Hunger And Malnutrition As Major Challenges Of The 21st Century

The UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for 'Zero Hunger' has refocused attention on hunger and malnutrition as major challenges for the 21st century and as essential desired goals for human development. This volume provides key insights on how these challenges for food security can be addressed globally and in a number of countries that face these challenges most acutely.According to the World Food Summit, food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. The implication is that lack of food security would overlap with hunger — both overt and hidden — and undernutrition and would have spillover effects onto the health of and labor market performance of those affected by such insecurity. This range of issues have guided the choice of contributions to this volume. Several manifestations of these topics are covered for a number of countries in Asia and Africa.

In 2000 the world's leaders and experts agreed that the eradication of hunger was the essential task for the new millennium. Yet in the last decade the price of wheat, soya and rice have spiraled, seen by many as the cause of widening poverty gap and political unrest from the Arab Spring to Latin America. This food crisis has condemned the bottom billion of the world's population who live on less than $1 a day to a state of constant hunger. In The Reproach of Hunger leading expert on humanitarian aid and development, David Rieff, goes in search of the causes of this food security crisis, as well as the failures to respond to the disaster. In addition to the failures to address climate change, poor governance and misguided optimism, Rieff cautions against the increased privatization of aid, with such organization as the Gates Foundation spending more that the WHO on food relief. The invention of the celebrity campaigner - from Bono to Jeffrey Sachs - whose business-led solutions have robbed development of its political urgency. The hope that the crisis of food scarcity of food production can be solved by a technological innovation. In response Rieff demands that we rethink the fundamental causes of the world's grotesque inequalities and see the issue as a political challenge we are all failing to confront.

This comprehensive two-volume encyclopedia examines specific famines throughout history and contains entries on key topics related to food production, security and policies, and famine, giving readers an in-depth look at food crises and their causes, responses to them, and outcomes. Famines have claimed more lives across human history than all the wars ever fought. This two-volume set represents the most comprehensive study of food and famine currently available, providing the broadest analysis of hunger and famine causes as well as a detailed examination of the ramifications of cultural and natural hazards upon famine. Volume one focuses upon 50 topics and issues relating to the creation of hunger and famines in the world from 4000 BCE to 2100, including an overview of how agriculture has evolved from primitive hunting and gathering that supported limited numbers of people to a worldwide system that now feeds over seven billion people. Volume two, entitled Classic Famines, begins with famines of the past, from 4000 BCE to 2100 CE, includes ten classic famine case studies, and concludes with predictions of famines we could see in the 21st century and beyond.

We are delighted to present to you the first issue of Abstract Digest for this year. This issue has two important LANCET Commission Reports. The EAT–Lancet Commission is the first of a series of initiatives on nutrition, led by The Lancet in 2019, followed by the Commission on the Global Syndemic of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change. Along with these, we have articles from an issue of Public Health Nutrition that focuses on child and adolescent nutrition, and much more.

One of the key issues the world grappled with during COVID-19 was the distributional implications of lockdowns globally. The shadow of lockdown policies continues when nations still try to emerge out of the pandemic. Heterogeneity herein over time, country and even within nations in policy making resulted in unintended consequences and debates between citizens, scientists, policy makers and civil society. Responses to COVID-19 meanwhile tried to balance a long run approach which involved the health sector, built on an innovation-oriented mindset and kept in mind the broader economic implications of policy decisions for the future.Flattening the Curve is an effort to summarize these learnings from COVID-19, especially for future pandemics in this age of zoonotic diseases and the Anthropocene. Assembling scholars, scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs from across a variety of fields, this edited volume brings an interdisciplinary understanding to how the world can better respond socially to pandemics. It should be of immense value for students, scholars, policy makers and researchers in public policy, global health, economics, science and innovation policy, as well as regulation and business.

This book examines the current and future challenges facing the food and agricultural system and their implications for policymaking at the national and international level.The growth in global population and income is expected to result in increasing demand for food and agricultural raw materials, intensifying concerns over food security and increasing pressure on the planet's natural resources. Moreover, climate change — a challenge on its own — is likely to increase the urgency for reforms in the food and agricultural sector. As a substantial contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, the sector will need to participate in efforts to slow global warming and to adjust to the effects of climate change, while ensuring global food security and resource sustainability. These pressures define a new set of priorities for policymaking at the national and international level. They also necessitate changes in the framework of global institutions for effective governance of the food system.Global Challenges for Future Food and Agricultural Policies presents a comprehensive analysis of the inter-related policy challenges of food security, management of natural resources, climate change, and international governance. The book also offers valuable insights into options for effective policymaking with the goal of inducing positive policy changes to the food and agricultural sector.

FAO in the 21st Century: Ensuring Food Security in a Changing World details the current knowledge of complex and interrelated challenges that are compounding efforts to achieve global food security. It discusses likely implications for the food and agriculture sector and for hunger and poverty reduction efforts, including FAO's role in assisting members in the coming years. This book is for everyone interested in better understanding the dynamics of the current global issues and changing patterns in agriculture and natural resources.

Advances in science and policy during the past 50 years have prevented the predicted widespread food shortages as the world's population soared. Malnutrition, however, remains prevalent. This book details strategies and practical approaches designed to alleviate hunger and malnutrition in a new era where technological change, markets, patterns of governance, and social programs have an increasingly global dimension. More specifically, this book addresses a range of considerations including the role of small farmers in a world where the global reach of multinational corporations have enormous control from the farm to local markets and the grocery store; misgivings and misperceptions about genetically modified foods; the increasing competition of food and energy sectors for agricultural output; the importance of micronutrient deficiencies and chronic disease related to obesity, which often coexists in the same communities as hunger; and issues of sustainability of the food and agricultural system in an period when there is increasing concerns over global warming and environmental degradation. Currently there is also more emphasis on evidence-based policymaking, which has raised the standard of proof for evaluating the impact of micro-level interventions that have traditionally been so widely embraced and are now under increased scrutiny. It is in this context that this book provides practical advice on programs that can effectively target those at greatest risk of malnutrition and guidance on policies to promote a healthy and sustainable food and agricultural system. Overlaying all of these challenges is the book's emphasis on both identifying data and information needs for decision-making, and practical considerations for better understanding the domestic and international political and social constraints that need to be addressed when trying to translate scientific knowledge and information into practice.