Fruits and Food

The EDPScences journal published a nice short article on the importance of fruits in the world food summit.
I think this should interest many people from all walks of life. The article is a free access and I included it below, but you may download the PDF file or access the original article with French and Spanish translation.

 Fruits in the World Food Summit?

Very recently, the FAO organized a High Level Expert Forum on How to feed the world in 2050 in preparation for the World Food Summit. In spite of the title, more focus was put on agriculture than food and, when dealing with food, more focus was put on supply than on access to food.

Nevertheless, some key messages emerged, including in the opening speech of Jacques Diouf, the Director General of the FAO. Increasing urbanization and induced food habit changes were highlighted. Most of the growth in the world’s population will take place in urban areas and, by 2050, more than 70% of the world's population is expected to be urban. Urbanization will bring with it changes in lifestyles and consumption patterns. In combination with income growth, it may accelerate the ongoing diversification of diets in developing countries. While the share of grains and other staple crops will decline, that of vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy and fish will increase. In response to a rising demand for semi-processed or ready-to-eat foods, the whole structure of market chains is likely to continue its dynamic change towards a further concentration of supermarket chains. Fruits will be part of this game and it is necessary to anticipate these increasing needs, in terms of fresh and semi-processed or processed food, taking into account all of the value chain.

The forum highlighted that such a food transition is often accompanied by a corresponding increase in diet-related chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In many developing countries undergoing this transition, obesity-related NCDs appear when health problems related to undernutrition of significant parts of their populations are still widely prevalent. The two problems co-exist and present these countries with novel challenges and strains in their health systems, that must be addressed in policies and concrete actions to increase consumers' awareness about nutrition, promote balanced and healthy diets, and improve food welfare.

The current actions implemented in the framework of the WHO-FAO initiative for the promotion of fruits and vegetable for health, called Profav, are already addressing such issues in some countries and need more support for expanding in other countries and continents.