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HarvestPlus & World Vision ink MoU to fight hidden hunger at Davos WEF
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Saturday, 25 January, 2014, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Davos
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fiogf49gjkf0d HarvestPlus and World Vision inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at an event titled ‘Scaling Sustainable Food-Based Solutions to Tackle Hidden Hunger’, at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The event, which was hosted by the United Nations’ World Food Programme, also featured global life and material science major Royal DSM.
They made a commitment to work together to improve nutrition for hundreds of millions of people around the world who suffer from hidden hunger, which is caused by a chronic lack of critical vitamins and minerals that puts children and adults at increased risk of stunting, anaemia, blindness, infectious diseases and even death. One in three people globally suffer from hidden hunger, and women and children are especially vulnerable.
The partnership, which will be launched focussing on such African nations as Burundi, Ghana, Malawi, Sierra leone and Tanzania, will focus on improving access to nutritious staple food crops – for home consumption and to sell in local markets – for vulnerable farming communities. “More nutritious staple food crops are now available,” said Howarth Bouis, director, HarvestPlus.
“About half-a-million farmers are already growing them, and there is an established pipeline for new varieties with even higher levels of vitamins and minerals. However, our reach is limited. We need to work with partners who can scale-up these crops,” he added. He stated that World Vision had the reach and experience needed to spread these crops through rural communities worldwide.
These nutritious food crops have been bred through the biofortification process, which uses conventional plant breeding methods. Not only are varieties higher yielding, they have more resistance to disease and pests, while several varieties are better adapted to drought.
“We are committed to exploring how we can do this together – to reach more people, more quickly, with nutritious foods,” he said. World Vision International’s president, Kevin Jenkins, highlighted its commitment to improving nutrition for the world’s hungriest children, their families and communities.
“We can only do so much on our own. We believe more can be achieved by linking our comparative strengths with HarvestPlus, the World Food Programme, and Royal DSM,” he added.
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