Date palm trees abound in the Niyamgiri hills of the Indian state of Odisha. The fruits contain antioxidants and Vitamin A, and the sap is collected and fermented to produce liquor. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
RAYAGADA, India, May 19 2015 (IPS)

Scattered across 240 sq km on the remote Niyamgiri hill range in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, an ancient tribal group known as the Dongria Kondh have earned themselves a reputation as trailblazers.

Having fought – and won – a decade-long battle with a British mining giant that invested close to a billion dollars in a bauxite extraction operation in this mineral-rich area, the Dongria Kondh set an example in 2013 to millions of tribal people around the world that David versus Goliath-style confrontations can still be won by the underdog.

Now, the indigenous group is once again at the forefront of a global problem – the twin issues of hunger and deforestation – as they continue to nurture an ancient way of life despite a wave of destructive development that is threatening their traditional and sustainable farming practices.

Here, a Dongria Kondh woman reaches for barada leaves, a vital source of iron for the community. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Numbering some 10,000 people, the Dongria Kondh believe the forests and hills to be sacred sites, and have for centuries lived in harmony with the land, with a single family harvesting an average of 130 kg of wild produce in a single year.

Their varied and nutritious diet, which includes over 25 species of plants, comes directly from the forests, while springs originating in the Niyamgiri hills provide fresh, clean water all year round.

But rampant deforestation for large-scale infrastructure projects, coupled with mono-culture plantations of fast-growing trees to supply timber and paper industries with raw materials, as well as mining activities, have reduced food availability for the Dongria Kondh and other indigenous groups by over 30 percent and increased their gathering time by 80 percent over the last 30 years.

Today, 55 percent of adults from the Dongria Kondh community are protein-energy deficient and 60 percent of school-aged children are malnourished.

The situation reflects a trend all across India, a country of 1.2 billion people, where some of the poorest and hungriest live in or around forests.

India is currently home to one-quarter of the 805 million malnourished people worldwide, as well as to a third of the world’s underweight children and nearly a third of all food-insecure people – most of them among the 275 million-strong forest-dwelling population of this vast country.

The irony of the fact that those living closest to readily available food sources are going hungry has not escaped the attention of policy-makers, with the United Nations spearheading efforts to protect forests due to their critical importance in alleviating hunger and mitigating the impacts of climate change, not just in India but worldwide.

With 1.6 billion people – including over 2,000 indigenous cultures – depending directly on forests for food, shelter, income and fuel, preserving these areas feeds directly into the U.N.’s sustainable development agenda, and could also play a role in the ‘Zero Hunger Challenge’, launched by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2012 in a bid to completely eradicate the scourge of malnutrition and food insecurity.

This is easier said than done, given that an estimated 13 million hectares of forests are destroyed annually, denying hundreds of thousands of people of their only source of food.

While this seems like a bleak trend, one need only look up at the Niyamgiri hills for a lesson on an alternative economic model, one based on community management and control of land and resources, rather than the rampant destruction of living ecosystems for profit.

Here in Odisha, the forest-food nexus meets the accumulated traditional knowledge of an ancient people, pointing the way to a horizon where hunger is a thing of the past, not the future.

A major reason for the Dongria Kondh’s opposition to Vedanta Resource’s bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri Mountains in the eastern Indian state of Odisha was that it would destroy their numerous perennial hill streams. Here, a tribal girl washes at a pipe that gushes fresh water 24 hours a day. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Date palm trees abound in the Niyamgiri hills of the Indian state of Odisha. The fruits contain antioxidants and Vitamin A, and the sap is collected and fermented to produce liquor. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Tribal women collect fistfuls of ‘broom grass’ from the hill slopes of the Niyamgiri range in Odisha, India. Bundles tied together with hemp rope sell for 60 cents apiece in village markets, though urban traders get double the price. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Rich in protein, young bamboo shoots are a delicacy among the Dongria Kondh tribal community in eastern India. The outer skin is boiled with salt and chilli as a source of nutrition. During the monsoon season, when the shoots are plentiful, members of the tribe earn an income from bamboo. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

The ‘barada’ leafy green is sweet, easy to digest and rich in iron. Here, a tribal woman sun-dries the leaves so they can be stored for up to two months. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Women shoulder the lion’s share of forest produce collection. A typical day’s haul includes tamarind, which fetches a large part of a household’s annual income, and wild yams, a dietary mainstay during the lean months of August to October. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

The highly valued mahua flowers are collected, dried and made into liquor. Its seeds yield oil that can be used for cooking. Among some tribal groups mahua paste is used medicinally to facilitate childbirth. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Honey is the Dongria Kondh’s most precious forest product, valued for its nutrition, medicinal properties and high returns from sale. Because the tribe manages and protects large sections of the Niyamgiri hills in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, hundreds of wild honeybee colonies can still be found here. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Freshly fermented liquor made from the sap of the Salapa palm tree is often used during rituals. This is one of seven trees considered a ‘must’ in the Dongria Kondh’s sacred grove. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Tribal women collect fistfuls of ‘broom grass’ from the hill slopes of the Niyamgiri range in Odisha, India. Bundles tied together with hemp rope sell for 60 cents apiece in village markets, though urban traders get double the price. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
RAYAGADA, India, May 19 2015 (IPS)

Scattered across 240 sq km on the remote Niyamgiri hill range in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, an ancient tribal group known as the Dongria Kondh have earned themselves a reputation as trailblazers.

Having fought – and won – a decade-long battle with a British mining giant that invested close to a billion dollars in a bauxite extraction operation in this mineral-rich area, the Dongria Kondh set an example in 2013 to millions of tribal people around the world that David versus Goliath-style confrontations can still be won by the underdog.

Now, the indigenous group is once again at the forefront of a global problem – the twin issues of hunger and deforestation – as they continue to nurture an ancient way of life despite a wave of destructive development that is threatening their traditional and sustainable farming practices.

But rampant deforestation for large-scale infrastructure projects, coupled with mono-culture plantations of fast-growing trees to supply timber and paper industries with raw materials, as well as mining activities, have reduced food availability for the Dongria Kondh and other indigenous groups by over 30 percent and increased their gathering time by 80 percent over the last 30 years.

Today, 55 percent of adults from the Dongria Kondh community are protein-energy deficient and 60 percent of school-aged children are malnourished.

The situation reflects a trend all across India, a country of 1.2 billion people, where some of the poorest and hungriest live in or around forests.

India is currently home to one-quarter of the 805 million malnourished people worldwide, as well as to a third of the world’s underweight children and nearly a third of all food-insecure people – most of them among the 275 million-strong forest-dwelling population of this vast country.

The irony of the fact that those living closest to readily available food sources are going hungry has not escaped the attention of policy-makers, with the United Nations spearheading efforts to protect forests due to their critical importance in alleviating hunger and mitigating the impacts of climate change, not just in India but worldwide.

With 1.6 billion people – including over 2,000 indigenous cultures – depending directly on forests for food, shelter, income and fuel, preserving these areas feeds directly into the U.N.’s sustainable development agenda, and could also play a role in the ‘Zero Hunger Challenge’, launched by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2012 in a bid to completely eradicate the scourge of malnutrition and food insecurity.

This is easier said than done, given that an estimated 13 million hectares of forests are destroyed annually, denying hundreds of thousands of people of their only source of food.

While this seems like a bleak trend, one need only look up at the Niyamgiri hills for a lesson on an alternative economic model, one based on community management and control of land and resources, rather than the rampant destruction of living ecosystems for profit.

Here in Odisha, the forest-food nexus meets the accumulated traditional knowledge of an ancient people, pointing the way to a horizon where hunger is a thing of the past, not the future.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

By Andrew MacMillan
ROME, Jan 13 2015 (IPS)

About a week ago my wife was taken to hospital and diagnosed with pneumonia. She was promptly treated with antibiotics and, wonderfully, is now on the mend.

What has struck me about this experience is not so much the high professionalism of the health workers or their up-to-date hospital equipment but the fact that she has become immersed in what can best be described as “a culture of caring”.

Andrew MacMillan

She and the other patients in her ward are looked after round the clock by an extraordinary team of state-employed nurses in a quiet, efficient and courteous way that inspires confidence.

I suppose that there is nothing particularly unusual about this. Caring for others is a very natural human trait. Everywhere, mothers care for their children; sons and daughters care for their aging parents; and neighbours rush to help each other when they hit problems.

Perhaps, however, “modern” societies – if one dares to generalise about them – are driven more by the quest for individual material wealth than by any widely expressed wish to do things for the general good of humanity.

Unless you live in Bhutan, your country’s performance is measured not in terms of the happiness of its people but by the growth of its Gross Domestic Product; bankers and businessmen reward themselves with salary bonuses rather than with extra time with their families; and those who enjoy the highest pinnacles of wealth vie with each other over the size of their fleet of private jets or the tonnage of their personal yachts.

The idiosyncrasies of the super-rich and celebrities would not matter much if they had not become the new role models for people who aspire to “do well” in life and if their wealth did not entitle them to a voice in the corridors of world power. It seems odd that Presidents and Prime Ministers flock each year in January to [the World Economic Forum in] Davos to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, but perhaps this is simply a tacit admission of the influence that the latter have.“I believe that most people, at heart, want to see globalisation bring greater fairness and justice
even if this comes at the partial expense of our own material well-being”

Much of the recent material gains all around the planet is the result of the processes of globalisation that have successfully combined inventiveness, capital, low-cost but increasingly skilled labour and cheap transportation in new ways that have flooded the world’s markets with an amazing array of tantalising goods.

This apparent success of globalisation, however, may distract political attention from the idea that it could perhaps work better in everyone’s interest.

It seems absurd that 6 billion mobile phones have been produced and sold but 800 million people still go hungry every day; that, as people travel further, faster and more frequently, diseases such as Ebola spread more rapidly and more widely but the institutions responsible for protecting us from increased threats remain desperately under-funded; and that governments hesitate to upset their voters by acting to trim greenhouse gas emissions while, as predicted, the increasing frequency of extreme weather events is repeatedly wreaking havoc upon the unfortunate.

We tend to take these problems for granted rather than face up to the need to identify how to best manage globalisation in the interests of humanity.

I believe that most people, at heart, want to see globalisation bring greater fairness and justice even if this comes at the partial expense of our own material well-being.

I do not think that there are many people who, if asked, would want to see others starve for lack of food, who welcome greater weather instability or who think that it is right that their children should suffer from the environmental damage that results from our unsustainable lifestyles.

In a sense, President Lula of Brazil put this idea to the test during his successful 2002 campaign. Breaking out of the normal political mould, he did not promise his voters higher incomes but simply pledged that all Brazilians would enjoy three meals a day by the end of his term in office.

He unveiled his Zero Hunger Programme on his first day as President, with the State assuming the responsibility for assuring that all the poorest families in the country could fulfil their right to food. There was huge outpouring of popular support for his efforts to create the more just and equitable society that has now emerged.

What many of us would like to see is the emergence of a new international consciousness of social justice similar to that proposed by Lula and embraced by Brazilians twelve years ago.

It must be founded on a growing public recognition of the unique role that multilateral institutions have to play in ensuring that globalisation is harnessed to benefit all people, especially the poorest of the poor. It must also assure greater inter-generational fairness in the use of our planet’s scarce resources.

Nowhere is the need for greater fairness more apparent than in the realm of food management – where we face a crazy situation in which, though ample food is produced, the health of more than half the world’s population is now damaged by bad nutrition.

It is fitting that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, should have launched his personal “Zero Hunger Challenge” in Brazil in 2012 when he called for the elimination of hunger “within my lifetime”.

The fact that the current Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – the United Nations agency that that oversees global food management – is José Graziano da Silva, who was the Brazilian architect of Lula’s Zero Hunger Programme, inspires confidence that it will do all in its power to bring about a world without hunger.

We can already see a renewed FAO in action – committed to ending hunger and malnutrition, more focused in its goals, working as one and embracing partnerships for a better present and future. Four more years will allow Graziano da Silva to consolidate the transformations he has begun and realise their full effect to the benefit of the world´s poor and hungry.

Hopefully 2015 will be a year in which the world’s leaders will become the champions of the justice and fairness – the caring society that my wife has experienced – to which so many of us aspire.

At the very least, they should pick up the thought that, as in Brazil, it should be a perfectly normal function of any self-respecting government to ensure that all its people can eat healthily.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Women play an important role in guaranteeing sufficient food supply for their families. They are among the stakeholders whose voice needs to be heard in the debate on nutrition. Credit: FIAN International

By Geneviève Lavoie-Mathieu
ROME, Nov 27 2014 (IPS)

There is a new dimension to the issue of malnutrition – governments, civil society and the private sector have started to come together around a common nutrition agenda.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the launch of the “Zero Hunger Challenge” by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June 2012 opened the way for new stakeholders to work together in tackling malnutrition.

These new stakeholders include civil society organisations and their presence was felt at the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) held from Nov. 19 to 21 in Rome."Malnutrition can only be addressed “in the context of vibrant and flourishing local food systems that are deeply ecologically rooted, environmentally sound and culturally and socially appropriate … food sovereignty is a fundamental precondition to ensure food security and guarantee the human right to adequate food and nutrition” – Declaration of the Civil Society Organisations’ Forum to ICN2

More than half of the world’s population is adversely affected by malnutrition according to FAO. Worldwide, 200 million children suffer from under-nutrition while two billion women and children suffer from anaemia and other types of nutrition deficiencies.

Addressing ICN2, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said that “the time is now for bold action to shoulder the challenge of Zero Hunger and ensure adequate nutrition for all.” More than 20 years after the first Conference on Nutrition (ICN), held in 1992, ICN2 marked “the beginning of our renewed effort,” he added.

But the difference this time was that the private sector and civil society organisations were included in ICN2 and the process leading to it, from web consultations and pre-conference events to roundtables, plenary and side events.

“This civil society meeting is historical,” said Flavio Valente, Secretary-General of FIAN International, an organisation advocating for the right to adequate food. “It is the first time that civil society constituencies have worked with FAO, WHO and the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to discuss nutrition.”

This gave the opportunity to social movements, “including a vast array of stakeholders such as peasants, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, women, pastoralists, landless people and urban poor to have their voices heard and be able to discuss with NGOs, academics and nutritionists,” Valente explained.

According to a Concept Note on the participation of non-State actors in ICN2, evidence shows that encouraging participants enables greater transparency, inclusion and plurality in policy discussion, which leads to a greater sense of ownership and consensus.

As such, “the preparation for the ICN2 was a first step in building alliances between civil society organisations (CSOs)  and social movements involved in working with food, nutrition, health and agriculture,” Valente told IPS.

This means that “governments have already started to listen to our joint demands and proposals, in particular those related to the governance of food and nutrition,” he explained.

A powerful Declaration submitted by the CSO Forum on the final day of ICN2 called for a commitment to “developing a coherent, accountable and participatory governance mechanism, safeguarded against undue corporate influence … based on principles of human rights, social justice, transparency and democracy, and directly engaging civil society, in particular the populations and communities which are most affected by different forms of malnutrition.”

According to Valente, malnutrition is the result of political decisions and public policies that do not guarantee the human right to adequate food and nutrition.

In this context, the CSOs stated that “food is the expression of values, cultures, social relations and people’s self-determination, and … the act of feeding oneself and others embodies our sovereignty, ownership and empowerment.”

Malnutrition, they said, can only be addressed “in the context of vibrant and flourishing local food systems that are deeply ecologically rooted, environmentally sound and culturally and socially appropriate. We are convinced that food sovereignty is a fundamental precondition to ensure food security and guarantee the human right to adequate food and nutrition.”

At a high-level meeting in April last year on the United Nations’ vision for a post-2015 strategy against world hunger, the FAO Director-General said that since the world produces enough food to feed everyone, emphasis needs to be placed on access to food and to adequate nutrition at the local level. “We need food systems to be more efficient and equitable,” he said.

However, Valente told IPS that CSOs believe that one of the main obstacles to making progress in terms of addressing nutrition-related problems “has been the refusal of States to recognise several of the root causes of malnutrition in all its forms.”

“This makes it very difficult to elaborate global and national public policies that effectively tackle the structural issues and therefore could be able to not only treat but also prevent new cases of malnutrition.”

What needs to be addressed, he said, are not only the “symptoms of malnutrition”, but also resource grabbing, the unsustainable dominant food system, the agro-industrial model and bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that significantly limit the policy space of national governments on food and nutrition-related issues.

But, according to Valente, “things are changing” – civil society organisations have organised around food and nutrition issues, the food sovereignty movement has grown in resistance since the 1980s and societies are now demanding action from their governments in an organised way.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Courtesy of Howarth Bouis

By Howarth Bouis
WASHINGTON, Nov 8 2014 (IPS)

“We are especially distressed by the high prevalence and increasing numbers of malnourished children under five years of age in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. Moreover, more than 2000 million people, mostly women and children, are deficient in one or more micronutrients…”

These words are from the Final Report of the International Conference on Nutrition that took place in December 1992 in Rome.The distress is felt most by the poor, whose response is to cut down on the more expensive micronutrient-rich foods while making sure the household gets by on stomach-filling staples.

Twenty-two years later, government representatives from around the world will again gather in Rome for the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) and will have to contend with the reality that despite reducing the percentage of people suffering from micronutrient (vitamin and mineral) deficiencies, about the same absolute number of people – two billion – are still not getting the micronutrients that are essential for good health.

This is still too high a number; being deprived of essential micronutrients in the first thousand days from conception to a child’s second birthday can result in stunting, lowered IQ, and repeated bouts of illness that reduce lifelong productivity and keep generations in poverty and poor health.

So, today, we still face many of the same challenges as we did more than two decades ago. These have been further exacerbated by population growth, food price volatility and climate change, among other issues. Here are a few trends or factors that stand out today, and must be accounted for as we look to end hunger and malnutrition.

While population has grown, per capita incomes have increased in many countries. Staple food prices have fallen over the long run due to increased productivity from the Green Revolution, but non-staple food prices have risen. Thus, calories have become cheaper, but minerals and vitamins have become more expensive.

The distress is felt most by the poor, whose response is to cut down on the more expensive micronutrient-rich foods while making sure the household gets by on stomach-filling staples. To make matters worse, in recent years we’ve seen a disturbing trend where even the prices of key staple foods such as rice, wheat and maize that provide most of the global calories, have shot up.

Climate-induced changes and natural disasters will lead to more volatility in food production and, thus, price variability. The poorest households are least able to absorb shocks. As such, building resilience has emerged as a critical priority that requires greater alignment and collaboration with diverse partners to protect those who are most vulnerable from shocks.

One way to increase nutritional resilience is to make our food systems more nutrition-smart. Our food systems have to be calibrated to provide the greatest amount of nutrients per square foot of scarce land that can be produced sustainably, especially in the face of climate change.

This means growing more nutritious foods that include staple foods with enhanced micronutrient content that are proving efficacious in reducing micronutrient deficiencies. We have to build agricultural, and therefore dietary, diversity back into the system so that there is a ‘rebalancing’ of calories with micronutrients.

Being nutrition-smart means we also pay attention to growth in obesity, which today exists side by side with undernutrition.

The lessons learned in the past two decades show that there is no silver bullet. Integrated nutrition and public health interventions, and poverty alleviation social reforms are necessary to achieve good nutrition for all.

We have to more efficiently break down the silos between agriculture, nutrition and health food and health systems in order to improve people’s lives. The good news is that we have made significant strides. Twenty-two years ago, agricultural and nutrition scientists did not talk to each other very much. Now they do, and even more of that collaborative conversation and action are needed.

It pleases me greatly that global awareness has been building up over the past five years about how crucial nutrition is. The Copenhagen Consensus, a gathering every four years of top economists in the world, has twice put the reduction of micronutrient deficiencies at the top of their lists as the best use of public money, and have conservatively estimated a 59:1 dollar benefit-cost ratio.

I am heartened by global movements like Scaling Up Nutrition that are galvanising communities around the world to expand nutrition interventions that work, and by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Zero Hunger Challenge to eliminate hunger in our lifetime. As a global society, we cannot afford to let this momentum wane as other crises or trends command attention.

Achieving better nutrition is a multi-faceted endeavour. I have emphasised here the importance of making our food systems more nutrition-smart. And as the tagline for ICN2 states: better nutrition means better lives. There are of course complementary themes deserving of similar attention.

But this is what the delegates in Rome will have to tackle next week when, as the materials for the upcoming ICN2 suggest, coherence and collaboration must be built into any new frameworks and plans to improve nutrition. I look forward to being there, and to learning from the experience, the expertise and the insights of delegates from around the world.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Permaculture enthusiasts with their harvested produce. Credit: Graham Bell/IPS

By Justin Hyatt
BUDAPEST, Jul 28 2014 (IPS)

Food security is often thought of as a question of diversifying supply and being able to move food through areas plagued by local scarcity, relying on the global economic system – including trade and transport – as the basis for operations.

But there is a growing current of opinion that the answer lies much closer to home, by creating locally resilient food supplies which are less dependent on global systems and therefore on the political and economic crises that afflict these systems.

While both approaches have their place, one issue that they have in common is the goal of improving diets and raising levels of nutrition.

At the global level, this goal will take centre stage at the international conference on nutrition that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) are jointly organising in Rome from November 19 to 21 this year.“Farmers and nutritionists rarely discuss the nutritional quality of a carrot and how it could be improved through farming practices. Farmers are more concerned with yield and appearance while nutritionists typically assume that all carrots are created equal” – Bruce Darrel, food security expert

The organisers will be seeking political commitment for funding improved nutrition programmes as well as including nutrition-enhancing food systems in national development policies. They are also likely to attempt to give the Zero Hunger Challenge in the post-2015 United Nations development agenda fresh momentum.

In the meantime, one task that many say still remains is how to address nutrition in a holistic way, ranging from soil health to plant and animal health as well as to education about food storage and preparation methods that maximise nutrition.

Canadian food security expert Bruce Darrell believes that there are currently few examples of holistic approaches to nutrient management that incorporate strategies for nutrient levels and develop efficient nutrient cycling. “Perhaps this is not surprising when dealing with something that is essentially invisible and which has no generally recognised name as a concept,” he argues.

In his daily work, Darrell examines the role of mineral nutrients in soil, how they are depleted by farming practices, and their implications for healthy food.

According to Darrell’s accumulated knowledge, a single carrot can be more than twice as high in nutrients as that of another carrot grown in poor quality soil, which contains less than half the amount of sugars, vitamins and minerals.

A lack of knowledge about these things needs to be overcome, says Darrell: “Farmers and nutritionists rarely discuss the nutritional quality of a carrot and how it could be improved through farming practices. Farmers are more concerned with yield and appearance while nutritionists typically assume that all carrots are created equal.”

While the carrot is only one example of a whole range of food and nutrition issues, it is becoming clearer that the knowledge gap can be and is gradually being overcome.

Increasingly, individuals and small grassroots organisations are getting together to develop whole-systems approaches to nutrition. There are also more and more networks emerging globally to understand food.

“Not all of us have the luxury to decide exactly how we feed ourselves,” Ágnes Repka, a raw food expert from Hungary and one of the coordinators of the Future of Food European Learning Partnership, told IPS. “But many of us can make a choice on how to prepare the ingredients we have. Keeping as much of our food in their natural, raw form is one of the best ways to maintain its nutrients.”

The Partnership aims to bring sustainable food initiatives from different parts of Europe to one place and learn from each other, bringing the insights regarding sustainable agriculture and healthy food to a new level of understanding.

Repka stressed that when the members of the Partnership think about the healthiest possible food, “we mean what is healthy for our body, for our mind, for our communities and our planet.”

In order to communicate the new-found gains in the world of nutrition and to promote awareness in food education, Ireland’s Truefood Academy comes just at the right time.

Colette McMahon and Casandra Cosgrove of the Academy explain their reasons for putting an educational component in their nutrition-related work: “As nutritional therapists we have found that the practical skills and understanding of basic nutrition is poor and so began to develop and implement an outreach programme in a workshop format.”

The approach has proved successful and beneficial, deepening the understanding of the nutritional impact of traditional food preparation skills, which has demonstrated positive measurable results in the quality of life of the participants.

Meanwhile, across the Irish Sea in southern Scotland, Graham Bell grows over a metric ton of food on less than a 0.1 hectare garden and envisions permaculture as an apt and wise approach to sustainable and nutritious food harvesting.

“The great opportunity is for people to grow as much of their own food as possible,” says Bell. “The first need is to ensure access to land but a lot can be done on very little as we are proving. The next step is to ensure people have the skills to grow what they need.”

“Good change takes time,” adds Bell. “It is incremental. Permaculture is not a missionary activity. It is about modelling better ways of behaving. Better for ourselves, our families, our friends and neighbours – and better for people we don’t know.”

Building durable, sustainable systems is a “one day at a time” approach, according to Bell – not an overnight solution. It involves a lot of sweat, toil and trial, but it is worthwhile, he and other practitioners say.

This summer, a permaculture gathering is taking place in Bulgaria, with the next gathering already scheduled at the Sieben Linden eco-village in Germany. Repka is an avid fan of such meetings and enjoys visiting and learning new things as well as sharing her knowledge.

“Learning how to get the most out of our food is a simple way that we can improve our health,” explained Repka. Uncooked plant based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds in their raw form give our body more vitality, energy and health is Repka’s message.

“These are the simple choices we can make every day,” she added.

Children in northern Pakistan line up for food rations. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By José Graziano da Silva
ROME, Jun 13 2014 (IPS)

Continued growth in developing countries, along with poverty-reduction policies, have helped to improve both income and food security globally.

Still, eradicating hunger remains an enormous challenge that has an impact on every other attempt to improve lives.

An estimated 842 million people were found to be chronically hungry between 2011 and 2013. Globally, one in eight people are unable to gain regular access to enough food to be able to study, work, ward off disease, and otherwise live healthy and productive lives.

Malnutrition has a price tag. It could cost as much as five percent of global income – 3.5 trillion dollars, or 500 dollars per person – in terms of lost productivity and healthcare expenses.
Agriculture remains the key pathway to improving both access to food and income for most vulnerable families worldwide. Policies aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity and rural development, especially when smallholder producers are targeted, can help to create employment opportunities and achieve hunger reduction — even where poverty remains widespread.

But the quest for better lives must necessarily address another, often intertwined issue, that of malnutrition in all its forms. 
At least two billion people suffer from various vitamin and mineral deficiencies and related diseases. Malnutrition undermines wellbeing at all ages, and is seen as the underlying cause of death for some 2.6 million children annually.

In some of the world’s most vibrant and influential developing countries, malnutrition is threatening the next generation of parents, teachers, scientists and leaders.

Inadequate nutrition causes stunting, weakened immune systems and difficulties in learning and concentration. If having access to enough food is necessary for a person’s survival, then getting an adequate combination of safe and nutritious foods is fundamental to his or her future, and to the wellbeing, health and development of entire communities and economies.

Some progress has been made in reducing hunger over the past two decades, as measured by the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) objective of halving the prevalence of dietary energy undernourishment by 2015. Already, about 60 countries have achieved the target against 1990-91 benchmarks, or are on track to do so.

There has been progress, too, in combating malnutrition. Child stunting – a key indicator of malnutrition – has declined, but if present trends continue, half a billion more children will still experience stunted growth over the next 15 years.

Meanwhile, around one-and-a half billion people are overweight, with half a billion deemed obese, and hence, more vulnerable to diet-related non-communicable diseases.

Malnutrition has a price tag. It could cost as much as five percent of global income – 3.5 trillion dollars, or 500 dollars per person – in terms of lost productivity and healthcare expenses.

All this makes nutrition a public issue. And the conversation about malnutrition and hunger may be scientific, social and economic, but above all, it is political.

Tackling malnutrition

Good nutrition starts with access to nutritious food. Food systems must be improved in ways that make nutritious foods available and affordable to people throughout their lives, as shown by the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) most recent ‘State of Food and Agriculture’ report.

But overcoming malnutrition in all its forms – caloric undernourishment, micronutrient deficiencies and obesity – requires a combination of appropriate interventions in food systems, public health, education and social protection to guarantee availability and access to nutritious food, reduce the vulnerability of poor populations to disease, and improve consumer awareness of the sources of good nutrition.

Food systems must place extra priority on meeting the special needs of mothers and young children. Malnutrition during the critical first 1,000 days from conception can cause permanent physical and cognitive impairment in children and lasting damage to mothers’ health.

In most governments, nutrition lacks a natural home and a responsible official. Nutrition is a public issue and tackling it is a complex task requiring strong political commitment, leadership at the highest levels, as well as unprecedented cooperation and coordination among various ministries and partners.

Turning up the volume

Fortunately, policymakers and community leaders around the world are making some progress in turning up the volume of the conversation on malnutrition and placing the topic, along with food security, at the apex of the international development agenda.

The U.N. Secretary-General’s Zero Hunger Challenge, launched in 2012 at the Rio+20 Sustainable Development Conference, recognised the intrinsic link between development and proper nutrition for all. It calls for a world without hunger, no more stunting, zero food waste and loss, sustainable agriculture and a doubling of poor farmers’ incomes.

Food security and nutrition have also been placed squarely at the center of discussions to define the work of the High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda; and at high-level meetings hosted in London in 2013 by the UK and Brazilian governments.

The volume of the conversation on nutrition is about to be notched up further. On Nov. 19-21, the FAO, World Health Organisation (WHO) and others in the U.N. system will co-organise the inter-governmental Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), 22 years after the first one in 1992.

ICN2 will establish the bases for sustained international cooperation and improved policy coordination to overcome malnutrition. It should also help to ensure that different voices are heard in the debate. While governments have the final say on policy matters, non-state actors have important contributions to make to the multi-dimensional challenge of improving nutrition.

By cooperating more effectively, we have a real chance of ending this blight on humanity within a generation. But only if the conversation turns to concrete, consistent action that reaches every family.

*José Graziano da Silva is the director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome.