Challenge 1: Improving access to safe and nutritious food

Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia face many challenges related to pre- and post-harvest losses, connecting to markets, and access to nutritious and safe food. This results in large parts of the population suffering from micronutrient deficiencies, where mostly women and children are affected.

Approximately one-third of the food produced globally for human consumption gets lost or wasted every year. Reduction of these enormous food losses is thus one critical component of improving food security in SSA and South and SE Asia. Furthermore, inadequate food safety resulting in food borne diseases have serious implications on livelihoods and consumer health. Smallholder farmers also face challenges when it comes to accessing markets.

This might be of special importance for women who often are side stepped in the food value chain. A focus of this AgriFoSe2030 challenge will cover aspects of how households in poor communities can have better access to safe and nutritious food. It will also focus of food loss in the various stages of production such as harvest, storage and transportation, and aspects of food safety and how to prevent, detect and respond to threats caused by food borne diseases.

Another focus area will be on how to connect smallholder farmers to markets to increase their income and productivity and ability to respond to increasing demands for safe and nutritious food.