المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Dear Moderators and the members,

It's really a great effort in making food systems more nutrition sensitive with the focus on improving the nutritional status of women and children. The food systems, traditionally, are more nutrition sensitive providing the subsistence to the families. Now, the efforts are in the direction of making agriculture and food system more profitable so that the system remains economically and financially viable so that it continues to provide nutritionally balance food supply to the whole population.

The priority effort , now, should focus on integrating nutritional aspects in the agri-food systems without distorting its major focus of creating more profit. Both the supply side and the demand side should be supported with the necessary knowledge of nutrition. The supply side should be supported in  developing  value chains of nutritionally important crops and livestock and the demand side , the consumers should be well informed with the importance of balanced diet and nutritional well being.

While talking of nutritional quality of diets, the aspects of safety and general quality of food is very important, which normally, is overlooked. This 'Accord' has mentioned the importance of safety but needs to improve a bit, with the importance of improving the quality and safety of food system, with  appropriate legal and institutional set up for inspection and certification at all levels.

The environmental aspect is important but it's more important to fulfil the nutritional demand of the population. The focus, therefore, should emphasize that the food systems become more nutrition aligned with environmental aspects considered as far as possible.

 Please find some specific comments as attached :

With best regards,

Purna Chandra Wasti

Senior Food Research Officer

Department of Food Technology and Quality Control

Kathmandu, Nepal.