Future Smart Foods and Global Food Security

At this event Professor Kadambot H.M. Siddique talked about Future Smart Foods and Global Food Security.  Professor Siddique's PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded here

Asia and the Pacific continue to suffer from a high prevalence of malnutrition. An estimated 479 million undernourished people, 58 % of the worldwide total, live in this region. Chronic undernutrition is due to the persistent inability to meet minimum micronutrient and macronutrient requirements, or the frequent recurrence of acute malnutrition episodes, or a combination of both.

Food-based approaches that address malnutrition, especially micronutrient deficiencies, are embedded in evidence-based healthy diet patterns. But they are disconnected from the current agricultural production system. Neglected and underutilized species (NUS) are fundamental to improving dietary and production diversity. These species are nutrient-dense, climate-resilient, profitable, adaptable, and locally available.

The Future Smart Food Initiative, led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations Regional Initiative on Zero Hunger, aims to harness the enormous benefits that NUS offer in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. Recognizing that NUS covers crop, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture and forest, FAO sets crop as an entry point among NUS to address hunger and malnutrition. Many NUS can tolerate various stresses, which would make production systems not only more diverse but more sustainable and climate resilient. Their resistance to climate change implies that NUS can provide food when other crops fail.

Future Smart Food - Rediscovering hidden treasures of neglected and underutilized species for Zero Hunger in Asia, edited by Xuan Li and Kadambot H.M. Siddique, was published by the FAO in 2018.