Shenggen Fan SDG Conference, "Towards Zero Hunger: Partnerships for Impact" Wageningen, Netherlands August 31, 2018

1. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Shenggen Fan | Director General
International Food Policy Research Institute
Wageningen, Netherlands | August 31, 2018
FOOD SYSTEMS
TO END HUNGER
&
MALNUTRITION
SDG Conference – ‘Towards Zero Hunger:
Partnerships for Impact’
The Innovation Imperative

2. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Source: UNICEF/WHO/WB 2018
Without accelerated progress, hunger and malnutrition will persist beyond 2030
Source: FAO 2018
Undernourished population (millions)
We are not on track on SDGs
Source: WHO 2018
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
Number of people undernourished
Forecast
Upper bound forecast
Lower bound forecast
Children affected by stunting (millions)
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Children affected by stunting Forecast
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
Overweight (BMI≥25)
Forecast
Upper bound forecast
Lower bound forecast
Prevalence of adult overweight (%)

3. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Over half of SDGs relate to
food security and nutrition
Reshaped food systems are critical
We must reshape food systems
to deliver on the SDGs
Innovations are imperative to go beyond business-as-usual
Policies, institutions, and technologies
are key to accelerating progress, while
maximizing synergies and minimizing trade-offs

4. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Reform policies to increase availability and
affordability of nutritious foods

5. Shenggen Fan, August 2018 Figure Source: Headey 2017
Fortified infant cereal
Cheapest dark leafy green
Food price differences (calorie price ratio)
Reprioritize investment priorities & reform subsidy policies
Reform subsidies for agricultural inputs and staple crops
• Support incomes of vulnerable groups and production of healthy foods
‒ Prices of nutrient-dense foods rising faster than energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods
(Dizon and Herforth 2018)
 2-4 point gap between nutritious food price index (NPI) and food consumer price index
(CPI) during seasonal price hikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan
‒ Foods rich in protein and micronutrients are expensive, particularly in low-income
countries (Headey and Alderman 2018)
 Calorie-relative prices compared to staple cereals: >10 times higher for dark leafy
greens globally, >15 times higher for fortified infant cereals in Africa
 Prices of healthy foods largely linked with local productivity and value chain efficiency
Increase investment for R&D in more nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables, beans,
dairy, and fish
• Unit increase in dietary diversity reduced calorie and protein deficiencies by 11% and
23% respectively in Eastern India (Kumar et al. 2016)
• Consuming dairy, eggs, and meat/fish associated with over 6 percentage pt. drop in
stunting rates among children in 49 countries across 5 regions (Headey, Hirvonen, and Hoddinott 2018)

6. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Enhance nutrition-targeted social protection
• Combining transfer programs with behavior change communication can improve child nutrition
‒ In Bangladesh, cash transfers accompanied by high-quality BCC improved children’s consumption of multiple-micronutrient
powders or iron supplements in the last week by 22 percentage pts (Hoddinott et al. 2018)
• BUT more needs to be done to improve outcomes
‒ BCC interventions should be coupled with policies, programs or alternative interventions that address behavior-specific
constraints and strengthen links between knowledge and behavior (Kramer 2017, Menon et al. 2017)
Promote nutritious, sustainable, and healthy diets
• Tax emissions-intensive foods (e.g. meat and dairy) – this could avoid
more than 100,000 deaths in 2020 (Springmann et al. 2016)
‒ Two-thirds due to changes in dietary risk factors
‒ One-third due to changes in weight-related risk factors
• Tax nutrient-poor foods and divert funds to promote low carbon food
production (e.g. Brazil’s carbon neutral beef)
Figure Source: Springmann et al. 2016
Changes in prices and consumption
by food commodity (%)
Incentivize promotion of healthy diets through taxation &
social protection

7. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
• Nearly a third of the world’s food is lost or wasted – significant costs to food security,
economies, and the environment
• Recent commitments and successes indicate a critical first step
‒ Technical Platform on the Measurement and Prevention of Food Loss and Waste (TPFLW):
IFPRI and FAO to align Food Loss Index data collection with improved food loss measurement methodology along food
value chain
‒ EU-REFRESH:
Develops strategic agreements and technological innovations to reduce food waste with governments, business and local
stakeholders in Spain, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands
• Supporting effective, low-cost policies and technologies will be important
‒ Promote improved packaging and dry chain development
 400 smallholders in Burkina Faso and Uganda reduced food losses by nearly 98% through proven post-harvest handling
techniques and storage technologies (Costa 2014)
‒ Scale up innovative cold chain development
 Zero energy cool chamber (ZECC) in India found to lower storage temperature by 11°C (Lal Basediya, Samuel, and Beera 2013)
Reduce food loss and waste with data and knowledge

8. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Support inclusive institutions and strengthen
accountability

9. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
• Enhance access to inputs and credit
–Ghana: Additional credit decision by women increased girls’ WHZ by
0.17, and women’s aggregate empowerment significantly correlated
with women’s dietary diversity (Malapit and Quisumbing 2015)
• Support local groups to integrate nutrition and health in
agriculture
– Burkina Faso: Enhanced Homestead Food Production (E-HFP)
decreased prevalence of maternal underweight by 8 percentage pts,
and anemia and wasting among children by 15 and 9 percentage pts
respectively (Olney et al. 2016)
Strengthen institutions to close gender gaps
• Reform institutions to strengthen resource rights
– Rwanda: Land registration programs doubled likelihood of household investment in longer-term natural
resource management, such as soil conservation (Meinzen-Dick et al. 2017)

10. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Enhance institutional capacity on nutrition
Support capacity building on nutrition for universities,
government agencies, and extension services
• Improving institutional capacity on nutrition can help address nutrition-
related information asymmetry and facilitate access to necessary assets
for households (Davis, Babu, and Blom 2014)
• Case studies in India: Review agricultural curriculum to include nutrition
for extension officers (Babu et al. 2016)
– Integrate nutrition as an outcome of agricultural production processes
– Provide nutrition training for midcareer extension workers to fill
current vacuum of nutrition content in extension services
– Endorsement of nutrition curriculum by central and local government
is important to incentivize universities

11. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
• Integrate and coordinate relevant sectors
• Enhance monitoring and accountability with data
Global Food System Index (GFSI)
‒ Holistic measure of national food systems
‒ Provides broad and practical monitoring and tracking tool for
decision makers
 Helps make governments accountable
 Sets priorities to tackle weak nodes in the system
‒ Will build on existing indexes while adding value
Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard
‒ Innovative tool for evaluating agriculture sector progress of
African countries toward achieving the seven broad
commitments of the 2014 Malabo Declaration
Global Food System Index
Promote effective governance mechanisms

12. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Promote multiple-win technologies

13. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Picture sources: IRRI, New Agriculturist, and Zen Gardner
Photos: AgriLife, ICRISAT, CGIAR
• Crop-sensing technologies for efficient fertilizer use (e.g. Greenseeker)
‒ Handheld crop sensor assessing plant nitrogen needs increased profit by
$37/hectare and avoided over 9,500 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions for
wheat farmers in Yaqui Valley, Mexico (CIMMYT)
• Precision agriculture for sustainable yield enhancements
‒ Microdosing in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso saw millet yields increase by over
50% & better water absorption (ICRISAT)
• Improved, climate-resilient varieties
‒ Cassava varieties that are early maturing, pest- and drought-resistant
increased yields by over 60% in Nigeria (IITA)
‒ Disease-resistant lentil varieties increased yields by 27% in Bangladesh
(ICARDA)
Invest in evidence-based technologies

14. Shenggen Fan, August 2018 Photos: HarvestPlus
• Biofortification
‒ Vitamin- and mineral-rich crops grown and consumed in over
30 countries
‒ More than 30 million people are consuming one or more of
12 biofortified crops globally (HarvestPlus)
‒ Girls and boys consuming biofortified pearl millet in India saw
greater improvement in some cognitive performance (attention
and memory) than those consuming non-fortified millet (Scott et al. 2018)
Support nutrition-driven & nutrition-sensitive technologies
Iron beans Vit. A maize Iron pearl
millet
Zinc wheat
Vit. A
cassava
Vit. A orange
sweet potato
Zinc rice

15. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Picture sources: IRRI, New Agriculturist, and Zen GardnerFigures and Photos: WEF, NIH 2018
• Alternative proteins to reduce GHGs, environmental impact, health risks
‒ Production of cultured meat involves up to 96% lower GHG emissions and
water use, and 99% lower land use depending on conventional meat product
compared (Thottathil, Jayasekaran, and Othman 2016; Toumisto 2011)
• Gene sequencing and editing for seed improvements
‒ Sequenced crop genomes could improve agriculture in challenging climates
• Big data and analytics to lower transaction costs, improve monitoring
(e.g. CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture 2017-2022)
‒ Platform to lead in organizing open data, convening partners, and
demonstrating the power of big data analytics
• Empower breeding programs targeting developing countries
(e.g. CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform)
‒ Draws innovations from public and private sectors to provide access to
cutting-edge tools, services and best practices, training and practical advice
Scale up new & established multiple-win technologies

16. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
Upcoming global learning event bringing
together decision makers, practitioners,
researchers, and other stakeholders
Break the silos: Cooperation and mutual learning

17. Shenggen Fan, August 2018
This will require robust evidence, good
governance, and strong commitment
from all stakeholders
To reshape food systems to deliver the SDGs,
we need innovations that:
1. Increase availability and affordability of healthy foods
2. Support inclusive institutions and strengthen accountability
3. Promote multiple-win technologies