Dr. Modibo Traoré Assistant Director General Agriculture and Consumer Protection

 The role of the agriculture sector in nutrition  Narrowing the: “nutrition gap”  Helping vulnerable households  Direct nutrition interventions  Nutrition-sensitive development  Nutrition - an added value: new initiatives

 It produces food : ◦ Production/Management of biodiversity ◦ Processing and storage ◦ Marketing and distribution ◦ …and contributes to its preparation (access to water and bioenergy)  It provides jobs and generates income: it contributes directly or indirectly to the livelihoods of a significant part of the world’s population (subsistence agriculture, agriculture labourers, informal food sector)  It is a key determinant of food consumption

 Diets are often low in quantity, quality and variety (hunger and micro-nutrient deficiencies)  Increased production of staple foods is not sufficient  We must ensure local availability of the right mix of foods in all seasons  Consumers must be informed  Collaboration must be established with social protection programmes to support the poorest

 Identifying vulnerable livelihood groups ◦ Crisis-affected (natural disasters, conflicts, HIV/AIDS) ◦ Poor and food insecure (rural and urban)  Understanding the causes of malnutrition: food, health and care  Ensuring inter-sectoral collaboration for integrated support  Assessing the impact of interventions

 Helping families with malnourished children: ◦ Improving food availability (quantity, diversity, safety) ◦ Increasing income ◦ Saving time for women Example of direct interventions:  Improved homestead food production  Small-scale food processing  Enabling families to make informed decisions and improve food practices (in particular improved complementary feeding)  Linking with the health sector

 Mainstreaming nutrition in food and agriculture policies and programmes  Implementing local, national and regional food and nutrition security strategies  Ensuring the progressive realization of the right to food  Key challenges: ◦ Feed 9 billion people in 2050 ◦ Manage rising food prices ◦ Adapt to climate change  We cannot deal with complexity without inter-sectoral collaboration at all levels

 Nutrition is the perfect entry point: ◦ for gender ◦ for poverty alleviation ◦ to accelerate progress towards the MDGs ◦ …but also for inter-disciplinary collaboration  We must work with partners: ◦ UN Standing Committee on Nutrition ◦ REACH (Renewed Efforts Against Child Hunger) ◦ Nutrition Cluster  SUN, a decisive process: ◦ in terms of advocacy ◦ to accelerate country action

Healthy people...in healthy environments  Biodiversity and Sustainable Diets FAO, Rome, 3-5 November 2010  International Symposium on Food and Nutrition Security: Food-Based Approaches for Improving Diets and Raising Levels of Nutrition, FAO, Rome, 7-9 December 2010