BY QIYUN HUANG China faces ongoing challenges integrating the economies of its rural and urban areas as it seeks to build on the dynamism of cities to benefit the country’s large population of rural residents—who continue to face widespread poverty and other problems. A Sept. 24 workshop explored these issues in light of China’s “common prosperity” policies, COVID-19 impacts, and more. The
BY CLAUDIA RINGLER AND ELIZABETH BRYAN The International Day of Rural Women (Oct. 15) was established more than a decade ago to recognize the central role of women in improving rural development and food security. It was placed directly before World Food Day (Oct. 16) to highlight women’s key roles in agricultural production, in food processing and marketing, as well as in the preparation
BY SWATI MALHOTRA African agricultural trade has yet to reach its potential, despite progress over the last decade. The continent continues to face issues including the lack of regional integration, inadequate infrastructure, and high trading costs—all recently exacerbated by COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns. However, the Jan. 1 implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) offers unprecedented opportunities for the region.
BY STEVEN BLOCK,BELIYOU HAILE, LIANGZHI YOU AND DEREK HEADEY The growing threat that climate shocks pose to food, water and nutrition security makes understanding the linkages between climate and nutrition increasingly urgent. Our new paper in Food Security demonstrates an empirical connection between rising temperatures, cereal yields, and poorer growth outcomes for children—the first time such a link has been established between climate
BY SWATI MALHOTRA AND SARA GUSTAFSON Despite tremendous progress made in the last decade to produce enough food to meet the demands of the growing population, around 811 million people lived in hunger in 2020 and nearly half of the world’s population lacked year-round access to adequate food due to climate change, poverty, and the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the
BY JULIE KURTZ With the approach of the Sept. 23 UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), the potential of True Cost Accounting (TCA) for food systems has been a topic of much discussion—including Nature Food’s entire September Focus Issue. TCA is a powerful approach to economic assessment that looks beyond conventional financial metrics of food consumption and production to unveil hidden costs and benefits
BY ROOSMARIJN VERSTRAETEN The COVID–19 pandemic, ongoing conflicts, and other problems made 2020 a difficult year for global nutrition. Knowledge will be crucial in addressing current nutrition issues and advancing the nutrition agenda for 2021 and beyond. Transform Nutrition West Africa (TNWA), a project led by IFPRI and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2017-2021 and now
BY JULIE KURTZ With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting livelihoods, and the new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) now beginning to influence food flows, agricultural trade in Africa is in a state of flux, with both challenges and opportunities. While AfCFTA implementation has begun, some crucial negotiations remain to be completed, and the full scope of its impact is not