Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Jun 6:3:14.
doi: 10.3389/fnut.2016.00014. eCollection 2016.

Enabled or Disabled: Is the Environment Right for Using Biodiversity to Improve Nutrition?

Danny Hunter  1 , Isa Özkan  2 , Daniela Moura de Oliveira Beltrame  3 , Wellakke Lokuge Gamini Samarasinghe  4 , Victor Wafula Wasike  5 , U Ruth Charrondière  6 , Teresa Borelli  1 , Jessica Sokolow  1
Affiliations

Enabled or Disabled: Is the Environment Right for Using Biodiversity to Improve Nutrition?

Danny Hunter et al. Front Nutr. .

Abstract

How can we ensure that 9 billion people will have access to a nutritious and healthy diet that is produced in a sustainable manner by 2050? Despite major advances, our global food system still fails to feed a significant part of humanity adequately. Diversifying food systems and diets to include nutrient-rich species can help reduce malnutrition, while contributing other multiple benefits including healthy ecosystems. While research continues to demonstrate the value of incorporating biodiversity into food systems and diets, perverse subsidies, and barriers often prevent this. Countries like Brazil have shown that, by strategic actions and interventions, it is indeed possible to create better contexts to mainstream biodiversity for improved nutrition into government programs and public policies. Despite some progress, there are few global and national policy mechanisms or processes that effectively join biodiversity with agriculture and nutrition efforts. This perspective paper discusses the benefits of biodiversity for nutrition and explores what an enabling environment for biodiversity to improve nutrition might look like, including examples of steps and actions from a multi-country project that other countries might replicate. Finally, we suggest what it might take to create enabling environments to mainstream biodiversity into global initiatives and national programs and policies on food and nutrition security. With demand for new thinking about how we improve agriculture for nutrition and growing international recognition of the role biodiversity, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development presents an opportunity to move beyond business-as-usual to more holistic approaches to food and nutrition security.

Keywords: Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Project (BFN); Convention on Biological Diversity; agriculture; biodiversity; environment; nutrition.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The main domains of an enabling environment for BFN.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. FAO. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015. Rome: FAO; (2015).
    1. Ng M, Fleming T, Robinson M, Thomson B, Graetz N, Margono C, et al. Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet (2014) 384(9945):766–81.10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60460-8 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. HLPE. Food Security and Climate Change, a Report by the High-level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. Rome: Committee on World Food Security; (2013).
    1. Millennium Ecosystem, Assessment. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Health Synthesis. Geneva: WHO; (2005).
    1. Vermeulen SJ, Campbell BM, Ingram JS. Climate change and food systems. Annu Rev Environ Resour (2012) 37(1):195.10.1146/annurev-environ-020411-130608 - DOI

LinkOut - more resources