How Can We Transform Food Systems to Meet Food, Nutrition, and Climate Needs?

The document identifies three priority policy areas for food systems transformation (FST) to enhance food security and climate resilience: reducing post-harvest losses, scaling up biofortification of staple crops, and improving food safety. It argues that while these issues are recognized in national policies across Eastern and Southern Africa, implementation is hindered by limited resources, capacity gaps, and a disproportionate focus on staple crops over high-nutrition crops.

• Reducing post-harvest losses is essential for climate resilience and food security, but current efforts in analyzed countries focus primarily on staple crops like maize and wheat, neglecting high-value, high-nutrition crops. In Kenya, only 10% of post-harvest loss studies focus on pulses and 10% on fruits and vegetables, despite these crops being vulnerable to heat and pests.
• Biofortification of staples like maize and climate-resilient crops like millet is a cost-effective way to provide iron, zinc, and vitamin A to populations in Africa. However, the effectiveness of these interventions is limited by a lack of improved seeds, post-harvest losses, and insufficient financial support for national coordinating bodies.
• Climate change is expected to worsen food safety challenges by increasing the prevalence of moulds and damaging infrastructure. This is evidenced by aflatoxin poisoning in Kenya's maize value chains in 2011 and 2023. There is a need to develop and enforce food safety standards and build the technical capacity of food safety agencies.
• Countries in Eastern and Southern Africa share common obstacles to food systems transformation, including capacity gaps in food safety and fortification, limited resources for complex problems, and a requirement for regional cooperation on post-harvest loss solutions.

APA

Bizikova,, L. (2023). How Can We Transform Food Systems to Meet Food, Nutrition, and Climate Needs? International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/transform-food-systems-food-nutrition-climate-needs

Chicago

Bizikova,, Livia. How Can We Transform Food Systems to Meet Food, Nutrition, and Climate Needs? International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2023. https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/transform-food-systems-food-nutrition-climate-needs.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Bizikova, |first1=Livia |title=How Can We Transform Food Systems to Meet Food, Nutrition, and Climate Needs? |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=27 November 2023 |url=https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/transform-food-systems-food-nutrition-climate-needs |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{bizikova2023how, author = {Bizikova,, Livia}, title = {{How Can We Transform Food Systems to Meet Food, Nutrition, and Climate Needs?}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2023}, month = nov, url = {https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/transform-food-systems-food-nutrition-climate-needs}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }