Changing dynamics of nutrition-what we should learn? Moving towards Future Smart Foods

Tomio Shichiri, Country Director/ Representative, FAO of the UN emphasises on combined efforts to help improve nutritional dynamics making the world a healthier place to live

For centuries, people in Asia and the Pacific including India have grown and consumed a wide variety of crops both for their resilient as well as nutritious qualities. Unfortunately, more recent generations have moved away from many traditional crops. Over the past 2-3 decades there has been a major shift in diets under the impact of modernisation, standard of living, household characteristics and change in rural and urban demographics. This shift has led to a change in the dynamics of nutrition. Nutrient dynamics is broadly defined as the way nutrients are taken up, retained, transferred, and cycled over time and distance, in an ecosystem (Hauer and Lamberti, 2006; Allan and Castillo, 2007) (describe this please?). This dietary shift has been influenced by large scale agriculture including mono-cropping, technological advances related to food processing, increasing influence of internet, media and communication, etc. The graphic below describes the gradual change in the dietary pattern and the long-term impact on human health.

Figure 1: Five patterns of nutritional changes and their effects; Source: (Popkin 2015; 2017)

Food consumption patterns have changed substantially in the region over the past few decades. Three particular trends have been observed: declining consumption of starchy staples in general and rice in particular; increasing consumption of animal-source foods and fruits and vegetables and increasing consumption of ultra-processed foods that tend to be high in salt, sugar and saturated fats. Simultaneously there has been a decrease in the use of legumes and fresh fruits and vegetables. Currently, agriculture has an over-reliance on a handful of major staple crops with just 103 out of the nearly 30,000 edible plant species worldwide providing up to 90 percent of the calories in the human diet.

In India, the changing nutritional dynamics has resulted in the disappearance of many native highly nutritious foods. Millets are one significant example of this trend and are now considered among the Neglected and Underutilised Species (NUS) of crops.

The Asia-Pacific region is home to most of the world’s undernourished people (490 million). Other forms of malnutrition remain challenging, including stunting and micronutrient deficiencies. In some countries including India, there are rising rates of obesity. This negative nutrition dynamics has fostered the growth of non-communicable deficiencies and diseases like obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

The challenges manifest in both the demand and supply side of food. On the demand side, there is population growth, urbanisation, migration and changing consumption patterns associated with rising incomes. On the supply side, the combined effects of climate change, declining agricultural biodiversity, water scarcity, land scarcity and the degradation of natural resources are threatening world food security. The demand and supply dilemma highlights two gaps in agriculture and food systems:
The Production Gap – FAO projections suggest that by 2050, agricultural production must increase by 50 per cent globally to meet food demand. Increased production of traditional staple crops alone is unlikely to meet the increasing demand.

The Nutrition Gap – defined as the gap between what foods are grown and available, and what foods are needed for a healthy diet.

Increasing the availability of and access to nutritious foods necessary for a healthy diet will help to bridge the production and nutrition gaps. But conventional staple foods do not supply all the nutrients needed for a balanced diet. Tackling the health problems caused by malnutrition requires a transformation of current agriculture and food systems towards more diversity at all levels.

FAO’s work has demonstrated that dependence on a few crops has negative consequences for ecosystems, food diversity and health. Food monotony increases the risk of micronutrient deficiency. In other words, we must make food and agriculture more nutrition-sensitive and climate-resilient. Over-reliance on a few staple crops coupled with low dietary diversity is a leading cause of persistent malnutrition. The dependency on rice, in particular, leads to insufficient intake of nutrient-rich foods, which increases the ‘nutrition gap.’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) – 2, achieving Zero Hunger is not only about addressing hunger, but also nourishing people while nurturing the planet. This year, World Food Day calls for action across sectors to promote healthier eating, for example, by adding vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts and whole grains to your diet, cutting back on refined starches, sugars, fats and salts, swapping refined ‘white’ food for more nutritious ‘brown’ options, knowing your fats: unsaturated are better than saturated and trans-fats.

To achieve SDG 2, the agriculture and food system must be more sustainable – we have to ensure climate-smart agriculture and prioritise a paradigm shift: save and grow. Diversification is an effective means of closing the production and nutrition gaps and achieving SDG 2. Dietary diversity is a cost-effective, affordable and sustainable means of eradicating hunger and malnutrition.

Production diversity helps to address malnutrition and climate change simultaneously. NUS offers considerable potential to bridge both production and nutrition gaps, and are abundant in the region. NUS that are nutritionally dense, climate-resilient, economically viable, and locally available or adaptable are considered Future Smart Foods (FSF). Increasing the share of FSF in diets is the way forward to achieving Zero Hunger.

Government agencies around the world are formulating policies and campaigns to spread awareness among people, farmers and other stakeholders about food diversity, adopting indigenous high nutrition diets, crop rotation, increasing meal cooking time and use of more of fruits and vegetables in the diet.

FSF have received few incentives for production in the Asian region, which is mostly geared towards rice, and there is little consumer awareness of their nutritional and health benefits. Governments need to consider diversified strategies to look at the potential of FSF and other traditional crops. Creating an appropriate enabling environment for FSF is critical. Hence the Indian Government along with FAO in an effort to promote agricultural diversification from a dietary and production perspective has proposed the year 2023 as the International Year of Millets, which are one of the most climate-resilient traditional crops of India. It is time to rediscover these hidden treasures for achieving Zero Hunger.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund For Agricultural Development (IFAD), the three agencies of United Nations working in the area of food and nutrition security are joining hands with government to facilitate the right dynamics between producers and the consumers. With concerted efforts, the nutritional dynamics will improve and world will be a healthier place to live.

References:

Popkin, Barry M. 2015. “Nutrition Transition and the Global Diabetes Epidemic.” Current Diabetes Reports 15 (9): 64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-015-0631-4.

———. 2017. “Relationship between Shifts in Food System Dynamics and Acceleration of the Global Nutrition Transition.” Nutrition Reviews 75 (2): 73–82. https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuw064.

Shankar, Bhavani, Sutapa Agrawal, Amy R. Beaudreault, Laxmaiah Avula, Reynaldo Martorell, Saskia Osendarp, Dorairaj Prabhakaran, and Mireille Seneclauze Mclean. 2017. “Dietary and Nutritional Change in India: Implications for Strategies, Policies, and Interventions.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1395 (1): 49–59. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13324.