Food Security

Populations around the world continue to struggle with malnutrition – both undernourishment and overweight/obesity – and climate change may exacerbate the problem. In addition to reducing overall agricultural yields, higher temperatures and erratic precipitation could increase spoilage of nutritious and perishable foods like fruits and vegetables. Climate change could even make foods themselves less nutritious; increased CO2 levels can reduce the protein content of certain crops, such as soybeans and grains.

As crop prices move throughout the year, they influence households’ consumption decisions, farmers’ production decisions, and traders’ marketing decisions. As such, it is important to understand price seasonality in local contexts in order to design appropriate policy interventions. A new working paper and policy note from IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program look at such price movements in grain prices in Kebbi state, Nigeria.

In April 2016, the President of Malawi declared a state of emergency in response to the second consecutive year of failed maize harvests. Domestic maize production in early 2016 only reached 2.4 million metric tons, compared to the 3.2 metric tons harvested in an average year. The international aid community and the private sector responded with the Food Insecurity Response Program (FIRP), which provided aid to almost 40 percent of the Malawian population.

This blog originally appeared on Agrilinks . By Sheryl Hendricks .

Dramatic change has been happening in Africa for at least the past decade. Much of the progress can be attributed to the revived focus on agriculture as a driver of inclusive economic growth through the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP). The CAADP was initiated through the 2003 Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security in Africa and sought to achieve Millennium Development Goal One (MDG-1) to halve the turn of the century levels of extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

Forty percent of children under the age of five in Zambia suffer from stunting. To address this worrying trend, policymakers have placed food and nutrition security at the forefront of national priorities. At a recent National Food and Nutrition Summit held in Lusaka, stakeholders emphasized the need for a multisectoral approach to end malnutrition and improve food sustainability in the country.

The conference, supported in part by IFPRI’s Food Security Portal, brought together a number of participants from government ministries and agencies and development organizations.