2017 ASHS Annual Conference

The first five years (2011-2016) of the U.S. government’s Feed the Future program, a Presidential Initiative of Barack Obama for global food security, has ended. It will be re-designed in 2017. The next generation of Feed the Future activities may have emphasis on new areas, such as reducing urban poverty, more post-farmgate support, enhancement ofyouth employment, and food/farm hygiene to name a few. In a recent horticultural conference in Malaysia, supported by USAID and the World Vegetable Center, the relationship of horticulture to new food security trends at USAID was discussed at length by USAID staff, and contractors, NGOs and horticulture researchers supported by USAID. This talk encompasses some of the group’s vision and recommendations that were captured in a “white paper” focusing on: “Horticulture to Feed the Future”. Horticulture plays a critical role in food safety, urbanization, youth, and resilience to climate change. Horticulture offers a unique contribution to the challenge of feeding and nourishing people who do not have enough to eat and who are malnourished - estimated at one and two billion, respectively. Vegetables and fruits present unique opportunities for the combination of high economic return and high micro-nutrient delivery. This talk briefly summarizes the contributions of horticulture in the first phase of Feed the Future, and the lessons that can be taken forward to the next phase of this initiative. Horticulture is highly relevant to the focus areas of Feed the Future, and has a fundamental role in improving nutrition by virtue of the high nutrient content of vegetables and fruit. It provides extensive economic opportunities for smallholder producers and entrepreneurs that contribute to agriculture sector growth. Horticulture has much to offer climate-smart development, particularly through the diversity of its crops and farming systems. Horticulture crop production, harvesting, sales and marketing are often dominated by women, offering great potential for interventions to empower them. During the first phase of Feed the Future, challenges were encountered in linking horticulture research and development activities, as well as in scaling and commercializing new technologies and delivering them to farmers. Lessons learned from USAID horticulture development projects should feed back to the USAID research projects, in order to refine technologies so they can better overcome adoption constraints and achieve full scaling potential.