2
Growing the farming sector in developing countries will improve children’s health. Or will it? Katy Wilson reports.
Evidence of the impact of agricultural interventions on nutrition security is urgently needed. This was an issue raised at the launch of a Montpellier Panel briefing paper, Scaling Up Nutrition, in the UK Parliament on 17 May, authored by Tom Arnold, CEO Concern Worldwide and myself.
As we have learned from the Green Revolution, it is often the poorest and most in need that are neglected as agriculture develops. India is the second fastest growing economy in the world (with real growth rate of GDP equalling 8.3 per cent in 2010) but the prevalence of underweight children is still high at around 40 per cent.
Continue reading Intuition versus evidence: agriculture and the fight to end child undernutrition
Even in the UK, where we have shown little anxiety about our access to food supplies since the days of rationing in World War 2, food security is back on the agenda.
Climate change could, it seems, be the trigger that makes us overcome our squeamishness about genetically modified crops, according to debates in the popular press. The recent Royal Society report “Reaping the benefits: science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture”, urges universities to work with funding bodies to reverse the decline in subjects relevant to the sustainable intensification of food crop production.
But is technology really going to provide everything that we need or are we simply hoping once again for a quick fix to an extremely complex problem?
