On April 16, The Chicago Council launched a new report, Healthy Food for a Healthy World: Leveraging Agriculture and Food to Improve Global Nutrition, at the Global Food Security Symposium 2015. Each week, we will highlight one of the report’s recommendations in a new post on the Global Food for Thought blog. This blog series explores how the strengths and ingenuity of the agriculture and food sector can reduce the reality and risks of malnutrition globally. Watch for a new post each Wednesday, and join the discussion using #GlobalAg.
Investing in agriculture, nutrition, and food sciences is essential to improving global nutrition, but investment focus must expand beyond the traditional agricultural sciences. The next generation of leaders in agriculture and food need to come from a wide range of disciplines and acquire a variety of skills to address the multidisciplinary problems facing food systems today. A sustainable, nutritious food system will require that leaders in a range of fields – including engineering, business, finance, and law – be tapped. The US government should expand its higher education programming to include a wider range of disciplines that better address the needs of the future.
US land-grant universities have played a vital role in spurring technological innovation in the food system by educating the next generation of leaders in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and building up the capacity of research and education facilities in these regions through partnerships with other countries. Researchers in low-income countries must have the technical capacity and resources necessary to address the health and economic challenges facing their countries. The US government should invest in building the technical capacity of researchers and transforming institutions in these countries with an emphasis on training the next generation of agriculture, nutrition, and health researchers and practitioners.
Beyond universities, the US government should also provide direct support for education and training for the professionals needed to build nutrition-sensitive food systems. Such professionals include agronomists, dietitians, public health professionals, women’s health advocates, journalists, and citizen scientists. A focus on workforce development, whether through management institutes, laboratories, community colleges, or technological institutes, would help educational institutions across the spectrum respond to changing labor market needs and better prepare the workforce.
Capacity building may be most effective when it focuses on long-term training opportunities. The Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with other US and foreign agencies, sponsors many such programs that invest in the training of young scientists from low-income countries to confront significant biomedical challenges. Similar investments are needed for food systems researchers. Support will be needed for scientists and institutions across disciplines and agencies, as the most significant food system challenges span disciplinary boundaries and require innovative solutions that defy siloed thinking.
The US government should increase the number and extent of US partnerships with universities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Low- and middle-income countries urgently need to transform their own educational institutions to take over training in food, nutrition, and agriculture in the long run. Scientists leading efforts in low-income countries to nourish the world must be equipped with the know-how and resources to undertake rigorous research. This includes not only technical training, but also institutional support. Research partnerships between US universities and research institutions in low-income countries are critical for exchanging knowledge, coordinating field research methods, and collaborating on research proposals and scientific publications. Through the US Government Global Coordination Plan on Nutrition, which provides for interagency collaboration, the US government can strengthen incentives for North-South research and training partnerships across disciplines. University partnerships should extend beyond the traditional land-grant programs in agricultural science to include business and management schools and training in other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
The US government should also increase funding for African and Asian students – as well as young teachers, researchers, and policymakers – seeking to study agriculture, food, and nutrition at American universities. In the past 25 years, the United States has gradually decreased its support for international students. Today, through its Innovation Labs, Feed the Future supports only 78 young people to study at 31 US universities. With the economy rebounding and food, agriculture, and nutrition issues being among the most pressing global challenges, the US government should scale up the number of international students it sponsors to study in these areas.
The cost of fellowships can be reduced through innovative new training methods. Since 2004 the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has piloted several approaches to international agricultural education and training that are less costly, including long-term training using the “sandwich” degree method for regional agricultural development in East Africa and in Mali. This method “sandwiches” time spent at a US university between initial class work and degree completion in Africa. Master’s degree students have been supported successfully with such programs at Ohio State, Michigan State University, Montana State University, and the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. With added resources, these approaches can be expanded. Expanding such programs and ensuring adequate inclusion for women is entirely affordable. For example, with the sandwich program, high-quality advanced degree training in the US can be provided at a cost of only $30,000 per student. Using this program, USAID could return to the 1990 level of international agricultural students (310) at a total annual cost of less than $10 million.
Other programs could be expanded to give international students a chance to benefit from the US educational system without taking on the full cost of a degree program. For example, the Young Africa Leaders Initiative was launched in 2010 to support an emerging generation of African leaders as they work to drive economic growth, enhance democratic governance, and strengthen the civil society structures that help the continent grow and prosper. The initiative connects young African leaders to training opportunities at some of America’s top universities to expand their leadership skills and knowledge. Each host university provides a six-week mission for 25 students currently focused on public service, business, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement. Creating interdisciplinary training modules in the fields of agriculture, nutrition, and health to complement these missions would provide an excellent training opportunity for the next generation of African leaders in these fields.
References:
- Eicher, Carl K. “The Evolution of Agricultural Education and Training: Global Insights of Relevance for Africa.” Staff Paper 2006-26, Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, August 2006.
- Fogarty International Center. “Fogarty Programs.” Accessed March 19, 2015.
- USAID. Personal communication with The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, March 2015.
- Young African Leaders Initiative. “Regional Leadership Centers.” Accessed March 24, 2015.