niger, Nepal, and Bangladesh."
China has even lower GHI scores than predicted as it lowered its levels of hunger and undernutrition through a strong commitment to poverty reduction, social security networks, nutrition and health interventions, and improved access to safe water, sanitation, and education.
The 2012 GHI report — the seventh in an annual series — presented a multidimensional measure of global, regional, and national hunger. It showed that progress in reducing the proportion of hungry people in the world has been tragically slow.
According to the index, hunger on a global scale remains 'serious'. The 2012 GHI report also focuses particularly on how to ensure sustainable food security under conditions of land, water, and energy stress. The stark reality is that the world needs to produce more food with fewer resources, while eliminating wasteful practices and policies.

Nepal betters on its fight against hunger

Nepal has improved in the global hunger index (GHI). But this still gives one lots of food for thought as there is still a long way to go.
It ranks 33rd among serious hunger affected country and 55th in the overall global hunger index (GHI) that has 81 countries reviewed in the current year.
Nepal's score improved and managed to climb one category but is still at the bottom of the serious hunger category from alarming situation. Nonetheless, the country is on a winning path in its fight against hunger.
Nepal's score improved to 19.9 this year from last year's 23, when it was under alarming category. In 1990, the country had a score of 27.1 and 1996 score dropped to 24.6 and in 2010 it further dropped due to improving situation.
The lower the score the better the condition of the hunger in the country, according to International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) that calculates the GHI every year, countries with extremely alarming have the score over 30, whereas alarming situation has score between 20 and 29.9, serious falls under score between 10 and 19.9 hunger situation. Similarly, the countries with score under 10 are moderate and under five are ranked under low.
“From food deficit situation a fiscal year ago, the country recorded 4,43,000 metric tonnes (MT) of food grains surplus in the last fiscal years," spokesperson of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives Hari Dahal said, adding that the situation is improving lately.
The Index is based on three equally weighted indicators; the proportion of undernourished as percentage of the population, the prevalence of underweight in children under the age of five and the under five-mortality rate.
The 2011 GHI report also revealed how the hunger situation has developed since 1990 at global, regional, and national levels. Globally, the GHI fell over one fourth from 19.7 in 1990 to 14.6 in 2011. The global GHI 2010 had been 15.1 in an average. Regardless of the positive trend, the global fight against hunger is not reaching its goals fast enough, the report said, adding that some 29 countries still have an alarming (20-29.9) or extremely alarming (over 30 score) hunger situation.
The global averages hide dramatic differences among regions and countries. The 2010 GHI had fallen by 18 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa compared with the 1990 GHI, by about 25 per cent in South Asia, and by 39 per cent in the Near East and North Africa.
Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia share the highest regional GHI scores (22.9 and 21.7 respectively), but food insecurity in the two regions stems from different reasons.In South Asia, the major problem is a high prevalence of underweight children under five, which is a result of lower nutrition and educational status of women. In contrast, the high GHI in Sub-Saharan Africa is due to high child mortality rates and the high proportion of people who cannot meet their calorie requirements because of bad governance, conflicts, political instability and high HIV/Aids rates.
The highest regional GHI score can be found in South Asia. After a rapid decrease between 1990 and 1996, the scores have not changed much despote the economic growth over the same period.
"The progress is inhibited by social inequality and the low nutritional, educational and social status of women," the report said, adding that slightly better numbers in Sub-Saharan Africa stem from the end of a several conflicts in in the 1990s and 2000s, economic growth and successes in fighting Aids.
The Index that is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger globally and by country and region highlights successes and failures in hunger reduction and provides insights into the drivers of hunger. By raising awareness and understanding of regional and country differences in hunger, the GHI will, it is hoped, trigger actions to reduce hunger.But no one really knows how many people are malnourished. The statistic most frequently cited is that of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which measures 'undernutrition'.
The most recent estimate, released last October by FAO, revealed that 925 million people are undernourished meaning number of hungry people has increased since 1995-97 due to neglect of agriculture relevant to very poor people by governments and international agencies, the current worldwide economic crisis and the significant increase of food prices in the last several years which has been devastating to those with only a few dollars a day to spend.
The 925 million people is 13.1 per cent of the estimated world population of seven billion in the world meaning almost one in seven people are hungry in the world.The FAO estimate is based on statistical aggregates. It first estimates the total food supply of a country and derives the average per capita daily food intake from that. The distribution of average food intake for people in the country is then estimated from surveys measuring food expenditure.
Using the information, and minimum food energy requirements, FAO estimated how many people are likely to receive such a low level of food intake that they are undernourished.
This year's report focused particularly on the issue of food price spikes and volatility, which have played a large role in the global food crises of 2007–08 and 2010–11. Many poor people already spend large shares of their incomes on food, and surges in food prices leave them unable to pay for the food, healthcare, housing, education, and other goods and services they need.An IFPRI researcher describes the factors that have contributed to the increasing and more volatile food prices of recent years and their effects on poor people in developing countries.
Taming food price spikes and volatility will require that is understood as the causes and address them appropriately.

Knowledge sharing can increase market opportunities

Knowledge sharing can open wider markets, according to experts.
"Regional learning and cooperation can open wider markets, increase access to improved technologies and skills, and encourage sharing of lessons and knowledge about the most effective interventions to achieve food and nutrition security," director of IFPRI’s Development Strategy and Governance Division Paul Dorosh said here today at the technical workshop and conference, 'Knowledge, Tools, and Lessons for Informing the Design and Implementation of Food Security Strategies in Asia.
Country and regional stakeholders from governments, researchers, non-governmental organisations, donors, and the private sector are reviewing and sharing state of the art knowledge, practical lessons, and tools for supporting agriculture and food security strategies in Asia at the three-day workshop from today that ends on November 16.
The workshop is organised by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS), and supported and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The workshop that aims to bring together stakeholders in the various sub-regions of Asia to review and share knowledge of successful approaches, practical lessons, and tools for supporting agricultural and food security strategies in Asia will allow participants to learn from regional counterparts to address common challenges like population growth, rapid rural-to-urban migration, climate change, food price instability, and undernutrition.
Asia accounts for 59 per cent of the world’s population and is home to more than 68 per cent of poor people living below $1.25 a day. It is an extremely diverse region, and both successful and lagging countries are affected by recurrent crises like poverty, food insecurity, environmental and climatic shocks, and economic and financial turmoil.
The region is recognising the importance of cooperation and dialogue to find solutions to shared problems.
"Following our established role of fostering informed debate and exchange of experiences within and outside the country, we are pleased to co-organise the technical workshop," said executive director of IIDS Bishnu Dev Pant.
In Asia, USAID has active food security, agriculture, and nutrition programs and plays a central role in the President’s Feed the Future (FTF) initiative, the US global hunger and food security initiative.
USAID supports the effort through robust programmes in four Asian FTF focus countries — Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Tajikistan — and through active food security programming in several non-focus countries throughout the region.
"There is a lot of knowledge within the region," USAID Mission Director in Nepal David Atteberry, said, adding that the region needs to collect and share it, learn what has worked, and put those solutions to work in a regional resource network that can benefit both the country-owned planning process and the development partners involved in food security strategy.
The three-day technical workshop and conference will discuss on implications of growth and transformation on food availability and access science and technology solutions, including climate change adaptation and mitigation options Integrating agriculture and nutrition interventions, and review experiences and lessons of programme design and implementation and approaches, tools, and data systems for monitoring and evaluation.
The mutual learning could accelerate economic growth and catalyse further reductions in poverty and hunger, Dorosh added.