Sustainable Agriculture is the Key to Ending Hunger

Think of eight people you know. One of them may go to bed hungry tonight. Not surprisingly, about 98% of hungry people live in developing countries and the crisis will likely get worse. The alarming signs of increasing food insecurity and high levels of different forms of malnutrition are a clear warning that there is considerable work to be done to make sure we 'leave no one behind' on the road towards achieving the SDG goals on food security and improved nutrition.

Ending world hunger is a complicated goal. The conditions to reach it appear in the fully-worded United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 2: “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” Ending hunger means not only achieving food security — or the availability, access to and use of food — but also improving nutrition; calories alone aren’t enough.

This can only occur through the promotion and adoption of sustainable agriculture in the form of a food production and delivery system that meets society’s needs in the present without compromising the needs of future generations.

Sustainable agriculture embraces the environmental, economic and social conditions that challenge food security. By taking a whole systems approach, agriculture, when done sustainably, has the potential to relieve hunger and create lasting change.

How Big is World Hunger?

The current world population of 7.3 billion is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050. Today, nearly 800 million people, or one in nine, are undernourished. By 2050, that number could grow by two billion. Most of the world’s hungry live in developing countries, where 13 percent of people face undernourishment. Asia faces the greatest hunger burden, with two-thirds of its population suffering from undernourishment. In Sub-Saharan Africa, one in four people experience the same lack of food and vital nutrients.

Hunger and malnutrition hit the hardest among the most vulnerable population: children. In the first 1,000 days of life, from gestation to a child’s second birthday, malnourished children suffer irreparable loss in brain development. Poor nutrition causes nearly half of all deaths in children under five. It hurts their ability to learn and grow, as shown by the one in four children who experience stunting worldwide. In developing countries, that proportion can rise to one in three. In Africa, among the primary school-age children who manage to attend school, 66 million attend classes hungry.

Extreme hunger and malnutrition inhibit sustainable development and create a trap that cannot easily be escaped. Adults who suffer from undernourishment as children grow up facing lifelong health challenges and find themselves more prone to disease. They often struggle to earn a living or improve their agricultural productivity because of two main conditions: hunger and malnutrition.

 Nutrition-sensitive agriculture, which maximizes investment in agriculture that improves nutrition, holds the key to solving both. That means saying goodbye to agriculture that only supports homogenous diets of nutrient-poor, staple foods and welcoming more diverse diets. By growing, consuming and selling more diverse crops, especially during off seasons, farmers diversify their incomes, which allows them to buy and consume more nutritious food.

Progress in the Fight to End Hunger

Part of the Millennium Development Goal 1 – to halve the number of hungry people, or reduce it to below 5 percent, from 1990 to 2015 —made significant progress, despite major population growth. By 2015, when monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals ended, 72 of 129 countries reached the goal. Developing regions decreased their share of undernourished people from 23 to 13 percent, and the world now has 218 million fewer people suffering from undernourishment than it did 25 years ago.

Much of that result has to do with agriculture. As the single largest employer in the world, agriculture provides livelihoods for 40 percent of today’s global population. It’s the largest source of income for poor, rural households. In fact, 500 million small farms provide up to 80 percent of the food consumed in a large part of the developing world.

Most farmers’ fields are rain-fed, meaning their crops rely solely on rainfall. Without irrigation systems, they face serious risks due to unpredictable weather patterns. For this and many other reasons, investing in technology for smallholder farmers helps ensure food security for the poorest populations and consistent food production for local and global markets. Setting appropriate policy environments, catalyzing private investment to make markets more effective and making agricultural improvements sustainable together can help end world hunger.

Women farmers typically have less land to farm and probably don't own that land. They own fewer farm animals and have less access to improved seeds. In addition, they have lower education levels than men and are less likely to get credit or insurance.

In fact, if women farmers were on the same playing field as their male counterparts, the the number of hungry people in the world would be reduced by up to 17%. So how do we level that playing field? We need to connect the unconnected.

This is simply organizing farmers -- connecting them to each other, to supply chains and then to markets. But it goes deeper than traditional community development. Communities have to become engaged in a journey of personal transformation as individuals, families and villages. For success to be solid, there must be harmony that connects and heals the psychological and social effects of generations of poverty and hunger.

Today, the turning point in agriculture is sustainability. But how do we strengthen agricultural markets and food systems to boost economic progress and deliver on the promise of improved diets for all? The key lies with sustainable, nutrition-sensitive agriculture. When working so hard to produce more food, smallholder farmers should also be nourishing their families.

Finally, the world has made incredible progress towards ending world hunger. But we still have a long way to go, if we want to solve the problem, we first have to target the people who produce the food and create a surplus that can be sold or provided to other hungry people.

Next, we focus on the women. There are 600 million small farmers and herders in the world, but one of the key reasons there are so many hungry people is because nearly more than a half of those farmers are not women. Even though they are as equally capable as male farmers, these women face challenges that cause them to grow less food.

Working faster and bigger has to be our ultimate goal so that the small farmers of today can be fed and can prepare for the rapidly growing population. Success will depend on deeply embedded social engagement on the part of those farmers. And, on our part, to connect with them in ways that are supportive, patient and ultimately highly productive.

Ending world hunger can be done.