Food and nutrition
Despite much progress in recent decades, food security and nutrition remain one of today’s key challenge. This challenge takes several forms, which are distributed differently across the world: undernourishment, i.e. an insufficient intake of dietary calories; overnutrition, i.e. the excessive intake of dietary calories; and micronutrient deficiencies, i.e. the insufficient intake of vital nutrients such as vitamins, iron, zinc and others. Referred to as the triple burden of malnutrition, these three elements can interact and are recorded typically within national populations, but also within households and even within a single individual.
ZEF has a long track record of studies on food and nutrition insecurity, their linkages, drivers and potential solutions, and participated in large international research projects such as FOODSECURE. In recent times, the prevalence of malnutrition is highest in parts of Africa and in South Asia, where much of our research has taken place, and which is closely associated with poverty. Issues of obesity and overweight though, linked to dietary choices and preferences, are increasing and burdening ever more countries.
ZEF research seeks to better understand malnutrition in specific, acute contexts and at various scales, across time, and to support actions toward ending malnutrition globally. Therefore, ZEF’s research on food and nutrition security is linked to almost all other themes research schemes, such as agriculture and land use, health, gender, markets and services. Recent ZEF research estimated the costs of ending hunger by 2030 and proposed concrete policy actions.
Market scene in Brazil. ZEF research looks into the role of processed foods for sustainable diets, with a particular focus on urban settings.
A farmer transplants rice seedlings in the Thai Binh Province of the Red River Delta. The ZEF-led DAIV project analyzes the dynamics of agricultural innovation in Vietnam.
Farmers air-dry wheat in Ethiopia. Various forms of malnutrition threaten food security in Africa. Diversification of the food system can help combat malnutrition while minimizing its environmental footprint.
ZEF Projects related to "Food and nutrition"
AFS-TRP - Agrifood Systems-Transformative Research and Policy Guidance
Changemaker – Promoting co-designed sustainable health interventions with young changemakers for reduced risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in urban Burkina Faso, Kenya and Tanzania
ClimapAfrica – Climate change adaptation and coping strategies of smallholder fisherfolks along the Ghana Volta Lake
Climate-sensitive nutrients, undernutrition and malaria
COhort on PLANT-based diets (COPLANT) Study in Germany and Austria
DAIV - Dynamics of agricultural innovation in Vietnam
Food system changes for healthy and sustainable diets in China
FoodCost - Redefining the value of food
HealthyDiets4Africa – Combating malnutrition in Africa through diversification of the food system
Hermann Eiselen Ph.D. Research Support Program
INTERFACES - Supporting Pathways to Sustainable Land Management in Africa
Job Futures: Livelihood effects, digital innovations, and household dynamics in Africa (part of SFB 228 Future Rural Africa)
KliOL – Climate Change mitigation in Hospitals by Optimizing Supply Chains
Malabo Montpellier Panel
Multi-center, prospective cohort study in Ghana on early-life exposure to malaria and nutrition-related non-communicable diseases in adult life
OPTIMA – Omics Approach for Personalized Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus for African and European Populations
PASTURES – Protected Areas for SusTainable nUtrition REsearch in Somaliland
RODAM – Research on Obesity and Diabetes among African Migrants
START - Sustainable greenhouse production types and resource efficient technologies for future cultivation
Sustainable dietary weight loss intervention for the prevention of type 2 diabetes: A family-based, randomised, controlled trial with overweight and obese adults in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso