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- Championing Agricultural Successes for Africa's Future: African Parliamentarians Meet in South Africa
- On Biotechnology and Biosafety for Developing Countries
- IFPRI's Statement on Biotechnology
- An Insider's Look at China's Historical Rural Reforms
- Understanding the Links between Agriculture and Health
- Interview with David Nabarro
- Biofuels: A Win-Win Approach That Can Serve the Poor
- Food Wastage Can and Should Be Reduced
IFPRI ForumWhile the idea that agriculture affects health has gained increasing acceptance in recent years, the converse is not true: the fact that health also has a significant impact on agriculture has not been so readily adopted, despite the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS on agricultural communities in developing countries. However, a recent IFPRI/2020 Vision panel discussion concluded that now is the time to acknowledge that linkage and use that knowledge to move forward.
"To ignore the bidirectional linkages is to undermine our own efforts," said Corinna Hawkes, a research fellow in the Food Consumption and Nutrition Division at IFPRI and coeditor of a new collection of 16 wide-ranging policy briefs on different aspects of the topic from scholars around the world (see 2020 Vision Focus 13 at www.ifpri.org/2020/focus/focus13.asp).
Hawkes was one of the panelists speaking at the May 15 discussion, which focused on the linkages between agriculture and health. The other speakers included Marie Ruel, director of IFPRI's Food Consumption and Nutrition Division and coeditor of the collection of briefs; Per Pinstrup-Andersen, chair of the CGIAR Science Council and professor of food, nutrition, and public policy at Cornell University; and Robert Bos, a scientist in public health and environment at the World Health Organization. IFPRI's director general, Joachim von Braun, moderated the discussion.
"If we look at what we know today compared to what we knew 35 years ago relative to the interaction between agriculture and health, we've made tremendous progress," said Pinstrup-Andersen. He, like the other panelists, said the next step is to integrate that knowledge, build partnerships, and allocate resources that foster intersectoral initiatives. Von Braun said in closing that the time is now ripe because of the growing numbers of civil society organizations, decentralized governments, and new players in the research funding, development, and innovation fields. (To view the panelists' presentations: www.ifpri.org/2020/focus/focus13.asp#panel)