Nutrition, Food Security and Agriculture - An IFAD View

Kevin CleaverAssistant President, IFADRome, 26 February 2007

IFAD’s mission is to reduce rural poverty. IFAD recognizes that malnutrition contributes to poverty

Global food and nutrition problems

Type Causes People affected

Hunger Deficiency of calories and protein

0.9 billion

Underweight children Inadequate intake of food and frequent disease

126 million

Micronutrient deficiency Deficiency of vitamins and minerals

More than 2 billion

Overweight to chronic disease

Unhealthy diets; lifestyle Increasing also among the poor

Source: Based on data from FAO 2005a, UN/SCN 2004, Micronutrient initiative and UNICEF 2005.Adapted from IFPRI, 6 December 2005

Global trends in underweight children(children 0-4 years) – 1980-2005

Data source: de Onis et al (2004). Prepared by World Bank, HNP, November 2005

Progress slow in addressing hunger

500

600

700

800

900

1990 1995 2002

Developing world

Developing world without China

Hunger in the Developing World

Mil

lio

ns

of

hu

ng

ry p

eop

le

Source: FAO 2005a

824

797

815

630651 673

Is the hunger problem caused by stagnation in agriculture production?World cereal production, 1990-2005

Source: FAOSTAT 2005. Adapted from IFPRI.

* Estimated

Who are the hungry?

Source: World Bank Cleaver

South Asia

Farmers

Marginal

Land

50%50%

2222%%

2020%%

8%8%

Landless Rural Poor

Pastorists/Fishers

232300

1111551515

55

2002006060

4040

East AsiaRest of Asia

Sub Sahara Africa

Latin America

What do the hungry do?What do the hungry do?

Hunger is increasing in Africa, decreasing in Asia;Hunger is increasing in Africa, decreasing in Asia;Millions of hungry people by continent (source: UN hunger task force)Millions of hungry people by continent (source: UN hunger task force)

Urban Poor

North Africa & Middle East

Malnutrition Poverty• Leads to a >10% potential reduction in lifetime earnings

for each malnourished individual• GDP losses >2-3%• Malnutrition (stunting) in early years linked to a

- 4.6 cm loss of height in adolescence- 0.7 grades loss of schooling- 7 month delay in starting school

(improved nutrition can be a driver of growth)Source: Alderman et al (2003)

But:• Poverty also leads to malnutrition. The hungry are

largely the poor.

Poor water/Sanitation and

inadequate health services

Inadequate maternal and child-

care practices

IFAD works on both routes: mostly on income growth for the poor; but also on nutritionCauses of Child Malnutrition

Child nutrition, survival and development

Inadequate dietary intake

Disease

Insufficient access to food

Quantity and quality of actual resources – human, economic andorganizational – and the way they are controlled

Potential resources: environment, technology, people

Outcomes

Immediate causes

Underlying causes at

household family level

Basic causes at societal

level

Source: The State of the World’s Children, Adapted from World Bank HNP, November 2005

FOOD CARE HEALTH

Inadequate and/or inappropriate knowledge and discriminatory attitudes limit household access to actual resources

Political, cultural, religious, economic and social systems, including women’s status, limit the utilization of potential resources

Solutions to halving hunger

Source: Rosegrant et al, 2005. Adapted from IFPRI.

Annual investments needed to reach the MDG goal of halving hunger

IFAD contributes to agriculture and rural development IFAD has granted and lent about US$ 7 billion for hundreds of

agriculture and rural development programmes in developing countries. Project size varies from USD 200,000 grants to US$ 50 million loans

IFAD targets the very poorest rural populations Has a special focus on women, who are often the poorest and

increasingly left in rural areas by husbands and male family members who migrate to cities or abroad for work

Has special programmes for indigenous peoples (often the poorest of the poor)

Is an early supporter of community-designed and -managed rural development

Finances nutrition interventions

Is food security best assured through food aid, through school feeding or through agriculture/income development?• Food aid as solution for malnutrition and hunger

- Pro: in emergencies food aid is best way to save lives. Agriculture development comes too late or never- Con: Food aid is a disincentive to invest in agriculture and private marketing. It reduces farmers’ income

• School feeding programmes- Pro: easiest and fastest way to get food to children when they have nutrition problems- Con: intervention from pregnancy to the first two years of life is more effective in dealing with under-nutrition in children. School feeding is too late

• Agricultural production expansion- Pro: Provides food for consumption and income for poverty reduction- Con: There is no con

Another way of looking at this: the poverty effect of a 1% productivity gain in agriculture, industry and services in India

Agriculture

Services

Industry-0.2

-0.1

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

Ela

stic

ity (

-ve)

of p

over

ty to

labo

r pr

oduc

tivity

Source: Thirtle et all, 2002

% change in malnourished children depends partly on public investment in agriculture, 2020 (IFPRI)

-60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60

Africa

South Aisa

S/E Asia Low investmentHigh investmentBaseline projection