In recent years many Asian countries have seen rapid transformation in people’s diets and the underlying agrifood system. But malnutrition remains a serious challenge for many countries in the region. Only a few Asian countries are on course to meet some of the globally adopted nutrition targets set for 2030 embodied in the SDGs, while most are likely to fall short. According to a recent report published by FAO, about 514 million people in Asia are undernourished. At the same time, changing lifestyles have led to increased consumption of over-processed food and convenience products that are often less nutritious, raising rates of overweight and obesity.
To accelerate progress in reducing hunger and improve access to healthy diets, IFPRI’s ReSAKSS-Asia program and the Myanmar Institute for Integrated Development (MIID) recently held a regional conference entitled “Evolving Agrifood Systems in Asia: Achieving food and nutrition security by 2030” on Oct 30th and 31st in Yangon, Myanmar with the financial support of USAID to share lessons on what agrifood policies have worked in Asia to reduce hunger and malnutrition.
Malnutrition is a complex, multi-sectoral problem that presents across a continuum, from under-nutrition due to deficiencies in energy, protein, and micronutrients to problems of overweight, obesity, and noncommunicable diseases resulting from poor quality, energy-dense, and micronutrient-poor diets. Diets in Asia, and indeed globally, are rapidly changing as income increases. While the poor generally derive a large share of their energy from staple foods (such as rice), as incomes rise, diets diversify into more nutritious foods such as fruits, vegetables and animal products. However, people’s lifestyles also change with income growth. Less healthy diets combined with increasingly sedentary lifestyles are driving rising rates of overweight and obesity and a surge in non-communicable diseases. The simultaneous rise of overnutrition with the lingering prevalence of undernutrition within the same countries, and sometimes even in the same households, has been dubbed the double-burden of contemporary malnutrition and is making the design of agrifood system and nutrition policies increasingly complex.
Myanmar presents a case in point. Recent figures from the 2015 Demographic and Health Survey for Myanmar show that 29% of children under 5 are stunted, with higher rates in rural areas (32%) than urban (20%). Almost 1 in 5 children are underweight and 58% of children are anemic. At the same time, 25.5% of women are overweight or obese.
Creating an enabling environment for improved diets
“The private sector can contribute to reducing hunger and improving access to nutritious foods in Myanmar and throughout Asia,” said U Kyaw Swe Linn, Director General, Department of Planning of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation. “Myanmar sits between major global markets in need of quality food products. Myanmar should be very attractive to private investors.”
These companies, however, often lack access to modern technology and the “know-how” needed to meet quality standards and supply high-value, nutritious products to growing domestic and export markets. Foreign investment may help overcome certain constraints, but effective private-public sector coordination and policies to promote and incentivize local investors and businesses remain essential. During the conference these topics will be primary points of discussion.
Improving Agrifood System Governance and Harnessing Innovations
Agrifood system transformation and rapid urbanization often lead to new actors entering the food system. Existent governance and market institutions may not meet the concerns of these emerging private sector actors and consumers. In addition, as the food systems evolve and become more complex, new technologies are introduced that may challenge existing policies. Addressing these concerns may call for the adoption of new policies and application of modern technologies to monitor and regulate the food system and hence increased collaboration between the public and private sector.
Throughout Asia new technologies are helping to deliver foods with better nutritional value. For example, boosting the nutritional content of staple foods through fortification or crops themselves through biofortification is helping reduce the incidence of harmful health conditions like anemia and improve cognitive development in places as diverse as Pakistan and Indonesia.
But innovation extends far beyond just crop breeding and agricultural machinery. Innovation in agriculture and food systems can involve using new organizational and institutional processes to support farmers and businesses. These can range from better cross-sector coordination between ministries of health and agriculture to improve behavior change communications that encourage the adoption of ideal nutrition and child feeding practices when integrated into social programs. Other innovations can support access to markets and credit in pioneering ways, or develop new ways of processing, storing, transporting and marketing food.
Sharing lessons from across Asia
By convening researchers, policymakers, and development partners to share knowledge of the policies, interventions, and technologies that have effectively improved nutrition, the conference aimed to catalyze the next era of rapid reduction of malnutrition in Asia. Examples from throughout Asia have proven effective in reducing malnutrition and by empowering key actors and sharing with each other those successful experiences, we accelerate implementation.
Presentations and photos from the conference can be found on the ReSAKSS-Asia website.
