8: Food & Hunger
Learning Outcomes
- Understand the major drivers of food insecurity
- Recognize the role of women in food and nutritional security
- Classify key food and nutritional sources
- Identify benefits and risks of genetic engineering
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- 8.1: Food Security
- Poverty—not food availability—is the major driver of food insecurity. Improvements in agricultural productivity are necessary to increase rural household incomes and access to available food but are insufficient to ensure food security. Evidence indicates that poverty reduction and food security do not necessarily move in tandem. The main problem is lack of economic (social and physical) access to food at national and household levels and inadequate nutrition (or hidden hunger).
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- 8.2: Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering
- The development of a new strain of crop is an example of agricultural biotechnology: a range of tools that include both traditional breeding techniques and more modern lab-based methods. Traditional methods date back thousands of years, whereas biotechnology uses the tools of genetic engineering developed over the last few decades. Genetic engineering is the name for the methods that scientists use to introduce new traits to an organism. This process results in genetically modified organisms.
Thumbnail image - By learning skills like composting, crop diversification, organic pesticide production, seed multiplication and agro-forestry farmers in Malawi are increasing their ability to feed their families over the long term.