Dietary Diversity: Linking Agrobiodiversity Conservation to New Challenges in Global Health

摘要

IPGRI's strategy for dietary diversity and health focuses on the sustainability of developing country food systems as the basis for research and development activities. It contributes to food-based methods addressing the emerging double burden of global malnutrition in which nutrient deficiencies coexist with excess energy consumption. Likewise it seeks to forge the kind of crucial interconnections among water, energy, health, agriculture, and biodiversity called for in the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, 2002.The nutrition and health of rural and urban populations is profoundly affected by patterns of global food production and consumption. Concurrently socioeconomic changes imperil the diversity that provides the foundation for healthy diets and of stable agriculture for present and future generations. Recognition of the essential contributions of species and varieties of plants and animals to food security and dietary quality offer an important rationale for the conservation of biodiversity. Nonetheless, sustainability of healthy environments and improved health for the world's disadvantaged seems best achievable within a context that also addresses the economic and social needs and aspirations of both farmers and the consumers of their products.