As I review the briefing material and current comments on the forum for UN Decade of Nutrition from the perspective of an agronomist with the biggest concern producing sufficient food to support an ever increase global populations in as sustainable manner as possible with an emphasis on smallholder production in developing countries, I have several concerns mostly falling under Action Area 1: Sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets.
Is what I fear will compromise the acceptability of most of the current work on improving nutrition. That is the need to consider the nutritional requirement to optimize economic opportunities. To often those with the greatest need for improved overall nutrition are those who also have the menial economic opportunities requiring heavy manual labor. This will require upward of 4000 kcal/day when often they will only have access to 2500 kcal/day, which is typical for smallholder farmers. This limited diet severely restricting the hours per day of diligent work, prolonging the time required for various farm management activities, and reducing total production below that needed for family food security, let alone extensively participate in any value chain marketing. This makes the ability to produce or acquire improve nutrition unfeasible. Unfortunately optimizing economic opportunity will take priority over improved nutrition. Thus, there is a need carefully review the affordability of improved diets after providing sufficient calories to meet economic opportunities. If not, then most of the work on improved diet will be academic with limited development prospects, even when followed by an extensive education extension program. For a detailed review on problems of dietary energy balance please review the following webpages:
https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/ECHO-Diet.pdf
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/ethiopia-diet-analys…
https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/DietPoster.pdf
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/1028-2/
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/affordability-of-imp…
Feel free to copy and distribute the poster as feel appropriate and take hour or so to try and balance the 4000-kcal energy requirement with any records you can find on casual labor wages, either as declared by governments or actually paid by farmers or other employers. It does not take long and the result mind-blogging. An undercurrent in the webpage is the need to provide a egg a day per child as promoted by an World Bank seminar/webinar I attended a couple years ago. For the price of the egg, you can purchase enough grain for about 3 hours of diligent labor. Which is more critical for those on the economic margin?
The real need here is to reduce the drudgery of smallholder famers which quickly translates to the need for access to mechanization for basic land preparation. Expediting land preparation and crop establishment, should have a major impact on family food security, ability to extensively participate in market value chains, and affordability of improved nutrition as experience with the shift from water buffalo in paddy production in Asia. Please review the webpage: https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/promoting-the-green-…
On other issues please check for some of the major global trade off between land required for agriculture production vs. land reserves. Also, the total availability of organic nutrients vs. plant nutritional needs to feed the total populations. Finally, beware of condemning GMO as most the GMO development is intended to reduce chemical application and thus protect the environment. Thus, you cannot promote fewer chemical applications and condemn GMOs. Please review these webpages: https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/sustainability-of-sm… ; https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/organic-source-of-nu…
Dr. Dick Tinsley