1. Shenggen Fan
Chair Professor and Dean, Academy of
Global Food Economics and Policy
(AGFEP), China Agricultural University
(CAU)
Book launch event on February 4，2021
Agricultural Development in a
Changing World

2. Outline
Rapid transformation in agriculture sector occurred in the past several
decades (introduction and global issues chapters, regional chapters,
urbanization and nonfarm development, trade, value chains)
Agriculture has been asked to address broader development goals
(chapters on gender, nutrition, climate change, natural resources, credit and
insurance)
Agricultural development must embrace an agri-food system approach
(chapter on political economy, R&D and innovations, and reshaping agri-
food systems)

3. Global food security and nutrition under threats
• More than 690 million people suffer from hunger (after
adjusting the Chinese number)；
• More than 2 billion people lack essential micronutrients；
• More than 2 billion people are overweight or obese;
• More than 144 million children are stunted;
• more than 3 billion people could not afford a healthy diet
Business as usual, global hunger will rise to 840 million and far away from zero hunger in 2030
NOTES：Projected values in the figure are illustrated by dotted lines and empty circles. The shaded area represents projections for the longer period from 2019 to the
2030 target year.
** Projections to 2030 do not consider the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
Source：FAO.
• The COVID-19 pandemic may add an additional 83 to
132 million people to the ranks of the undernourished
in 2020（WFP,2020)
• An additional 6.7 million children under 5 could suffer
from wasting due to COVID-19.(UNICEF,2020)
COVID-19

4. 0% 50% 100% 150% 200%
Combo
Diets
Tech
Waste
BAU
2050 impact as share of current impact
GHG emissions
Planetary health is increasingly at risk
Planetary Boundaries
Springmann et al. 2019 Source: Campbell et al. 2017
Climate Change
• Unsustainable food production threatens food security, for example from over-fishing, soil erosion or water shortages.
• Food production will increasingly be impacted by climate change, in particular from the increased frequency of storms, droughts and other
extreme weather events.
• Food production is in turn a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions as well as water scarcity and wider biodiversity issues.

5. Food systems must
be transformed to
tackle global
challenges

6. A food systems approach
• Food systems are the sum of actors and
interactions along the food value
chain—from input supply and
production of crops, livestock, fish, and
other agricultural commodities to
transportation, processing, retailing,
wholesaling, and preparation of foods to
consumption and disposal.
• Addressing global challenges require a
multidisciplinary and food systems
approach
• A food systems approach must be used
to identify, analyse and assess the
impact and feedback of the systems
different actors, activities and outcomes
to help identify intervention points
A framework for evaluating trade-offs and synergies of food systems
for human and planetary health
Source: Fan, S., D Headey, C Rue, and T Thomas. 2021.Food Systems for Human and Planetary Health: Economic Perspectives and Challenges (Forthcoming). Annual Review of Resource Economics.

7. Multiple-win agricultural technologies
Multiple-win
technologies
Yield increase, disease
resistance and
tolerance
Low carbon, water saving
and environmental
protection
Nutrition and
health
Precision agriculture
Artificial Intelligence Agriculture
Digital agriculture
• Vitamin- and mineral-rich crops grown and
consumed in over 30 countries
• Girls and boys consuming biofortified pearl
millet in India saw greater improvement in
some cognitive performance (attention and
memory) than those consuming non-
fortified millet (Scott et al. 2018)
• More than 40 million smallholders and their
families are already consuming
biofortification foods
Biofortification

8. Technology-Use ICTs to improve
food safety and value chains
• Mobile phones, internet tracking
for better accuracy,
comprehensiveness
• Case of China: Using e-
Commerce
• G20 initiative: Connects rural
farmers with supply and demand
information on agricultural
produce and materials, and
consumer products
• Taobao Villages use e-
commerce to foster
entrepreneurship and create
flexible, inclusive employment
opportunities
Novel foods
• Alternative proteins to reduce
health risks, GHGs,
environmental impact
• Production of cultured meat
involves up to 96% lower GHG
emissions and water use, and
99% lower land use depending
on conventional meat product
compared (Thottathil,
Jayasekaran, and Othman 2016;
Toumisto 2011)
Embracing non-agricultural technologies
E-Commerce

9. Reform agricultural
subsidies to support
production of healthy and
nutritious foods
• Support production of
healthy foods
• Prices of nutrient-dense
foods rising faster than
energy-dense, nutrient-
poor foods (Dizon and
Herforth 2018)
• EAT-Lancet reference diet
is not affordable for the
world’s poor—cost of diet
exceeded HH per capita
income for 1.58 billion
people (Hirvonen et al.
2019)
Increase investment in value
chains to improve access to
healthy foods
• Invest in rural roads and
market facilities, as well as
innovative rural finance to
support agro-industries and
rural food transformation
and service industries
Source: Headey 2019
Relative caloric prices (RCPs) compared to
cheapest staple foods by region
Reforming subsidy and support policies

10. Reforming fiscal policies
Tax carbon-intensive and nutrient-poor
foods
• Tax emissions-intensive foods (e.g. meat and dairy)
• Avoid more than 100,000 deaths in 2020 from reduced dietary and weight-related risk
factors (Springmann et al. 2016)
• Tax nutrient-poor foods – e.g. Mexico’s sugar sweetened beverage tax
• SSB purchase declined by 6% on average
• 9% decline for lower social economic status households
Enhance nutrition-targeted social
protection
• Combining transfer programs with behavior change
communication（BCC) can improve child nutrition
• In Bangladesh, cash transfers accompanied by high-quality BCC improved
children’s consumption of multiple-micronutrient powders or iron supplements in the
last week by 22 percentage pts (Hoddinott et al. 2018)
• BUT requires complementary policies and programs to link knowledge and
behavior (Kramer 2017, Menon et al. 2017)
Source: Colchero et al. 2016
Impact of SSB tax in Mexico

11. Reform
institutions and
governance to
ensure women’s
empowerment
Strengthen
resource rights
• Common action by men and women for
and public goods for the household
• Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture
Index (WEAI) measures gender parity in:
• Decisions about agricultural production
• Access to and decision-making power over
productive resources
• Control over use of income
• Leadership in the community
• Time use
• Rwanda: Land registration programs
doubled likelihood of household
investment in longer-term natural
resource management, such as soil
conservation (Meinzen-Dick et al. 2017)
Photo: USAID
Building and strengthening institutions