IFAD RURAL DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2021 - Transforming food systems for rural prosperity

This report calls for a revolutionary transformation of the world’s food systems. Today’s food systems have failed to make nutritious diets accessible or affordable to the poor and in a sustainable way. In consequence, at least three billion suffer undernourishment, nutrition deficiencies, or have become overweight. Over the past 70 years the global food system has become less efficient at its primary objective - delivering nutritious food sustainably. A focus on producing high-calorie grains has pushed up yields and cut prices of staple foods. The cost? Food waste, malnutrition and obesity, and environmental degradation. We need to transform the world’s food systems so that they deliver adequate, nutritious diets for all. They must be reshaped to provide decent livelihoods for all who grow, process, store and market our food. They must become fair, inclusive…and sustainable. This report analyses the problems, and provides the solutions. We need to put small-scale farmers and the midstream of firms that supply them with inputs and services, and handle the trading, storing, processing and distribution of food to consumers, at the centre of this transformation.