Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #85899
Title: TOWARDS A "GREENER" REVOLUTION

Author
item Welch, Ross
item COMBS, JR, GERALD - CORNELL UNIVERSITY
item DUXBURY, JOHN - CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Submitted to: National Academy Press
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/15/1997
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Not required.

Technical Abstract: Food systems are failing 40% of all people globally in both developing and developed nations by not providing adequate nutrient output and balance to meet the basic needs for all in sustainable ways. The consequences of such failure are enormous in terms of healthcare costs, lost productivity, and sluggish development in many nations with hundreds of billions of people (mosty women, infants and children) caught in a vicious cycle of malnutrition, poor health and poverty without much hope for a better standard of living. Holistic views of food system hold great promise to provide sustainable solutions to food system failures, but holistic food system solutions cannot provide short-term "fixes". They are long-term by nature requiring long-term commitment by governments and institutions to succeed. Now is the time to develop such approaches to food system failures if we are to redress the consequences of and pathos created by failing food dsystems. With two billion people suffering from poor nutrition, nations need to start producing not just more food, but more nutritious food, but food systems have evolved with little explicit attention to the quality of their nutrient outputs or to their overall abilities to support good health. This will require changes in thinking about agriculture, health and national development. Food System concepts can facilitate the development of food-based strategis for improving human health and well being helping to bring about a "greener revolution".