Nutrition, Agricultural Biodiversity and Food Prices:

Federico Mattei MScNutrition and DiversityBioversity International

Rome, Italy

Table of contents

• The Context

• Price Volatility and Nutrition

• Some Possible Solutions

• Conclusions

Our global food system is strained• The food price crises

amplifies preexisting inequalities in food distribution and quality globally

• Beyond temporary shocks, the food system is undergoing long-term changes that affect everyone, particularly the poor

R. churchill

Rising prices vs. Fluctuating pricesAfter the price crisis of the mid seventies, a significant effort was made geared towards lowering food prices through increased production

Since 1976 food prices in constant 2000 US$ have slowly but continuously declined (while volatility has been variable)

Research to Support Agriculture

There has been an inadequate emphasis and investment in research for developing the productivity or fully utilizing the traditional food sources and biodiversity

Share of bilateral and multilateral aid to agriculture in total aid to all sectors

Yields, Prices or Nutrient Outputs

-Agricultural practices have been traditionally aimed at increasing production while decreasing costs

- Recently, preserving the environment has become a more prominent goal

However, maximizing nutrient output of farming systems has never been a primary objective of modern agriculture

Loss of agricultural biodiversity

• Nearly 2000 million tons of rice, maize and wheat are grown every year (FAO 2004)

• Of the 50,000 edible plants, 200 contribute to the food supply

• Of the 8,000 known livestock breeds, 1,600 are endangered or already extinct

Loss of diet variety • The world has over 50 000 edible plants. Just

three of them, rice, maize and wheat, provide 60 percent of the world's food energy intake.

• Of these 50 000, only a few hundred contribute significantly to food supplies.

• Although there are over 10 000 species in the Gramineae (cereal) family, few have been widely introduced into cultivation over the past 2 000 years

• Cereals are high in carbohydrates so they do provide energy, have low to moderate protein but are low in micronutrients; often poor quality and over processed.

• 200 million children are chronically undernourished• 2 billion people have micronutrient deficiencies• 60% of child deaths have an underlying cause of poor nutrition• 1.6 billion people are overweight or obese

The statistics are staggering

UNICEF, 2009

South Atlantic Ocean South Pacific Ocean

Indian Ocean

Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

North Pacific Ocean

1 billion are overweight or obese

<10% 10-20%

21-30% 31-40% 41-50% >51%

Source: The World is Fat (Penguin, Dec 2008)

BMIOver 25

Table of contents

• The Context

• Price Volatility and Nutrition

• Some Possible Solutions

• Conclusions

Effects of Food Price Crisis on Food Consumption

In June 2011, the average was 234 – 39% higher than a

year ago

• The cost of the food basket increased in several countries, forcing households to reduce quality and quantity of food consumed

• Simulations (American Institute of Nutrition, 2010) show that energy consumption declined during 2006–2010 in nearly all developing regions, resulting potentially in an additional 457 million people (of 4.5 billion) at risk of being hungry

• The FCS, which is a measure of diet diversity, is negatively correlated with food prices

Effects of Food Price Crisis on Nutrition

• Households reduce both dietary diversity as well as energy intake in response to increased food prices and reduced income

• The decreased purchase of more expensive foods typically equates to consumption of fewer nutrient-dense foods, such as animal source foods (meat, poultry, eggs, fish, milk), fruits, and vegetables

• In severe cases, households may also reduce expenditure on basic foods, such as sugar, oil, salt, and staples

Total Food Expenditures before and after food price crisis

Bouis et al 2011

Table of contents

• The Context

• Price Volatility and Nutrition

• Some Possible Solutions

• Conclusions

Diversifying Staples – Minor Millets• Minor millets are grown in areas of India

where, because of their high tolerance to drought, are more productive than other grains

• Bioversity worked with 200 farming families to increase the production and commercialization of three minor millets

• By training the women in quality standardization, packaging and production, new millet based recipes were developed into popular snack foods, which led to increased sales of millet-based products and malt in urban markets

IMPACT• Monitored farmers increased their

yields of minor millets by 70%.

• Processing the millet into malt added value, and increased income, with some women tripling their profits by selling only the malt

But, price volatility patterns show interesting trends

Domestic prices for rice, wheat and maize are less volatile than traditional staples in Africa: 2005 - 2010

Food Systems are a Possible Solution

Staple production is essential as it provides the bulk of energy requirements needed in a daily diet but…..

It can be complemented, in more complex food systems, with other crops that not only provide fortified ecosystem services but also, essential micronutrients

Furthermore, this increase in agricultural biodiversity acts as a way to decrease risk (hedging bets), reduce effect of price volatility and increase resilience

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Mesoamerican “three sisters”

-The combination of corn (a grass), beans (a nitrogen fixating legume) and squash (a low lying creeper) maximize trait efficiency between species resulting in higher yields that those obtained from three monocrop cultures of these crops

- Corn is particularly efficient at maximizing photosynthesis and grows straight and tall, the beans take advantage of this structural support and help fixate nitrogen (which become available to the corn) and the squash takes advantage of the relative shade provided by the other two and provides soil erosion protection.

- Corn is an important source of carbohydrates, beans provide protein, fiber, vitamin B, zinc and iron and squash provides many micronutrients including vitamin A

Three Sisters Spider Diagram

A. Ideal diet: dark gray; lack of protein and micronutrients: light gray.

B. Nutrient composition of 3 food crops shown as % of daily requirement: Corn: dark gray; Black beans: light gray; Pumpkin: black line.

(DeClerck et al., 2011)

Rice Paddies and Fish Farming

- Fish culture in rice fields offer one of the best means of contemporaneous production of grain and animal protein on the same piece of land

- Increase in organic fertilization by fish excreta and remains of artificial feed and reduction in the number of harmful insects, such as paddy stem borers, whose larvae are eaten by fish as well as control of algae and weeds which compete with rice for light and nutrients

- It is estimated that a potential fish yield of 2.2 – 2.4 million metric tons could be obtained annually from the rice fields (Vincke, 1979) which would provide essential protein and micronutrients need to complement a rice based diet

Cost of Diets:Filling gaps with local and wild foods

Cost of Diets Project

• Project in collaboration with Save the Children UK.

• The role of wild and underutilized foods in reducing the cost of a nutritionally adequate diet in order to develop accessible and local food-based solutions to micronutrient deficiencies in the Baringo East region of Kenya

• Hypothesis: Locally sourced NUS and wild foods in Baringo, Kenya can be used to significantly reduce the daily cost of a nutritious diet and reduce the gap between cost of diet and income for households, thus identifying local solutions aimed at meeting the nutrient requirements of mothers and 6-24 month old children in the area.

Wild Foods in the Cost of Diet

Conclusions

Price volatility and the food price crisis affects an already burdened and unequal food system

An overreliance on boosting yields of a few specific staples has had dramatic consequences on global nutrition and food security

There is a need to find alternative solutions to combating hunger and increasing diet variety

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4 Increasing and diversifying agricultural production enables households to consume more varied diets and also mitigates some of the effects of price volatility and uncertainty