June 8, 2013
Speaking today at the event “Nutrition for Growth: Beating Hunger through Business and Science,” Rachel Kyte, Chair of the CGIAR Fund Council and World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development, announced CGIAR’s commitment to spend at least US$400 million on nutrition-relevant agricultural research for the next 3 years, while the UK and Canadian governments announced new funding to CGIAR to support this work.
Organized by the UK Government in advance of the G8 Summit and co-hosted by the Government of Brazil and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the high-level meeting sought ambitious policy and financial commitments to improve nutrition of the poor, recognizing that in order to alleviate poverty, foster economic growth and development, and give every human being the opportunity to lead a healthy and productive life, we have to make good nutrition a top political priority.
“CGIAR is determined to deliver new products, more evidence and better access to safe and nutritious foods, especially for women and children,” said Rachel Kyte, calling attention to two key aspects of this challenge: first, the critical importance of agricultural research for generating new technologies and innovations to tackle undernutrition; and second, the value of working with the private sector to ensure that research results get more quickly into the hands of those who need them most.
CGIAR’s HarvestPlus program, which tackles “hidden hunger” caused by diets low in essential vitamins and minerals by breeding nutrient-rich varieties of staple food crops, is already capitalizing on the potential of public-private partnerships to deliver new seeds with greater speed and scale.
In India, where HarvestPlus and its local partners are working with the Nirmal Seeds Company, more than 100,000 farmers will likely be growing high-iron pear millet by the end of the year—this in a region where over 60% of children under five suffer from iron deficiency.
In Zambia, where over half of all children under five are vitamin A deficient, CGIAR scientists are partnering with SeedCo Zambia to accelerate the commercialization of vitamin A-rich maize to stave off blindness, disease, and – in some cases — death.
The CGIAR commitment announced today includes £42 million in new funding from the UK to support biofortification work that will benefit 4.2 million farming households, with £30 million of that earmarked for HarvestPlus to continue developing six nutritionally-enriched crop varieties for 3 million households in seven countries in Africa and Asia.
“We’re very appreciative of the UK Government’s continuing commitment to nutrition,” said Howarth Bouis, Director of HarvestPlus. “This grant will enable us to continue working with our CGIAR and national research partners to keep rolling out new varieties of nutrient-rich crops, and also provide the rigorous research evidence that these crops are being adopted and are improving nutrition for the poor.”
Another £12 million will go to CGIAR’s International Potato Center (CIP) to support similar work.
“The new UK funding will enable CIP to reach 1.2 million farming households with vitamin-A enriched orange flesh sweet potato in four countries in Africa, where more than 40 percent of all children under five suffer from vitamin A deficiency,” said Pamela Anderson, CIP Director General, during her remarks at the London meeting. “These new varieties, which are also drought tolerant, virus resistant, and high yielding, could bring significant benefits for nutrition in regions that are increasingly affected by drought,” she added.
On behalf of the Canadian Government, Julian Fantino, Minister of International Cooperation, also announced a major new contribution to CGIAR at today’s event, which brought together heads of state, ministers, business leaders, and representatives from donor, civil society, and UN agencies. As part of its commitment to the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, Canada is providing CDN$20 million to support the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).
“We are very grateful for Canada’s strong support for this program, which is specifically designed to catalyze the immense potential of agriculture to improve nutrition and health,” said John McDermott, Director of A4NH. “We work closely with agricultural partners, researchers, policymakers, and development practitioners to promote healthier foods from farm to fork, including nutrient-rich staple foods for the poor, and better programs and policies to enhance nutrition and reduce disease risks.”
CGIAR is scaling up its nutrition-related work across other CGIAR Research Programs as well, including Roots, Tubers and Bananas; Livestock and Fish; Policy, Institutions and Markets; Grain Legumes; and Aquatic Agricultural Systems, aiming to increase access to quality animal and fish sourced food, reduce risk of zoonotic diseases, and increase food safety in value chains critical to poor households. Innovations by CGIAR’s International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) are helping to detect and control aflatoxin, a harmful and potentially deadly poison produced by fungus that invests various food crops in Africa.
CGIAR researchers are also exploiting the vast potential of agricultural biodiversity for improving the nutrition and incomes of poor people in developing countries. In Bolivia, a partnership between Bioversity International and the private sector has led to the inclusion of highly nutritious Andean grain products, such as energy bars made from amaranth, in school feeding programs, improving child nutrition and generating additional income for all members of the value chain.
“These initiatives throughout CGIAR are helping to transform the lives of millions of poor people and enabling communities and countries to grow and prosper,” says Frank Rijsberman, CEO of the CGIAR Consortium. “But we can do more. With new funding from our partners, CGIAR is determined to step up its efforts to fill the existing gap between agricultural development and its unfulfilled health and nutritional benefits.”
Note: A selection of photos by Alina Paul-Bossuet, ICRISAT Communications Specialist, was on display at the event venue. The “Fighting Malnutrition” collage illustrates projects that highlight how various agricultural interventions can improve the nutrition and wellbeing of poor people in developing countries.
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