2017 Global Nutrition Symposium

Nurturing Development: Improving Human Nutrition with Animal-Source Foods

Presented by the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), University of Florida

Content: Videos and Presentations

Session I. Malnutrition: Challenges and Pathways to Solutions
Session II. Benefits and Risks of Animal-source Food Consumption: The Evidence Base
Session III. Alleviating Key Constraints, Taking Advantage of Major Opportunities: Strategies to Increase Animal-source Food Consumption and Safety
Session IV. Aligning Donor Efforts for Greater Impact
Finalized and Revised Speaker Presentations

Visit each session to watch individual videos, or watch the full symposium here:

Well-nourished populations, especially women and children, are the central focus of efforts to nurture development and thereby sustainably reduce global hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. This Symposium focused on the role of nutrition in development. It did so by acknowledging the close relationship between good nutrition and other pre-requisites for development, i.e., inclusive and sustainable agricultural-led economic growth and strengthened resilience among people and systems. This is because low agriculture productivity leads to increased malnutrition and vulnerability and undernourished populations that experience frequent shocks cannot take full advantages of opportunities for agricultural growth.

The Symposium, held on March 30, 2017, explored the realities, implications, and impacts of chronic malnutrition, which leads to stunting or reduced height for age. It emphasized that increased attention should be given to understanding and exploiting the benefits and minimizing risks associated with consumption of animal-source foods (i.e., meat, milk, and eggs) by the vulnerable, especially children and women. This is critically important because undernutrition in the first one thousand days of a child’s life can have negative lifelong impacts. The Symposium also discussed ways to increase the availability, access, and affordability of animal-source foods, as well as how strategic messaging on the importance of such foods is critical to increase their consumption. Finally, the Symposium explored how animal-source food consumption and hence development can be fostered by better alignment of donor efforts.

Session I. Malnutrition: Challenges and Pathways to Solutions

Nutrition, sustainable agricultural-led economic growth and strengthened resilience are the cornerstones of the new US government’s Food Security Act, approved in 2016. As part of US government’s Feed the Future Initiative, the Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems conducts research for development that is focused on improving human nutrition and health through consumption of animal-source foods in order to address the challenge of malnutrition in developing countries. Stunting, a widely-used measure of chronic malnutrition, affects about 25% of children (159 million) under five globally and is associated with decreased survival rate, impaired cognitive and motor development, reduced economic productivity, and higher adult poverty. Therefore, concerted worldwide efforts are focused on reducing stunting among under-fives by 40% before 2025. Livestock production can contribute to alleviation of stunting directly through animal-source food consumption, and indirectly, through improved incomes and livelihoods.

Videos:

Welcome
Dr. Jack Payne, Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources, UF/IFAS
Improving nutrition, resiliency and productivity: The perspective of the Food Security Act
Dr. Robert Bertram, Chief Scientist, Bureau for Food Security, USAID
Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems: The imperative to increase animal-source food consumption
Dr. Adegbola Adesogan, Director, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems, UF/IFAS
Stunting and malnutrition in the developing world
Dr. Shibani Ghosh, Associate Director, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Nutrition, Tufts University
From malnutrition to nutritional security
Dr. Martin Bloem, Senior Nutrition Adviser, World Food Program (WFP)
The role of livestock in food and nutrition security
Dr. Jimmy Smith, Director General, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

Session II. Benefits and Risks of Animal-source Food Consumption: The Evidence Base

Clear evidence of the benefits of animal-source food consumption by children and pregnant and lactating women have been well documented. These benefits are due to their higher protein quality than plant foods and high concentration of important bioavailable micronutrients like vitamins A and B12 and iron, iodine and zinc, which are critical for growth, neurological function, immunity, etc. These benefits, however clear, should not detract attention from the need to address risks of consuming animal-source foods including those associated with food-borne pathogen and mycotoxin ingestion.

Videos:

Impact of animal-source food consumption on availability of critical nutrients in breast milk for newborns and infants
Dr. Lindsay H. Allen, Director, USDA Agricultural Research Services Western Human Nutrition Research Center (WHNRC) and University of California-Davis
Evidence for using animal-source foods to improve the growth and development of children
Dr. Lora Iannotti, Associate Professor, Washington University in St. Louis
Livestock and the global burden of zoonotic and foodborne diseases
Dr. Arie Havelaar, Leader, Livestock Disease Management and Food Safety, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems and Professor, Microbial Risk Assessment and Epidemiology of Foodborne Diseases, UF/IFAS
Understanding the risks from mycotoxins in animal-source foods
Dr. Felicia Wu, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University
The importance of animal-source foods in Western diets
Dr. Iain Givens, Director, Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health, University of Reading, UK
Panel discussion
Moderator: Dr. Sarah McKune, Leader, Human Health and Nutrition, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems and Assistant Professor, College of Public Health and Health Professions, UF

Session III. Alleviating Key Constraints, Taking Advantage of Major Opportunities: Strategies to Increase Animal-source Food Consumption and Safety

Effective intervention strategies are developed when innovative research for development entails integration of the best relevant science with knowledge acquired from development experiences. This session brings these two sources of knowledge together through focused discussions on how to reduce malnutrition with animal-source foods. The extensive and wide-ranging experiences of the working group leaders will facilitate identification and discussion of proven and scalable technologies, practices and approaches that improve acceptability, availability, access, and affordability of animal-source foods.

Moderator: Dr. Geoffrey Dahl, Leader, Animal-source Food Production and Marketing, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems and Chair, Department of Animal Sciences, UF/IFAS

Presentations by panelists, followed by four working groups led by the panelists, with emphasis on identifying research issues and scaling opportunities.

Videos:

Appropriate messaging to increase animal-source food consumption
Dr. Ashley Aakesson, Social and Behavior Change Advisor, USAID SPRING Project
Improving availability of animal-source foods
Dr. Khieu Borin, Director General, General Directorate of Local Community, Ministry of Environment, Cambodia
Improving access to animal-source foods
Dr. Sam Thevasagayam, Agricultural Development Deputy Director for Livestock, Gender and Nutrition, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Making animal-source foods more affordable
Mr. Pierre Ferrari, President and Chief Executive Officer, Heifer International

Session IV. Aligning Donor Efforts for Greater Impact

Livestock research and development have been underfunded by developing country governments and donors for many years. This trend is now changing because of the growing demand for animal-source foods and greater awareness of the potential of such foods to improve the nutrition, health and livelihoods of the poor. Donors have also increased funding for livestock sector development in developing countries in recent years. This session will consider how such efforts should be aligned and coordinated for greater reach, effectiveness and efficiency.

Moderator: Dr. Sandra Russo, Leader, Human and Institutional Capacity Development, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems and Director, Office of Global Research Engagement, UF International Center

Videos:

Four presentations followed by a panel discussion.

Dr. Franck Berthe,
Senior Livestock Specialist, Agriculture Global Practice, the World Bank and Coordinator, Livestock Global Alliance
Dr. Robert Bertram,
Chief Scientist, Bureau for Food Security, USAID
Dr. Bill Weldon,
Director of Research and Development (Retired), Elanco
Dr. Sam Thevasagayam,
Agricultural Development Deputy Director for Livestock, Gender and Nutrition, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Conclusions
Dr. Iain Wright, Deputy Director General, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

Finalized and Revised Speaker Presentations

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems is part of Feed the Future

This work was funded in whole or part by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Resilience, Environment and Food Security under Agreement # AID-OAA-L-15-00003 as part of Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems. Additional funding was received from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation OPP#060115. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed here are those of the authors alone.