SHiFT at AAEA’s 2024 Annual Meeting

The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) held its annual meeting and scientific conference from July 27 to 30, 2024, in New Orleans, Louisiana. More than 1,400 participants, mostly from academic organizations and government agencies, attended the meeting.  

The meeting provided an opportunity for researchers from the CGIAR Research Initiative on Sustainable Healthy Diets through Food Systems Transformation (SHiFT) to share preliminary research with other academics. Dr. Marcos Dominguez Viera, a researcher from Wageningen University and Research (WUR) engaged in SHiFT’s Work Package (WP) 4 on Trade-off Scenario Analysis, presented his research during the session titled “Examining Varied Sustainable Agricultural Practices Across Regions and Value Chain Phases.” The session featured researchers from the University of California, Davis; University of Wisconsin—River Falls; the Thünen Institute; and Texas A&M University.  

Marcos shared preliminary findings from SHiFT’s foresight research in Viet Nam. The team’s quantitative models show that if, by 2050, the country’s population shifted its current diet toward a sustainable healthy diet (as defined by the study), it would lead to substantial benefits for human health and food affordability.  

However, this dietary shift would not resolve food system challenges related to import dependency, land use, or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the agrifood sector. The models suggest that complementary policies, such as strategies to reduce food waste by 33 percent and new rice cultivation systems, would be needed to help the country reduce dependency on imports and achieve GHG emission targets by 2050, but these would not have positive effects on land use.  

As part of SHiFT’s participatory modeling approach, the WP4 team from WUR has also engaged with local experts in Viet Nam to discuss these results and revise their models.  

Header image: Peri-urban agriculture on the outskirts of Hanoi, Viet Nam. Photo by Georgina Smith/CIAT from Flickr.  

The International Food Policy Research Institute and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT lead SHiFT in close collaboration with Wageningen University and Research and with contributions from the International Potato Center. SHiFT combines high-quality nutritional and social science research capacity with development partnerships to generate innovative, robust solutions that contribute to healthier, more sustainable dietary choices and consumption of sustainable healthy diets. It builds on CGIAR’s unparalleled track record of agricultural research for development, including ten years of work on food systems and nutrition under the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.