The first of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. According to the World Bank report World Development Indicators 2003, one sixth of the world’s population suffers hunger due to extreme poverty. Part of the hunger problem that is increasingly receiving attention is nutrition insecurity, or malnutrition, which affects one
According to statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), 95% of food producers live in developing countries. Precisely the area that is worst hit by climate change. Droughts are becoming more severe, floods are devastating entire plantations and a lack in infrastructure and knowledge and access to technology means that
The diets of the poor in developing countries usually consist of very high amounts of staple foods such as maize, wheat and rice, and few micronutrient-rice foods such as fruits and vegetables.
Harvest Plus seeks to reduce micronutrient malnutrition among the poor by breeding and disseminating staple food crops that are high in iron, zinc and
Encouraging more crop rotation and intercropping is one simple measure that is good for farming and good for diets. Crop rotation means farmers plant a crop such as cereals in their field and then plant a legume and then an oilseed or another crop. In intercropping, at least two different crops are grown simultaneously in
Food processing is an important driver of jobs and incomes in many African countries and can also provide access to greater diversity of affordable, high quality and nutritious foods. By improving the capacity of local food processors across sub-Saharan Africa to produce and market healthy food products, while simultaneously improving smallholder farmers’ access to markets,
Land degradation affects more than half of Africa, leading to a loss of an estimated US$42 billion in income and 5 million hectares of productive land each year. A precision-farming technique called “microdosing” is helping farmers address the problem of soil infertility.
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a member of CGIAR,
