Enhancing Food Safety and Nutrition through Agricultural Research.

Within the context of the SDGs, food based approaches are an important programmatic strategy in improving nutrition and reducing mortality. Food-borne diseases account for 33 million DALYs and 420,000 deaths. Poor food safety reduces agricultural output, affects prices and trade in a global market. Thus considerations of food safety, post-harvest handling, and nutrient content of crops are critical for reducing poverty, driving economic growth, improving food security, nutritional and health status of vulnerable populations. The Feed the Future Initiative has made significant strides in better understanding these interactions so as to better inform policy and programming in many countries supported by the initiative. Areas of inquiry reviewed in this presentation will include human-livestock interactions and disease burden in infants and young children, the role of legumes in improving the gut microbiome, pre harvest and post harvest contamination especially of mycotoxins and their effect on health and wellbeing of the household. These and other potential strategies will illustrate the lessons learned from the Feed the Future Initiative.