2017 ASHS Annual Conference

In the last decade, the global triple burden of malnutrition, hunger, and obesity has increased rapidly, due to increasing populations and degrading ecosystems. To overcome this daunting burden, we must diversify the agricultural system. For example, staple crops, usually cannot grow in challenging environments and often provide high-calorie but low-nutrient food. By contrast, underutilized, regional food crop species can play an important role in reducing food insecurity and combating malnutrition. Additionally, underutilized crops can provide important sources of calories, trace elements, vitamins, minerals, and health-promoting phytochemicals. It is clear that these crops have the potential to improve health and reduce food insecurity. However, the current system of agriculture has many remaining critical challenges, including a heavy dependence on discipline-specific approaches and a lack of systems-wide approaches. A systems approach that includes crop improvement, market linkages, value addition, improvements to nutrition and health-promoting properties, as well as ready-to-use novel and innovative food technologies, is critical to address food insecurity and sustainability. A systems approach incorporating trans-disciplinary strategies can critically strengthen the links among approaches examining diversity, characterization of phytochemicals, crop improvement, and sustainable uses. This approach can enable improved value based on nutrition, health-promoting properties, and marketability, and thus provide higher economic returns to the communities cultivating these underutilized crops around the world. This type of table-to-farm approach will provide a foundation for the value chain of underutilized vegetable and field crops. In addition to systems-wide research approaches, addressing food insecurity will require outreach and formal education about conservation, sustainability, and climate resilience, as well as understanding the role of locally grown crops to address food and nutritional security issues. We have developed a unique, multi-state and multi-disciplinary course “The Nexus of Food Security & Nutritional Security, Sustainability and Hunger” to address this issue. The project is supported by the USDA-Challenge Grant 2014-70003-22356.