Food Security

Biofortified crops, such as orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, have been shown to reduce malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency, especially in children, and increase farm households’ incomes. Whether or not farmers adopt these new crops, however, depends on individual farmers’ perceptions of biofortification’s benefits.

Food safety remains a significant concern in many developing countries, thanks to a prevalence of decentralized, informal food markets and low enforcement of food safety standards. Formal markets and branded food products are starting to become more common, however, allowing firms to establish themselves in consumers’ minds as providers of safe, high quality food – and potentially to charge higher prices for that food. A forthcoming article in Agricultural Economics examines this link between food safety and food prices in the context of maize flour in Kenya.

In 2011, 44 percent of Ethiopia’s children under the age of five suffered from chronic malnutrition. [1] Reducing that number is important not only for children’s current health and well-being but also for their future health and economic productivity as adults. Thus, improving childhood nutrition by expanding children’s diets to include more nutrient-dense foods like legumes and fruits and vegetables has become an important goal for many policymakers.

Demand for cereals in Africa south of the Sahara could triple by 2050, and increasing current yields on the region’s existing farmland alone may not be enough to meet that demand, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Widespread drought is driving high food insecurity in several parts of East Africa, including central and southern Somalia, southeastern Ethiopia, northern and eastern Kenya, northern and eastern Tanzania, and southeastern Uganda. According to a special report released by FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), these areas received less than one-quarter of their normal rainfall from October to December.