Nutrition, a key aspect of food system sustainability

Just out 12 November 2026
More than a third of the world's people do not have access to healthy food. Malnutrition affects each and every country, and poses many problems for health: deficiencies, stunting, and disease. Everyone thinks of hunger, obviously, but since last year, obesity has now overtaken under-nutrition in children and teenagers. For CIRAD, nutrition is a key factor in sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems.
Group cookery session in a village in northern Laos © Caroline Dangléant, CIRAD

Group cookery session in a village in northern Laos © Caroline Dangléant, CIRAD

 

Nutrition, a key aspect of food system sustainability (cover)

How can we reconcile human health, environmental sustainability and food security? This is the central question in CIRAD's latest position paper. The establishment's answer is clear: nutrition is a key aspect of food system sustainability.

Food is the first lever to trigger for good human health

Global food systems produce cheap calories, but with no guarantee of sufficient nutrient intake. More than one in five children suffer from stunting, while obesity rates among adults have reached 16% worldwide. Under-nutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight may co-exist in a given region, particularly in Africa, forming what is known as the "nutrition triple burden". According to the World Bank, unless action is taken, this could cost some 41 000 billion dollars over the next decade.

Nutrition and sustainability are inseparable

For CIRAD, the nutrition aspect is inseparable from environmental, economic, sociocultural and social justice-related objectives. Its research aims to make food systems levers for global health, capable of supplying a quality diet while staying within the planet's limits, in line with EAT-Lancet Commission recommendations. The priority target for the establishment is the world's most vulnerable population groups: farming families, rural households, women and children, and low-income urban inhabitants.

Nutrition, a key aspect of food system sustainability

Download the paper: English version - French version

  From farm to fork, as far as public policy

The paper presents the four thematic pillars that articulate CIRAD's research with its partners in both North and South:

  • From farm to fork: agroecology, agro-biodiversity, the pivotal role of women, and biofortification, such as the enriched rice varieties developed in Colombia.
  • From food composition to physiological impact: making use of traditional foods, developing functional foods, processing local foods of nutritional value.
  • From supply characteristics to individual consumption choices: buying habits, food environments, animal product consumption.
  • From public policy to international regulations: food system governance, transforming urban food environments, for instance as part of the AfriFOODlinks project.

Four directions for the future

CIRAD intends to pursue and consolidate its research in four directions: improving food nutritional, sanitary and functional quality; developing complementary food diversification, fortification and biofortification strategies; documenting gender issues; and analysing and taking action on food system governance. To this end, it will be using participatory research and impact assessment of the various interventions implemented, by maintaining its long-term collaboration with other French research organisations and with its partners in tropical and Mediterranean countries.

See also