The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2018-09-14

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 9251305722

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New evidence this year corroborates the rise in world hunger observed in this report last year, sending a warning that more action is needed if we aspire to end world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. Updated estimates show the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to prevailing levels from almost a decade ago. Although progress continues to be made in reducing child stunting, over 22 percent of children under five years of age are still affected. Other forms of malnutrition are also growing: adult obesity continues to increase in countries irrespective of their income levels, and many countries are coping with multiple forms of malnutrition at the same time – overweight and obesity, as well as anaemia in women, and child stunting and wasting.

Mapping the linkages between agriculture, food security and nutrition in Malawi
Mapping the linkages between agriculture, food security and nutrition in Malawi

Author: Aberman, Noora-Lisa

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2015-12-16

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13:

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Smallholder agriculture is the mainstay of Malawi’s economy. Its importance for livelihoods cannot be overstated. 94 percent of rural residents and 38 percent of urban residents engage in agriculture to some extent (Jones, Shrinivas, and Bezner-Kerr 2014), the vast majority as smallholder farmers with landholdings of less than one hectare. Smallholder crops are primarily maize—which accounted for nearly 80 percent of smallholder-cultivated land in 2011 —followed by cassava and other food crops (FAO 2008; IFAD 2011). These foods are grown for household consumption and for sale at local and regional markets. As such, the Malawian food supply, especially in rural areas where markets are thin with few buying or selling options, is shaped largely by trends in smallholder food-crop production

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2020-07-01

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 925132901X

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Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions. The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.

Changes in food and nutrition security in Malawi
Changes in food and nutrition security in Malawi

Author: Iñigo Verduzco-Gallo

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2014-07-01

Total Pages: 39

ISBN-13:

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A large proportion of Malawian households are caught in a trap where poverty and food insecurity reinforce one another and where periods of food deficits and severe food crises are frequent occurrences. In recognition of this, the Malawian government has since 2005/06 implemented a large-scale Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP), which supplies half of smallholder farmers with sufficient fertilizer and maize seeds to satisfy the maize consumption needs of an average-sized family. While the program boosted maize production and lowered maize prices, thus ensuring increased caloric availability at the household level, its effect on overall food consumption, dietary diversity, micronutrient deficiency, and child nutrition is less clear. This study evaluates household expenditure survey data to measure changes in nutrition outcomes between 2004/05 and 2010/11.

Food Security in Africa's Secondary cities
Food Security in Africa's Secondary cities

Author: Liam Riley

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2018-04-29

Total Pages: 70

ISBN-13: 1920597352

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This report marks the first stage of AFSUNs goal of expanding knowledge about urban food systems and experiences of household food insecurity in secondary African cities. It contributes to an understanding of poverty and sustainability in Mzuzu, Malawi, through the lens of household food security. The focus on food as an urban issue not only speaks to the development challenges presented by urbanization, but it also brings a fresh perspective to debates about food security in Malawi. The urban setting highlights the changing food system in Malawi where people in rural and urban areas are increasingly reliant on cash income to buy food. The reports key findings include that the most vulner- able households are those without a formal wage income, households headed by older people, especially older women, and households that are not able to produce food in the rural areas. The research also shows that the food system is dynamic and diverse, with households accessing food from a variety of formal and informal food sources and relying on rural-urban linkages for urban survival. Urban and rural agriculture are important features of the food system, but there is little evidence that these are the self-help responses to poverty that advocates for urban agriculture in Africa sometimes imply.

Agriculture, food security, and nutrition in Malawi: Leveraging the links
Agriculture, food security, and nutrition in Malawi: Leveraging the links

Author: Aberman, Noora-Lisa

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2018-02-22

Total Pages: 82

ISBN-13: 089629286X

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Although the Malawian food supply is shaped largely by trends in smallholder food crop production, Ma­lawi’s decades-long focus on improving smallholder productivity has only moderately improved food secu­rity and nutrition outcomes. Country statistics indicate an estimated 36.7 percent of rural Malawian house­holds failed to access sufficient calories between 2010 and 2011. During the same period, 47 percent of children under the age of five years were esti­mated to be stunted in their growth. These indicators imply that some Malawian diets are lacking in terms of quantity (total calories consumed), and most are lacking in terms of quality (sufficient calories derived from nutrient-dense foods, such as meat, fish, eggs, dairy, legumes, fruits, and vegetables). Good nutrition requires both enough total calories (quantity) and enough vitamins and minerals per calorie (quality). How can Malawi better leverage its smallholder agriculture sector to improve nutrition? This report provides a series of primary and secondary data anal­yses that examine different aspects of this question.

Food Insecurity in Informal Settlements in Lilongwe Malawi
Food Insecurity in Informal Settlements in Lilongwe Malawi

Author: Emmanuel Chilanga

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2017-09-26

Total Pages: 41

ISBN-13: 1920597255

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Although there is widespread food availability in urban areas across the Global South, it is not correlated with universal access to adequate amounts of nutritious foods. This report is based on a household survey conducted in 2015 in six low-income informal areas in Malawis capital city, where three-quarters of the population live in informal settlements. Understanding the dimensions of household food insecurity in these neighbourhoods is critical to sustainable and inclusive growth in Lilongwe. The survey findings provide a complementary perspective to the 2008 AFSUN survey conducted in Blantyre, which suggested a level of food security in urban Malawi that was probably more typical of peri-urban areas where many people farm. Given that informal settlements house most of Malawis urban residents, the Lilongwe research presents a serious public policy challenge for the countrys leaders. Poverty is a profound problem in Malawis rapidly expanding cities. Of particular concern is the poor quality of diets among residents of informal settlements. Precarity of income, reflected in the survey findings of frequent purchasing of staple foods and the need for food sellers to extend credit, appears to be a key driver of food insecurity in these communities. Economically inclusive growth, with better prospects for stable employment and protection for informal-sector workers, appears to be the surest route to improved urban food security in Malawi.

The State of Food and Agriculture 2020
The State of Food and Agriculture 2020

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2020-11-26

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9251334412

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Intensifying water constraints threaten food security and nutrition. Thus, urgent action is needed to make water use in agriculture more sustainable and equitable. Irrigated agriculture remains by far the largest user of freshwater, but scarcity of freshwater is a growing problem owing to increasing demand and competition for freshwater resources. At the same time, rainfed agriculture is facing increasing precipitation variability driven by climate change. These trends will exacerbate disputes among water users and inequality in access to water, especially for small-scale farmers, the rural poor and other vulnerable populations. The State of Food and Agriculture 2020 presents new estimates on the pervasiveness of water scarcity in irrigated agriculture and of water shortages in rainfed agriculture, as well as on the number of people affected. It finds major differences across countries, and also substantial spatial variation within countries. This evidence informs a discussion of how countries may determine appropriate policies and interventions, depending on the nature and magnitude of the problem, but also on other factors such as the type of agricultural production system and countries’ level of development and their political structures. Based on this, the publication provides guidance on how countries can prioritize policies and interventions to overcome water constraints in agriculture, while ensuring efficient, sustainable and equitable access to water.

Taking stock of IFPRI’s experience with country programs
Taking stock of IFPRI’s experience with country programs

Author: Hazell, Peter B.R.

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2019-01-16

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13:

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IFPRI commissioned this study to assess how the country programs (CPs) are performing—which approaches and methods are producing the best outcomes across countries and over time—to identify factors that promote or impede their progress and lessons for making them more impactful in the future. The study has two major components. The first is a survey and analysis of the factors that CP leaders perceived to have most helped them influence host-country policies. We interviewed all current and most past CP leaders, which enabled us to compile evidence from recent CP experiences as well as from the 1980s and 1990s. We focused on the lessons they drew from their past successes that shed light on how to make their other activities successful. We did not undertake similar interviews on failed efforts because it is much harder to elicit such information from CP leaders. Additional insights about unsuccessful activities are, however, captured in the second component of the study, a commissioned external evaluation of the performance of a sample of ongoing country programs. Ideally, the external evaluation would have included CPs in both Africa and Asia, but this was not possible with the available budget. We therefore settled for an evaluation of CPs in Africa south of the Sahara. Doing so had two advantages: (1) the African CPs are more homogenous in terms of their objectives, structure, and internal IFPRI management, making comparisons among them more insightful; and (2) the budget was sufficient to both include all the African CPs in some of the analyses and allow the external evaluator to visit three of them.

Priorities for irrigation investment in Malawi
Priorities for irrigation investment in Malawi

Author: Chafuwa, Chiyembekezo

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2017-08-19

Total Pages: 4

ISBN-13:

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This policy note explores priorities for investment in irriga-tion in Malawi, and examines the trade-offs between invest-ment in new irrigation infrastructure, versus rehabilitation and maintenance of existing irrigation infrastructure. By reviewing empirical studies and government publications, the note exam-ines investment trends in the irrigation sector, and further identifies possible channels through which maximum benefits can be accrued from irrigation in Malawi.