The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has issued a new report, Healthy Food for a Healthy World: Leveraging Agriculture and Food to Improve Global Nutrition. The report was issued at the Global Food Security Symposium 2015. It calls on America to leverage the power of its agriculture and food sector to address global malnutrition.
Malnutrition – ranging from undernourishment to obesity – places more than one-quarter of the world’s population at serious health risk. The report suggests that it is vital to make nutrition a priority in the global food system by improving access to healthy foods, driving economic growth in developing nations, and increasing the incomes of 2.5 billion small-scale farmers (many of whom suffer from malnutrition).
Among the report’s key recommendations are:
Congress should commit to a long-term global food and nutrition strategy focused on agricultural development, and should convene a bipartisan commission to tackle global nutrition.
The U.S. should increase funding for nutrition research that expands access to healthy food and addresses malnutrition.
We should use the strength of American research facilities and universities for technology transfer, to train the next generation of agriculture, food, and nutrition leaders both here and in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Government and industry should partner and use technologies that encourage more efficient and wider delivery of healthy foods, and cut food waste and enhance food safety.
The report was endorsed by a bipartisan group of thirty senior policy, business, scientific, and civil society leaders.