Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Dear Sir/Madam,

Attached please find the comments of the International Food &  Beverage Alliance on the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition Proposed Priority Actions for 2021-2025.

Thank you,

Jane Reid

First of all, thank you for this invitation where all of us were able to take part in this reviewing progress and planning forward of the "Nutrition Decade" actions, participating in the online survey, and offering here more suggestions besides everything was already presented by you. 

I would like also to express all my gratitude and congratulations to UN NUTRITION while a Clinical Dietitian/Nutritionist who collaborates in Health Care and Public Health Nutrition and Food Systems because we can see closer how much everyone is engaged, how much was done and has been doing until this mid-term point.

Nutrition needs to be recognized as a Human Right in all countries, ensured by law, constitutions. The right to have access to SAFE FOOD and WATER, free of all hazards (especially chemicals, such synthetical pestides, food additives and microplastics, and other toxins) going beyond Food Security,  would help us to ensure more and quick actions toward changes in agriculture and better practices like agroecology, biodynamic, including the role of the microbiome, important in our gut health, and soil, and food.  And also FOOD SAFETY in all food chain, in all establishments that deal and offer nutrition, food, food products, and meals. 

We need to bring more our society closer, and all big and small farmers, chefs, producers, big and small retails, educators to understand the importance of nutrition and healthy food. 

We need more and more Dietitians /Nutrition Scientists in all scenarios and places where food is, more investments toward capacitation and research, especially in Public Health Programs to prevent and control NCD, and Malnutrition and at the end in all 3 levels of Assistance. Everyone should have access to a professional Dietitian for some guidance. Investments in Personal Nutrition especially for those under Chronic and Metabolic Diseases should be accelerated.  

The presence, participation, and consultation of Dietitians in public policy development are also important. 

An integrated System of Nutritional Status Screening, Surveillance, and urgent Basic Interventions should be implemented in schools and communities, in all 3 levels of  Assistance, and made by professionals, or even be made as an Extension Project from Universities or Internships.

Nutrition must become a permanent discipline in all schools. Have a school garden and understand about real food. And culinary skills with real food should be also taught at schools. Respecting cultural, seasonal, variety, and basics of Nutrition and Health. 

More policies toward to ban certain unhealthy food products from the Market. More regulation that moment to allow a product to go to the public. We need more surveillance about production, Industries.  Move or not allow children and adolescents to have access to unhealthy junk food and beverages. Marketing must be banned everywhere. People need also to understand why these actions and taxes are important. Massive Education to the population and awareness about what is unhealthy. Minutes of nutritional education should be offered by all journals, TV, Radios, and Social Media.

Social Responsibility and Ethics must be required from all actors. More regulatory as well. 

And at the end of the next 5 years, I hope all goals of this "Ten Years " become reality and not only a Decade of Nutrition but a permanent Mission until that moment all people and all systems ensure that all kinds of malnutrition and hunger are solved.   

Wishing a lot of success to all. We are together. 

Suzana Mantovani

Find attached the document where some comments, as well as our proposal for priority actions on nutrition within each of the six action areas are included.

UN Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-2025: priority actions on nutrition for the next five years.

Nutrition is a path way from agriculture to health. It does keep equal importance to agriculture and health including other sectors like education, social welfare, economy, governance and so on because of a multisectoral subject. Referring to the multisectoral approach of nutrition some priority actions on nutrition for the five year 2016 to 2025 are identified as follows.

Priority actions on nutrition for the next five years 2016-2025.

1. Sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets:

Actually, healthy diets are the sources of both types of nutrients known as macro and micro nutrients.  But it raises one of the main questions that what the sources and how the diets are available in a sustainable manner. In this regard, some of the measures are recommended for regular supply of the healthy diets as follows.

1. First of all it has to be ensured of food security at different level like household, community and at national level. Food should be accessed economically as well as physically for everybody. People should have to be increased their purchasing capacity with boosting up of the economic condition. On the other hand food supply situation should be regularized with increasing total production of the foods.  Eventually, it has to be increased total production of the foods from farming as well as from the livestock products in the country.  It is recommended as a priority action for availability and accessibility of the food crops quantitatively.

1. Moreover, qualitative measures are more important than the quantitative in the case of healthy diets since the qualitative foods are the synonyms of the healthy diets. We are talking about the healthy diets which are possible only from contaminated or polluted free foods without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides. In this respect, the foods must be organic and produced with the use of traditional compost manure for higher production, and use of herbal medicines instead of the pesticides and insecticides. Whenever the foods are not free from contaminations and even free from different types of preservatives used to keeping the foods safe and looking fresh the healthy diets will not be available for everybody.

In this regard, it has to be mentioned it here that most of the people of the developing / poor countries are consuming the contaminated foods produced from their household or even by purchasing in the market because of cheaper price of the foods.  Similarly, the people from developed / rich countries are consuming the foods used of various types of preservatives to keep the foods looking fresh and shiny for a long time imported from other countries though the foods are expensive. Therefore, both the people from the developing or developed countries are not getting original and genuine healthy diets. They are getting unhealthy diets every day. It has to be thinking if we really want to have health diets with priority for the next five years.

1. Aligned health systems providing universal coverage of essential nutrition actions.

Under this priority action it has to be increased coverage of the essential nutrition services in the country.  In this respect it has been recommended to highlight the concept of “Golden Thousand Days” from community to community in each country. As a nutrition specific to health sector the concept of the Golden Thousand Days has numerous advantages for the development of the child and the mother from pregnancy to under the age of two. Various relevant actions like caring of the mother and the child, exclusive / breast feeding, iron supplementation to the mothers, growth monitoring, sanitation and hygiene, healthy diets like feeding the eggs and others are included under the concept of the Golden Thousand Days. Therefore, it has to be prioritized to strengthen and to extend the concept of the Golden Thousand Days which might be virtually enough under this topic.

1. Social protection and nutrition education.

 Most of the children of the poor countries are lacking of enough food to filling up their stomach because of low purchasing power of their parents. Provision of the healthy diets is a far cry for them. Therefore, they must be provided financial supports even for the short term period. Financial supports can be done simply by two ways. The first one is to providing some income generating programmes to the household having the children under the age of two, malnourished children’s home, or the pregnant women’s home. Accordingly, cash transfer is another way of social protection which can be given to the same households as mentioned just above.

Nutrition education is highly relevant to improve nutrition status of the children and the pregnant mothers. Nutrition education can be given by various forms like formal education in the class room, and informal type of training  / workshop, street drama, gathering of the mass, painting, and others. Means of nutrition education depend upon the need of the education and the targeted population.

1. Trade and investment for improved nutrition.

Nutrition is a multisectoral subject which is related to trade and investment too for the improvement of nutrition situation of the country.

1. Safe and supportive environments for nutrition at all ages.

Environmental factors have crucial role in respect of nutrition.  In this regard, the safe and supportive environment has positive impact upon nutrition for the people of all ages.

1. Strengthened governance and accountability for nutrition.

The last but not least considerable factor is governance and accountability. It has already been discussed about the priority actions from 1 to 5 above. But the actions under all the 5 points will not be effective and useful unless and until the priority action of 6 about the governance and accountability is not strong and transparent in the country. Various developing countries are being victims of weak and corrupted governance where accountability has not been considered by the bureaucrats or by the politicians in the country. Whenever the governance will not be strong and clean all the development activities including the nutrition situation will not be improved in the country.

Therefore, it is recommended to strengthen strong and an accountable governance in the countries even by intervening them from international institutions like WHO, World Bank, UNICEF and so on. There might be applied other types of interventions depending upon the country and its governance system.

What are the top three priority actions on nutrition within each of the six Action Areas that should be prioritized by stakeholders going forward, in order to make a difference in nutrition and contribute to ending all forms of malnutrition?

Action Area 1: Sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets.

• Scale up the inclusion of nutrition objectives in food and agriculture policies: increase production of context-appropriate fruits and vegetables for domestic consumption, and of legumes and pulses that contribute to healthy diets; raise production of oils in support of the elimination of industrially produced trans-fat in the food supply.
• Accelerate food reformulation: provide reference ranges for sodium reduction level benchmarks for processed foods, including takeaway foods.
• Subsidise the price of cereals, legumes, vegetables and fruits which are produced locally and sustainably.

Action Area 2: Aligned health systems providing universal coverage of essential nutrition actions.

• Research is needed on the most cost-effective nutrition care services available for primary health care. Our recent research (under review) has shown that nutrition care is considered value adding but requires policy makers to invest in the additional services. Further research/guidance would be appreciating on the most effective ways to influence policymakers on this point.
• Equitable access to nationally determined health services, including oral health and mental health services
• Subsidise medicines to ensure they are affordable, particularly for the poor, vulnerable and marginalised segments of the population.

Action Area 3: Social protection and nutrition education.

There is significant opportunity for all health workers to improve nutrition competence (knowledge skills and attitudes) as well as an increase in nutrition professionals. Our research has shown that doctors, nurses, psychologists, even personal trainers and coaches are looking to embrace nutrition as part of their ongoing role. Globally relevant, minimum acceptable standards of competence is the next required piece of work on this and we are ready to conduct this work if there is support made available by the UN. We would also recommend mandating the inclusion of nutrition education in school curricula to enable the incorporation and learning of what constitutes a healthy diet.

Action Area 4: Trade and investment for improved nutrition.

• Develop international guidance on front-of-pack nutrition labelling
• Increased investments to rebuild/further develop regional food processing, manufacturing and distribution infrastructure
• Reduce global exports of primary produce, such as unprocessed fruits and vegetables.

Action Area 5: Safe and supportive environments for nutrition at all ages.

• Legal protection and support of breastfeeding in public places including the workplace and hospitals.
• Improve access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, in particular in low to middle-income countries
• Increase the use of regulatory and fiscal tools in improving the food environment. In particular, the taxation of ultra-processed foods.

Action Area 6: Strengthened governance and accountability for nutrition.

• Governments to establish national nutrition targets with milestones to achieve priority actions within the Nutrition Decade.
• Governments to establish or update a national food and nutrition policy.
• Increased investments into nutrition and health-related research.

Priority focus areas are being tentatively proposed as per the table below. Please indicate if any key elements are missing. Please note that the online survey inquires more specifically about the priority focus areas:

• Increase the use of regulatory and fiscal tools in improving the food environment. In particular, the taxation of ultra-processed foods.
• Increased investments to rebuild/further develop regional food processing, manufacturing and distribution infrastructure
• Mandate the inclusion of nutrition education in health professionals curricula
• Mandate the inclusion of nutrition education in school curricula
• Raise the global minimum wage.

Which are key cross-cutting actions that would facilitate interlinkages and create synergies between Action Areas?

Nutrition education is a cross-cutting action that would facilitate interlinkages and create synergies between Action Areas. Nutrition education for the health workforce is vital for nutrition capacity. Without nutrition education, health care workers cannot effectively deliver nutrition action across the health care continuum. Furthermore, as the FAO have stated, there must be better leverage of schools as a platform for food and nutrition education. Mandating the inclusion of nutrition education in health professionals and school curricula would create synergies between Action Areas and likely improve population nutrition behaviour.

What do you think are the top three emerging issues and/or trends likely to hamper the achievement of the global nutrition targets? What would you like to see done to address them?

• The unaffordability of healthy food – use regulatory and fiscal tools to subsidise locally produced foods and apply a tax to ultra-processed and takeaway foods.
• Social inequity – raise global minimum wage and provide equitable access to free health care including oral health and mental health services.
• Nutrition capacity of the health workforce – it has been well-established that there is a need to improve the nutrition capacity of the medical and health workforce so that they are able to provide nutrition interventions and improve the nutrition behaviour of the population.

Here is a selection of titles proposed by FAO Publications for forum participants who would like to read more on nutrition and food safety.

Vision and Strategy for FAO's Work in Nutrition

The new Vision and Strategy for FAO’s Work in Nutrition establishes FAO’s vision and mission for nutrition going forward and provides a framework to guide FAO’s action over the next five years. It sets out a framework for FAO’s future action, which includes enhancing availability, affordability, and access to healthy diets through coordinated efforts of all actors and institutions across the entire food system. It details how FAO aims to support countries in enabling healthy diets and boosting the capacity of all actors along agriculture and food systems to continue producing and delivering affordable, adequate, safe, diverse and culturally appropriate nutritious foods.

Strengthening nutrition action - A resource guide for countries based on the policy recommendations of the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2)

The resource guide is part of the follow-up to the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) that was held in November 2014 in Rome, Italy. It aims at guiding countries to translate the 60 recommended policy options and actions of the ICN2 Framework of Action into country-specific commitments for action. This process is done according to the national needs and conditions, and builds on existing policies, strategies, programmes, plans and investments in order to achieve the 10 commitments of the Rome Declaration on Nutrition, under the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-2025 (www.un.org/nutrition).

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 – Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets

The number of people affected by hunger globally has been rising since 2014. This report spotlights the links between food security and nutrition, introduces new analysis of the affordability of healthy diets, presents health and climate-change costs associated with food consumption and concludes by discussing policies and strategies to transform food systems.

Browse all previous editions here.

Cost and affordability of healthy diets across and within countries

Background paper for The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020

Can people access nutritious foods to meet dietary needs? This study estimates that about 3 billion people cannot afford the cost of a healthy diet. It suggests lowering the cost of food production and distribution and utilizing policy levers to improve access to nutritious foods that contribute to healthy diets.

Fruit and vegetables – your dietary essentials

The international year of fruits and vegetables 2021, background paper

The International Year of Fruits and Vegetables 2021 (IYFV) aims to raise awareness about the nutritional and health benefits of fruit and vegetable consumption. This paper provides an overview of the activities that will take place during the IYFV.

Know what people eat: better data, better policies, better diets

The FAO/WHO Global Individual Food consumption data Tool (GIFT) consists of a global database, containing individual quantitative food consumption data from any country disregarding their level of income, made freely accessible online through an interactive web platform. FAO/WHO GIFT aims to be a multipurpose tool, providing information on specific indicators that are needed to inform nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food security policies by improving nutrition and food systems.

FAO School Food and Nutrition Framework

The FAO School Food and Nutrition Framework aims to support governments and institutions in developing, transforming or strengthening their school policies, programmes and other initiatives for an enhanced and synergistic impact on diets, child and adolescent nutrition, community socioeconomic development and local food systems.

The Framework represents a direct response to the international call for improving nutrition along the life cycle and for transforming food systems to be conducive of better diets, in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) and the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2025).

It provides a holistic approach that capitalizes on complementary interventions and the most effective programmatic options to obtain benefits throughout the food, nutrition and education nexus, using the school setting as the center for development.

Nutrition-sensitive investments in agriculture and food systems – Budget analysis guidance note

This document defines a methodology for countries to monitor nutrition-related spending, and proposes three steps for the collection of finance data: identification, categorization and vetting of potentially nutrition-sensitive budget line items for inclusion in the budget analysis.

Stories from Africa changing lives through diversified healthy foods

This publication highlights FAO’s cross-cutting work on nutrition, such as raising chickens in Cameroon and promoting nutrition-sensitive agriculture in Rwanda. These stories show that through hard work, innovation and partnerships, ending hunger and malnutrition is possible.

The nutrition and health potential of geographical indication foods

Five case studies around the world to explore the link between the production processes of geographical indication (GI) foods and the nutritional composition of the final products, and provide suggestions on how to leverage GI foods for healthy diets.

Guidelines and handbooks

Sustainable healthy diets guiding principles

These guiding principles consider international nutrition recommendations and the environmental cost of food production and consumption. It aims to support countries in transforming food systems to deliver healthy diets, while contributing to the achievement of the SDGs.

Food systems and nutrition handbook for parliamentarians N°32

Parliamentary action is fundamental to securing healthy diets for all. This handbook provides parliamentarians with practical guidance to support legislative processes that prioritize nutrition, and - together with governments, international organizations, civil society and other stakeholders – accelerate progress towards the SDGs.

Minimum dietary diversity for women – An updated guide to measurement: from collection to action

The minimum dietary diversity for women (MDD-W) indicator is a food group diversity indicator that reflects micronutrient adequacy. This publication provides guidance on collection, analysis and measurement of data, including list-based and open recall methods.

Compendium of indicators for nutrition-sensitive agriculture

This compendium aims to gather the main existing nutrition-relevant indicators that can be used for monitoring and evaluation of food and agriculture investments, and to show which type of investments each type of indicator is most appropriate for.

Food-based dietary guidelines

Food-based dietary guidelines are intended to establish a basis for public food and nutrition, health and agricultural policies and nutrition education programmes to foster healthy eating habits and lifestyles. They provide advice on foods, food groups and dietary patterns to provide the required nutrients to the general public to promote overall health and prevent non-communicable diseases.

Food control system assessment tool – Introduction and glossary

This tool, based on Codex Principles and Guidelines for National Food Control Systems as well as other relevant Codex guidelines for food control systems, aims to assist member countries in assessing the effectiveness of their food control system.

Guidelines for the compilation of food balance sheets

These guidelines have been developed under the Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), with the aim to provide countries with a user-friendly handbook that can aid in the construction of country-level Food Balance Sheets (FBS) as a tool for policy analysis.

COVID-19 Resources

• Coping strategies of dairy cooperatives and loss and waste reduction during the COVID-19 pandemic: the case of India and Japan
• Food system policy priorities and programmatic actions for healthy diets in the context of COVID-19
• Maintaining a healthy diet during the COVID-19 pandemic
• COVID-19 and malnutrition: situation analysis and options in Africa
• Other policy briefs related to COVID-19

Additional resources

Websites

• Nutrition
• Food-based dietary guidelines
• Geographical Indications
• The Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women (MDD-W) indicator
• FAO/WHO GIFT: Global Individual Food consumption data Tool
• Food Labelling
• Nutrition and Forests
• Nutrition and Fisheries
• School food and nutrition
• Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste
• Sustainable Food Value Chains Knowledge Platform
• The Right to Food

FAO eLearning academy

• Design and monitor nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems programmes
  
  This is the fourth of a series of e-learning courses on Nutrition and Food Systems, which will guide you through the steps required to design a nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food system programme. By the end of the course, you will be aware of key issues to consider at each step and be equipped with tools to address them.
• Nutrition, food security and livelihoods: basic concepts
  
  Discover the basics of nutrition, food security and livelihoods. Get familiar with the frameworks for food security, nutrition security and livelihoods concepts.
• Improving nutrition through agriculture and food systems
  
  Explore the linkages between agriculture, food systems and nutrition by using examples of successful nutrition-sensitive policies, investments and programmes.

• Agreeing on causes of malnutrition for joint action
  
  Improve your understanding of the multi-sectoral causes of malnutrition and learn how to support integrated nutrition planning, through the use of the “problem-and-solution tree” methodology.

• Home-grown school feeding
  
  Governments and development actors are increasingly recognizing the importance and value that school meals constitute globally. The benefits of Home-grown School Feeding (HGSF)  programmes go beyond education and nutrition to tackle livelihoods of smallholder farmers and local communities. They also strengthen the nexus between nutrition, agriculture and social protection. Based on the HGSF Resource Framework, this course can help governments achieve their goals and foster a community of practice in home-grown school feeding.
• Food loss analysis case study methodology
  
  Food loss is a complex issue, often with multiple and interrelated causes operating at different levels. This e-learning course introduces the FAO Case study methodology for the analysis of critical food loss points. This method focuses on revealing and analyzing the multidimensional causes of losses in selected food supply chains, identification of critical loss points, and recommendation of feasible food loss reduction solutions and strategies.
• Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) protocols for acute malnutrition
  
  This course provides guidance to complete the Protocols for the Integrated Phase Classification of chronic food insecurity. It provides step-by step guidance to complete the protocols for each of the four functions of the IPC, and the special protocols for areas with limited or no humanitarian access.
• How to conduct a Nutrition Situation Analysis
  
  This course will guide you through the steps of a nutrition situation analysis. By the end of the course, you will be able to identify all the information required to conduct a nutrition situation analysis, know where to get this information, and understand how to analyse it to make sense of the situation.
• Sustainable Food Value Chains for Nutrition
  
  This course aims to equip project designers and managers with the concepts, principles and tools they need to leverage value chain approaches to improve nutrition through agriculture and food systems.

I feel like a lone voice in this Decade of Nutrition advocating food education for all.  Please can we call it "food education" instead of  "nutrition education"? There is overlap, but nutrition education has different scope. 

All the contributors have hit important nails on the head, but for me food education is the nail that pins supplyside solutions together and makes them work.

What do we think it is?  The impression from the references in the text is that "nutrition education" is manifest in (a) feeding messages and dietary guidelines (ENAs and FBDGs); (b) school meals and some kind of school education (seen as complementary in the text, although seldom in real life); and (c) labelling of food products.  Did I miss anything?

These are not in themselves food/nutrition education, although they can all be useful inputs in a dynamic learning process.  They are static elements which have to be activated and put to work to develop the capacities of adaptation, self-defence, discovery and change which are going to be essential to citizens in a needy world.  They manifest the lack of HOW, the "black box of implementation" (noted by the Society for Implementation Research in Nutrition). 

I think the health service has learned to turn the ENAs into maternalaction, but school meals, school food education and the FBDGs have seldom been evaluated for nutrition impact (a forthcoming survey and article on the FBDGs make this point).  Why do they continue to be routinely recommended in frameworks for country action?

Food education in its most fundamental sense is what everyone learns about food, mostly informally, through observation, experience, action and conversation, from birth (or before) and throughout life.  It includes beliefs, practices habits, preferences, skills and knowhow, perceptions and prejudices, social norms and status, capacity for change and experiment, interest and enjoyment.  Influences on this learning are many and various and have been extensively analysed in formative research. In formal programs food education calls on many well-known practices, such as behaviour change, social marketing, IEC, promotional campaigns, awareness-raising, school food projects, which are more or less successful according to the processes they adopt.

The outcome is some level of food literacy which manifests itself in action.  The levels of food literacy in the world are universally appalling, as the obesity epidemic has demonstrated.  So is the fragmentary incoherence of most of the food education efforts to improve it.  They lay the public open to the worst effects of the food industry.  They must both be recognized as inherent in the Right To Food

My second point:  food education is seldom much use if it stands alone, confined to the classroom, counselling session or side-along project component (I have seen many examples.  It has to be hands-on and mouth-on and embedded in its real-life contexts and settings. Children can learn from school meals by observing them, asking about them, trying them out; the same applies to the many successful community classes which combine shopping, budgeting, cooking and tasting with practical action and feedback in the real world. (NB Husbands and children big obstacle to improving household diet).   

This brings me to the point about hitting the right nail on the head.  What has not been properly recognized in the development world is that this interaction works both ways.  Not only do individuals learn better nutrition through putting it into practice, but nutrition-oriented development actions magnify their impact through some form of food education.  It stands to reason.  People do not easily renounce theif food habits, but they are more likely to do so if they think and believe it's a good idea, can see how to go about it, try it out and share the experience, above all if they have some ownership of the process.  The reverse has been repeatedly demonstrated,  Consumers have veto power.

There is a steady accumulation of demonstrated successes (I have a dossier):  in agriculture (generally seen as a nutrition-sensitive flop), there are the Farmer Nutrition Schools in Bangladesh; other homestead gardning projects are proving that they can transform diet and food practices;  in biofortification, the long journey of the orange sweet potato in Africa shows how much consumer education is needed to create demand, but that it can be done; in social protection there is the striking control experiment (again in Bangladesh) where adding a food education component to cash and food handouts multiplied the impact; in Norway a multi-sectoral program focused on fish at every level of the food system and evaluated positively.  I have also seen many project reports which propose incorporating or improving a food education or behaviour change component.

It's the mix that matters. Of course the HOW is crucial. There is a lot of very ineffective activity around which calls itself nutrition education and behaviour change.  We think we have most of the answer to this, but that's another post.

Jane Sherman

Due to the increasing population, there is high concern about whether the current food system will be able to provide enough healthy food for 10 billion people by 2050. The general opinion is that it is possible to feed this population, but the food system requires major transformations on behalf of promoting sustainability, reducing food waste and stimulating a change toward diets healthy for humans and also sustainable for the planet. In food production, current problems like destruction of land ecosystems, overfishing or generation of high amounts of residues stand out. Some solutions have been described, such as implement the agroecology, improve productivity of aquaculture or re-valorization of by-products. In food consumption, the main problems are the food fraud and the unhealthy dietary patters, whose main solutions are the standardization along food chain and education on healthy lifestyles. Concluding, food system should change toward more sustainable practices and behaviors in other to ensure the subsistence of the present and the future generations. 

Why we are not able to protect dry foods from annual floods?

The title illustrates the status of food security in the developing countries (Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand and beyond) where a basic food science knowledge has not been used. Immediate consequence is national food crises, toxic foods, and need to ask donors. However, the donors provide partial rotten food in disasters (famine, droughts, earthquake) Illustrating the prevalent global knowledge.

We published in 2018 that dry seeds and foods at farms must be protected from water using Dry Chain (Trend Food Sci Technol 2018, 71: 84-93), also used in pharmaceutical, processed food and seed industry. When dry seeds/foods get wet, insects and natural carcinogenic molds flourish and nutrients decline. The toxins are transferred to milk and meat products through feeds and affect health of animals and about 4 billion people.

Dry Chain: Dry food to “milling moisture content” at harvest and store in water-proof bags (Dry Chain) to improve the value chain, minimize insects and toxigenic mold proliferation, and nutrient loss.

Increases current yields by ~ 25% by minimizing storage losses.

Improves food trade ratios (Annual food import is about 1/3 of losses).

Enables quality food stocks locally in each country.

Increases biodiversity by conserving local germplasms.

For Fall/Winter/Spring harvest, Sun dry and moisture-proof packaging.

For rainy season harvests, artificial dry and moisture-proof packaging.

There is further need to minimize artificial toxins (pesticides) in fruits and vegetable using Integrated Pest Management and sensitive monitoring. A drawn border stand-off occurred between Nepal and India on food toxins (Lancet Planetary Health 2020; 4: 259-260). Food toxins are primary concerns in the developed countries, but profit is primary objective in developing countries. The nutritionists need to take a leading role to help minimize both natural and artificial toxins in foods to complement nutrition and health security.

Trends hampering global nutrition 

Current economical climates, especially in developing countries, support cash crops like tobacco, cotton and maize. This results in an increased allocation of agricultural land to these crops thus reducing farmer focus on nutritious crops such as pulses. If governments and the private sector offer more incentives to the production of nutritious foods farmers might be encouraged to produce healthier foods.