Given the significant costs of malnutrition, agrifood support must be restructured to promote healthy diets. While repurposing agrifood support involves trade-offs, it also presents opportunities for synergies that deliver benefits across multiple outcomes.
One simulation scenario shows that repurposing agrifood subsidies from producers to consumers —targeting priority foods that support healthy diets— can lead to reductions in extreme poverty, particularly in lower income countries, as well as lower greenhouse gas emissions and increased affordability of nutritious foods.
Translating global advocay into country-led action for healthier diets
Our new report “Reshaping the Agrifood Sector for Healthier Diets: Exploring the Links between Agrifood Public Support and Diet Quality” shows that solutions to promote healthier diets must be tailored to each country’s specific context.
There is no one-size-fits all formula to determine the right composition and amount of public support in any given country. For example, our report shows that investing in infrastructure and research can boost food availability and consumption, including for less healthy options. Likewise, easing trade and market restrictions tends to improve market efficiency and reduce prices but can also increase consumption of unhealthy foods.
Pairing agrifood reforms with health and social protection measures can yield benefits and avoid harm, especially for the most vulnerable, but they should also consider local circumstances.
In Bangladesh, for instance, rural roads are correlated with healthier diets, while input subsidies are not. In Malawi, input subsidies have improved food security but failed to enhance diet diversity, whereas cash transfers have improved the latter.
Building on our clear vision for healthier diets
Improving the efficiency of current programs holds promise, and has created momentum to rethink the effectiveness of input subsidies in countries such as Bangladesh and Malawi, including through the introduction of e-voucher system pilots paving the way for improved input subsidy programs.
Building nutrition more explicitly in agrifood projects will also play a key role. In the West Africa Food Systems Resilience Program, Senegal will increase national capacity to fill information gaps on vulnerability, nutrition, and food security to inform tailored actions to address food insecurity risks. The Program in Senegal also supports nutrition-sensitive value chains, such as horticulture, dairy, and meat, with a focus on supporting women and youth.
In Brazil, the Bahia Sustainable Rural Development Project is bridging the gap between organization of family farmers and institutional markets, in particular the National School Feeding Program. The project not only addresses productive inclusion of family farmers but also ensures that children access healthy and nutritious food in schools. It reinforces complementary public policies that link agriculture, food and nutrition security, and social protection.
In 2021, the World Bank made an important commitment at the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Tokyo to mainstream nutrition in its agrifood projects. Today, as the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Paris begins, we are more convinced than ever that nutrition-sensitive agriculture and healthy and sustainable diets hold the key to getting us back on track when it comes to tackling malnutrition.
This is the first in a series of blogs about the role of the agriculture and food sector in promoting healthy diets and better nutrition.