Feeding the world’s population with safe and nutritious food means we must overcome ever-evolving challenges through innovative research on cost-effective and sustainable strategies to prevent malnutrition.

The USAID Bureau for Resilience and Food Security has prioritized a need to synthesize research findings in agriculture, food systems, and nutrition, to identify where evidence exists and where there are knowledge gaps. This information will help prioritize future research to reshape food systems to improve health and nutrition, and will enhance programming to meet U.S. Government objectives and the global Sustainable Development Goals. To meet this need, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Nutrition at Tufts University (NIL) published an evidence review (PDF, 3.2MB) in 2019.

The review summarizes recent thinking and research findings on how agriculture and food systems affect diets and nutrition; and identifies gaps where work is needed to guide policies and investments in evidence-based programs in low-income countries.

Building on this evidence, USAID Advancing Nutrition supported USAID to host an e-consultation in November 2019 in partnership with Agrilinks, the online hub where agriculture, food security, and development professionals connect, share, and learn. The e-consultation invited academics, donors, implementers, private-sector actors, and other stakeholders to respond to the evidence review and share their own knowledge and priorities for the food system and nutrition research landscape.

Discussions and resources from the e-consultation are available on Agrilinks. The e-consultation report can be found in USAID Advancing Nutrition’s Nutrition Resource Hub.