What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

The Science of Designing Food for the World’s Poor, The Atlantic

Food’s big picture guy, The New York Times

The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. A Coup for Corporate Capital, Transnational Justice

EU diplomats agree to 7% biofuels cap, EurActive

Is There Such a Thing As Sustainable Corn?, Modern Farmer

Warrior queens battle for Africa’s food future, This is Africa

Can we develop a ‘stress test’ for national food systems?, Simon Maxwell

A farm is greater than the sum of its parts, CCAFS

Super foods: from the lab to the table, The Guardian

GM crops: No gain for small farmers, SciDev.Net

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Weight of the world: 2.1 billion people obese or overweight, Reuters

Despite all the highs and lows around the world, our number one challenge is how to feed humanity with nutritious food!, African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development

Food, health and sustainability: we become what we eat, and so does Earth, The Guardian

12 Data visualizations that illustrate poverty’s biggest challenges, ONE

The Science of Inequality. What the numbers tell us, Science

3,000 rice genome sequences made publicly available on World Hunger Day, EurekAlert

UPDATE 2-EU member states back compromise to allow GM crops-diplomats, Reuters

EU biofuel targets need 70m ha of land, says report, Farmers Weekly

The 2013 Lancet Series on Maternal and Child Nutrition

In 2008, The Lancet published a series of papers on maternal and child nutrition. In particular the journal highlighted the significant burden of undernutrition in early life on an individual’s development and survival but also on their future education, labour productivity and earning potential and, as a result, on a country’s GDP.

The series was followed by high-level international action, specifically the 1000 Days Initiative and the UN’s Scaling Up Nutrition movement.

Today The Lancet has released a second series of papers on maternal and child nutrition. The series examines progress that has been made in tackling undernutrition as well as the emerging issue of the double burden of malnutrition in low-income countries: populations exhibiting both obesity as well as micronutrient deficiencies.

Changes, from the last series, in numbers of children stunted, a commonly used measure for malnutrition in children, are largely positive. In 2011, the prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years in developing countries was 26%, compared to 32% in 2005. The number of stunted children has also decreased globally, from 178 million in 2005, to 165 million in 2011.

Obesity however is on the rise. The number of overweight mothers has risen steadily since 1980, and leads to increased maternal morbidity and infant mortality. In children under five, obesity is increasing, particularly in developing countries and is becoming a more significant contributory factor to adult obesity, diabetes, and non-communicable diseases.