Pathways to Better Nutrition in South Asia : Evidence on the Effects of Food and Agricultural Interventions

In South Asia, nearly half a billion people are malnourished. This paper examines the links of food and agriculture with nutrition in South Asia, with the goal of informing policy to reduce hunger and malnutrition in the region. We investigate pathways including public food transfer programs, agricu...

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Main Authors: Dizon, Felipe, Josephson, Anna, Raju, Dhushyanth
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35242
id okr-10986-35242
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-352422021-04-23T14:02:19Z Pathways to Better Nutrition in South Asia : Evidence on the Effects of Food and Agricultural Interventions Dizon, Felipe Josephson, Anna Raju, Dhushyanth FOOD AGRICULTURE NUTRITION MALNUTRITION AGRI-FOOD In South Asia, nearly half a billion people are malnourished. This paper examines the links of food and agriculture with nutrition in South Asia, with the goal of informing policy to reduce hunger and malnutrition in the region. We investigate pathways including public food transfer programs, agricultural diversification, and different methods of food fortification. We find that public food transfer programs, used to make food available and affordable to poor households, are often unable to significantly protect or promote nutrition. But several supply-side food and agricultural interventions show promise in improving nutrition, although their effects have yet to be well identified. These include the cultivation of home gardens, animal agriculture, and use of biofortification and post-harvest fortification. All these efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition will be futile, however, without parallel efforts to mitigate rising challenges in the region, including those posed by climate change, urbanization, food loss and food waste, and food safety hazards. 2021-03-10T21:07:19Z 2021-03-10T21:07:19Z 2021-03 Journal Article Global Food Security http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35242 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Journal Article South Asia South Asia
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
topic FOOD
AGRICULTURE
NUTRITION
MALNUTRITION
AGRI-FOOD
spellingShingle FOOD
AGRICULTURE
NUTRITION
MALNUTRITION
AGRI-FOOD
Dizon, Felipe
Josephson, Anna
Raju, Dhushyanth
Pathways to Better Nutrition in South Asia : Evidence on the Effects of Food and Agricultural Interventions
geographic_facet South Asia
South Asia
description In South Asia, nearly half a billion people are malnourished. This paper examines the links of food and agriculture with nutrition in South Asia, with the goal of informing policy to reduce hunger and malnutrition in the region. We investigate pathways including public food transfer programs, agricultural diversification, and different methods of food fortification. We find that public food transfer programs, used to make food available and affordable to poor households, are often unable to significantly protect or promote nutrition. But several supply-side food and agricultural interventions show promise in improving nutrition, although their effects have yet to be well identified. These include the cultivation of home gardens, animal agriculture, and use of biofortification and post-harvest fortification. All these efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition will be futile, however, without parallel efforts to mitigate rising challenges in the region, including those posed by climate change, urbanization, food loss and food waste, and food safety hazards.
format Journal Article
author Dizon, Felipe
Josephson, Anna
Raju, Dhushyanth
author_facet Dizon, Felipe
Josephson, Anna
Raju, Dhushyanth
author_sort Dizon, Felipe
title Pathways to Better Nutrition in South Asia : Evidence on the Effects of Food and Agricultural Interventions
title_short Pathways to Better Nutrition in South Asia : Evidence on the Effects of Food and Agricultural Interventions
title_full Pathways to Better Nutrition in South Asia : Evidence on the Effects of Food and Agricultural Interventions
title_fullStr Pathways to Better Nutrition in South Asia : Evidence on the Effects of Food and Agricultural Interventions
title_full_unstemmed Pathways to Better Nutrition in South Asia : Evidence on the Effects of Food and Agricultural Interventions
title_sort pathways to better nutrition in south asia : evidence on the effects of food and agricultural interventions
publisher Elsevier
publishDate 2021
url http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35242
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