4th Annual Conference of the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH), Agri-food policy and governance for nutrition and health, London, 3–4 June 2014

Abstract

The agricultural sector is essential to human nutrition and health, but agricultural and food systems do not always contribute to positive nutritional outcomes. Given the global challenges such as fluctuating food prices, the slowdown of growth in agricultural productivity, food and nutrition insecurity, and attendant health problems of underweight, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity, and diet-related non-communicable diseases (DR-NCDs), there is an urgent need for effective interventions to make agriculture and food systems more “nutrition-sensitive” (Ruel and Alderman 2013). This requires strong governance, including institutional structures, and appropriate multiand cross-sectorial policymaking. However, our understanding of the diverse impacts, both positive and negative, of governance and policy on nutrition and health remains limited. Rarely is the evidence that has been collected about individual policy outcomes collated and analyzed together, with an overarching aim to improve governance in mind. Agri-health researchers have started to identify this gap and address the need for greater policy research (Hawkes et al. 2013). The core conceptual issues in current agriculture and health (agri-health) research relate to both specific topics and the methods used to pursue research regarding these topics. Questions central to agricultural and health research are: how agricultural production and food systems help mitigate the persistent public health problem of childhood under-nutrition as well as how they contribute to the prevention of obesity and NCDs (Gillespie et al. 2013; Hawkes 2007; Hawkes et al. 2012; Ruel and Alderman 2013). To address these topics there is a need for new and innovative research methods and thus both evidence of agri-health linkages and ways to further investigate these linkages are growing. Since 2011, LCIRAH has addressed the aforementioned core conceptual issues in agri-health research by hosting an annual international conference that has established itself as an important forum for bringing together researchers from around the world to examine critical issues in agriculture and health (Fig. 1) (Harris et al. 2013) With greater attention to agri-health as a research discipline and the inherent inextricable linkages between agriculture, food systems, nutrition and health the need to focus on related governance and policy issues has become more evident. This is clear from the novel methods proposed by public health experts to improve and increase the monitoring of agriculture and food policies to benefit public health (Swinburn et al. 2013); as well as from new initiatives to create interdisciplinary dialogue among the scientific, political and private sectors on the future of sustainable food systems (Fondazione Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition 2014; Stordalen Foundation & R. Kanter (*) :G. F. Augusto :H. L. Walls : S. Cuevas : A. Flores-Martinez : E. H. Morgan :M. Tak : F. Picchioni Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health – LCIRAH, LIDC, 36 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD, UK e-mail: rkanter1@jhu.edu