Compact2025 News in Brief: August 5, 2020

To accelerate progress to end hunger and undernutrition around the world, the News in Brief informs partners on emerging research and innovation, developments in global, regional, and national policies and programs, and timely news and events. Please feel free to share any feedback at IFPRI-Compact2025@cgiar.org. Find the latest developments in Compact2025 here.

New partnership promotes investment in Latin American agriculture

The Commission on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament (PARLATINO) and FAO have joined forces to promote increased responsible investment in agriculture and food systems in order to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. The partnership aims to enable the policy, legal, regulatory, and institutional environments to mobilize these investments in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A research vision for food systems in the 2020s

A journal article in Global Food Security calls for research and science to not only inform food and environmental policy but also be adopted and mainstreamed into actions at all levels. The article puts forth the vital role of research in charting a sustainable direction for food systems and stresses the need to challenge the status quo to transform food systems to deliver sustainable, healthy diets.

Can smallholders benefit from supermarket contracts?

Food systems in developing countries are changing rapidly with a growing role of modern supermarkets, but the extent to which smallholders benefit is unclear. A Food Policy journal article analyzes the impacts of supermarket contracts on smallholder vegetable farmers in Kenya, and concludes that supermarket contracts increase smallholder household income by over 40%, with significant reductions in poverty.

Reducing the true cost of food

An IFPRI research brief sheds light on the heavy environmental and public health costs of our modern food system, and calls on the G20 to lead on this problem with a three-pronged policy: (1) Issue a mandate for a harmonized approach to measure the social cost of food, (2) Coordinate international reform of current harmful policies that contribute to costs, and (3) Set an agenda to repurpose government resources for reducing the costs remaining after reform of current policies.

Impacts and threats of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security and nutrition, and options to respond

As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, the development community is working to understand how the crisis impacts food security, nutrition, and food systems:

Download the new IFPRI e-book on COVID-19 and Global Food Security. It brings together insights and analyses from researchers on the impacts of the first six months of the global pandemic. The book was launched in a virtual event on August 4.
The heads of UNICEF, FAO, WFP, and WHO stress in a call to action in the Lancet the need to protect children’s right to nutrition in the face of COVID-19, and provide five immediate actions: (1) Promote access to nutritious, safe, and affordable diets; (2) Increase investments especially for new and expectant mothers; (3) scale up early detection and treatment of child wasting; (4) maintain school meal programs; and (5) expand social protection.
An IFPRI guest blog post describes how India’s agri-food supply chains fared during the COVID-19 lockdown. Sudha Narayanan of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research explains that parts of the food system have thus far proven resilient. See IFPRI’s COVID-19 webpage for more evidence, blogs, tools, and events.

The future of food assistance for nutrition

USAID and Tufts University will host the Evidence Summit II on food assistance for nutrition on October 5–8. The summit will showcase findings on recent programs and discuss impacts of pandemics and disease outbreaks on programming and supply chain logistics; recent advances in science related to nutrition; and ways to improve nutrition programming. Abstracts for the online poster session can be submitted until August 31.

Food safety and nutrition

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) will host a webinar on August 6 to explore the critical link between food safety and nutrition within food systems. The event will introduce EatSafe, a new program to enhance food safety for consumers in informal markets. Supported by USAID, the event will also describe the Agency’s efforts to improve food safety and nutrition.

Highlights from this and past Compact2025 News in Briefs, along with other key resources, can be found at the Compact2025 Knowledge & Innovation Hub resources page.

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