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Agriculture and Nutrition: a Common Future







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    Book (series)
    2018 Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition
    Accelerating progress towards the SDGs
    2018
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    During the last three years, progress at reducing undernourishment has slowed tremendously in Asia and the Pacific. After years of gains in combatting hunger, progress has stagnated in all parts of this vast region. Despite decades of economic growth, nearly half a billion people remain undernourished. Children, in particular, continue to face the burden of malnutrition – this region is home to more than half of the world’s malnourished children – with one child in every four below the age of five suffering from stunting. This is a colossal human loss, given the association between undernutrition and poor cognitive development, with severe lifelong consequences for these children. At the same time, and almost paradoxically, Asia and the Pacific has witnessed rapid growth in the number of overweight children and the serious consequences that entails for their future health and well-being. This double burden of malnutrition sees undernourished and overweight children living in the same communities and households and it can even occur within the same child. Efforts to fight hunger and malnutrition must go hand in hand with those to build and sustain peace and there is an urgent need to accelerate and scale up actions that strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity of people and their livelihoods to climate variability and extremes. As migration from rural to urban areas continues apace, particularly involving poorer families, urban malnutrition is another challenge facing many countries. In summary, what is becoming increasingly clear is that the world cannot meet the 2030 target of zero hunger if Asia and the Pacific – the world’s most populous region – is not leading the way. It is a hard reality but one that must be faced with a united determination to turn things around. For the first time, four UN agencies have come together to jointly assess the state of food security and nutrition in Asia and the Pacific. Together, we hope that the findings of this report will contribute to a more informed dialogue. Without doubt, all stakeholders must make much greater efforts to accelerate progress toward the goals of a healthy and hunger-free Asia and the Pacific. Action is needed now. The sense of urgency cannot be overstated.
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    State of Food and Agriculture in Asia and the Pacific Region, including Future Prospects and Emerging Issues 2018
    The Asia and the Pacific region has made remarkable progress in reducing food insecurity and malnutrition over the past quarter of a century, albeit with variations across subregions. Nevertheless, the triple burden of malnutrition, the coexistence of undernutrition, obesity and overweight, and micronutrient deficiencies, weighs heavily on the performance of countries of the region. The improvements in food security and nutrition, as well as the increase in obesity and overweight – have resulted to a large extent from the increased availability of and access to food. Diets have improved in quality and quantity as overall, people consume less cereals and more livestock productsThese changes in dietary intake and quality were made possible, inter alia, by the development of crop agriculture, through the adoption of improved varieties of rice, wheat and maize, coupled with increased use of fertilizer and other inputs and an increase in the areas under irrigation. In turn, these factors made it possible to increase cereal production for food and animal feed. Improved feed coupled with improvements in livestock breeding allowed increased production of meat, milk, eggs and other livestock products. Horticulture and fisheries also saw large increases in some countries. The development of agriculture, covering crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry, 1. led to higher incomes for rural households and kept food prices lower than they would otherwise have been. These factors improved availability of and access to food, thus improving nutrition, but with large subregional disparities. South Asia, for example, lagged behind Southeast Asia and East Asia.
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    Book (series)
    Asia and the Pacific – Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition, 2022
    Statistics and trends
    2023
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    This is the fifth edition of the Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition annual report. This publication is led by FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) and jointly contributed to by United Nations' partner agencies (UNICEF, WFP, WHO), on the region’s progress (or lack thereof) to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular SDG 2 – Ending Hunger) and the World Health Assembly (WHA) 2030 targets on food security and nutrition. In recent years, previous editions reported that progress was stalling, then regressing and then more recently pushing us further off track. This reverse was evident even before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in 2020. The decline continued and worsened during the pandemic and the data is captured in this report. Updated estimates on the cost and affordability of a healthy diet show that nearly 45 percent of the region’s population cannot afford one. Reducing the cost of a healthy diet and making it more affordable is a critical element for achieving ending hunger (SDG2) and also the other SDGs. This year’s report also looks closely at food security and nutrition in urban areas which will increasingly contribute to the progress in SDG indicators as the proportion of the urban population across the region is set to cross 50 percent in this decade.

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