The prospect of ending global hunger can seem overwhelming. With 925 million hungry people in the world, and nearly 180 million stunted pre-school age children (a height for age measurement), the challenge is daunting to say the least. Where should the donor community invest its money to make a noticeable impact, and what types of interventions are the most cost effective?

For almost a decade now, a growing body of scientific evidence points toward micronutrient interventions, especially those aimed at pregnant women and children up to age 2 (the “1,000 Days Window of Opportunity”) as being the most effective development investment that can be made, with a huge payoff over a child’s lifetime for a small amount of money. Micronutrient interventions – fortification of food and provision of supplements designed to increase nutrient intake and absorption – are inexpensive and can have immediate, lifelong positive results.

Anjali is one of the lucky ones.  A therapeutic nutrition intervention saved her life. Photo: Scott Bleggi/Bread for the World Institute

I mentioned in a previous blog how I saw life-saving interventions being administered at a hospital in Bangladesh. A child (or adult for that matter) can literally be brought back to life with micronutrient interventions and set on a path to reach their individual health, learning, and livelihood potential. But with such an overwhelming amount of hunger and poverty in the world, how can successful nutrition interventions be brought to scale, so that they have a global impact? Even if creative solutions to world hunger were to come about, could they be afforded? According to Hoddinot, Rosegrant and Torero of IFPRI, country investments of just $100 per child in a bundle of interventions will significantly reduce chronic undernutrition in developing countries.

Leading the way is investment in providing micronutrients, changing diet quality, and changing behavior. According to the IFPRI team, even in the poorest countries and using very conservative estimates, every dollar spent reducing chronic undernutrition pays back $30. Other critical areas in which investments pay big dividends are raising food production to lower prices and provide a buffer against climate change, increasing investments in agricultural research and development, developing resistance to livestock diseases, and focusing on soil quality.

In a counterpart paper to the IFPRI study, Beatrice Rogers of Tufts University strongly supports the proposed interventions, particularly the approach of treating hunger and malnutrition across development sectors:  health, agriculture, water and sanitation, food value chains, and economic development.  Overcoming hunger and undernutrition on a global scale requires interventions in all of these sectors.

This week in Washington, DC, the leaders of the G-8 countries will meet and discuss global issues.  You can be certain that food security and nutrition will be on the agenda. Bread for the World Institute is participating in a side event to the G-8 summit, “Calling All Champions,” in which we call on global leaders and policymakers in the administration, Congress, and G-8 delegations to join us in support of improved nutrition globally, particularly for women and children in the 1,000 days between pregnancy and a child’s second birthday, by:

1. Committing to a goal of eliminating chronic malnutrition, as measured by rates of child stunting, for at least 15 million young children by the end of 2015;
2. Supporting the SUN movement and SUN countries’ efforts to improve nutrition; and
3. Ensuring food security, agriculture, and health investments are optimized to improve nutrition.

It is an exciting time for those of us in the world of advocacy for maternal and child nutrition issues. Not only are the U.S. government’s flagship development assistance programs, Feed the Future and the Global Health Initiative, addressing nutrition as a crucial element to their success, but political leaders around the world are coalescing around the importance of critical, timely nutrition interventions. We hope and pray this week that the G-8 leaders see this as a critical time to make smart investment decisions, so that a plan can be set to overcome global hunger and undernutrition.

  Scott Bleggi is senior international policy analyst for hunger and nutrition at Bread for the World Institute

Every year, more than 7 million children die before they reach their 5th birthday. These deaths are mostly in poor countries -- and mostly preventable.  "Every child deserves a 5th birthday" is the theme of a new U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) initiative to end preventable deaths among young children. 

All this week, Bread for the World Institute and our partners in the 1,000 Days Coalition will be emphasizing the need to make maternal/child nutrition a top priority in the effort to help every child celebrate a 5th  birthday.

How important is good nutrition? For millions of young children every year, it's the difference between life and death. About 35 percent of all deaths of children under 5 are the result of malnutrition. Learn more about why malnutrition makes childhood diseases more likely to be fatal -- and more about how the international community can help -- in "Understanding Malnutrition and Responding Effectively," Rebecca Vander Meulen's contribution to Bread for the World Institute's 2012 Hunger Report. 

The G-8 group of donor countries will meet later this week, May 19-20, at Camp David in Maryland. As leaders consider the progress made since the G-8 L'Aquila food security initiative was launched in 2009, Bread for the World and our partners emphasize the critical importance of scaling up nutrition during the 1,000-day "window of opportunity" between pregnancy and a child's second birthday. It is during this 1,000 days that good nutrition can provide lifelong health benefits -- and also when undernutrition causes damage to physical and cognitive development that is largely irreversible. The G-8 should support the efforts of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement of developing countries to ensure that effective nutrition efforts reach more young children.

  Michele Learner is associate editor for Bread for the World Institute.

Photo: Constantia holds her toddler son, Gustavo, in their hometown of Kobue, Mozambique. Gustavo has recovered well from a near-fatal brush with malnutrition last year. Hear more about their story in our earlier blog post. Photo by Rebecca Vander Meulen.

The U.S. House is proposing devastating cuts of $169 billion to SNAP, the largest federal nutrition program. Some representatives argue that the U.S. government has no responsibility to help hungry citizens—it’s the responsibility of churches. If anyone should know if this is a reasonable argument, it’s Vicki Escarra, the president and CEO of Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.

Vicki Escarra maintains that the charitable food assistance network cannot meet the needs of hungry families in the U.S. without the partnership of the federal government. Read this excerpt from the 2012 Hunger Report to find out why:

If you ask someone to imagine what hunger looks like, many people conjure up the images they have seen on TV—starving and malnourished children with distended bellies living in foreign lands. While hunger in the United States may not look the same as those images displayed on TV, hunger is an all too prevalent reality facing many of our neighbors right here at home. As Feeding America’s recently published Map the Meal Gap study shows, hunger can be found in every county, congressional district, and state in the country.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the number of people at risk of hunger increased by nearly 12.6 million during the recent recession—from 36.2 million people in 2007 to 48.8 million people in 2010. This spike mirrored the dramatic rise in unemployment:  the 111 percent increase in the number of unemployed people from November 2007 to November 2010 was mirrored by a 61 percent increase in participation in SNAP (formerly food stamps), the largest federal nutrition program, over that period. Likewise, food banks saw a 46 percent increase in clients seeking emergency food assistance between 2006 and 2010.

As a result of widespread unemployment, many people who previously considered themselves to be comfortably middle-class found themselves in need of assistance to provide enough food for their families. For many of those in need of food assistance, charity is often the first place they turn to for help. As the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, Feeding America annually serves more than 37 million people through a national network of more than 200 food banks and the local agencies they support—more than 61,000 of them, including food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and others. Of these, 55 percent are faith-based. Together we now serve one in eight Americans.

Unfortunately, we are increasingly being called upon to provide more than short-term food assistance. Struggling families often turn to local charities as both the first line of assistance when they fall on hard times and the last line of defense when other supports are exhausted. As Map the Meal Gap shows, only about 55 percent of the food-insecure population have income levels eligible for SNAP. Newly unemployed people are often income eligible but exceed the limit on household assets to qualify for federal nutrition programs. Many working families have some employment, but lack the hours and wages necessary to be economically stable. These workers either do not qualify for federal nutrition programs, or do not qualify for enough assistance to fully meet their family’s nutritional needs. In both cases, they have nowhere to turn but to the charitable food network to make sure their family has enough to eat.

While we rely heavily on generous charitable contributions, Feeding America would be unable to maintain its current levels of service without the support of federal nutrition assistance programs …

+ Read the rest of Vicki Escarra’s contribution to find out why she thinks that public assistance is necessary to protect families from hunger.  

Vicki Escarra is the president and CEO of Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, serving 37 million people each year. The Map the Meal Gap study can be found at www.feedingamerica.org/mapthegap.

Read an update on what's happening with nutrition programs.

Hired farm work is among the lowest-paid work in the country. Although immigrant farm workers have higher incomes in the United States than at home, they don’t always escape poverty as they had hoped.

Tomorrow, May 1, is International Workers Day. To honor the farm workers in the United States, learn more about their working conditions in this excerpt of the 2012 Hunger Report:

Three-fourths of hired farm workers are immigrants, mostly from Mexico. About half of all U.S. hired farm workers are unauthorized immigrants. Although immigrant farm workers have higher incomes in the United States than at home, they don’t always escape poverty as they had hoped. Hired farm work is among the lowest-paid work in the country. In 2006, the median earnings of these workers—$350 per week—were lower than those of security guards, janitors, maids, and construction workers. Only dishwashers were found to have a lower weekly median income.

Although the poverty rate of farm worker families has decreased over the past 15 years, it is still more than twice that of wage and salary employees as a group, and it’s higher than that of any other general occupation. A study commissioned by the Pennsylvania State Assembly found that 70 percent of the state’s migrant farm workers live in poverty. A 2008 survey in Washington state demonstrated the impact of poverty: 6 percent of farm workers reported being homeless—living in their cars or sheds. In California, farm communities “have among the highest rates of poverty and unemployment in the state.” A study of Latino farm workers in North Carolina found that their level of food insecurity was four times higher than the general U.S. population. Nearly half—47 percent—of the Latino farm worker households in the study were food insecure; this proportion rose to 56 percent among households with children. Another study found that 45 percent of all rural Latino families in Iowa were food insecure. 

A second cause of food insecurity—in addition to low wages—is the seasonal nature of some farm work. Families’ average annual earnings decrease when laborers cannot find work throughout the year. In fact, farm workers’ earnings average out to only about $11,000 a year.

Unauthorized legal status, low wages, and inconsistent, sometimes unpredictable work schedules add up to a precarious economic state. In central Florida, where hurricanes and freezes can wipe out crops overnight, food insecurity is a perennial threat. In 2010, for example, a series of freezes destroyed the pepper, strawberry, and tomato crops that farm workers are needed for. “People are working a couple hours a day in some communities,” said Bert Perry, a community organizer for the National Farm Worker Ministry in Florida. 

Escalated immigration-law enforcement has injected fear into an already difficult economic situation. “There [in Mexico] we lived poor, but we lived peacefully,” said a Mexican farm worker in Florida. “Here we live poor, but also in desperation.” Fear sometimes deters farm workers from accessing nutrition and other federal programs they qualify for. In spite of their high poverty rates, 57 percent of all hired farm workers—a group that includes authorized as well as unauthorized workers—report receiving no public support. Unauthorized farm workers, in particular, often rely on private organizations as their main source of support in emergencies.

+ Read more from the 2012 Hunger Report on the issue of Farm Workers and Immigration.

Kate Hagen is Hunger Report project assistant at Bread for the World Institute.

A community health worker explains nutrition to a pregnant mother in Barisal, Bangladesh. Photo: Scott Bleggi/Bread for the World Institute.

Readers of our blogs and those who work to reduce hunger know the critical importance of nutrition for pregnant and breastfeeding women and small children. This 1,000-day window presents an opportunity to intervene nutritionally before the lasting effects of malnutrition lead to greater problems with life-long consequences. Sometimes hidden problems like stunting and learning difficulties–related to nutrition deficiencies–go undetected in a village of people living under similar conditions. However, other related problems like being more prone to illness can end a life tragically.

In many countries the cycle of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition has continued for generations, especially among vulnerable groups such as ethnic minorities and those who live in hard to reach areas. It is a sad reality that poorly nourished mothers have low birthweight babies who do less well in school, attend fewer classes, and tend to have health difficulties. Sometimes in their teenage years girls get married, and the detrimental cycle continues.

So how does one break this cycle of malnutrition? How does one get mothers who don’t read or write to understand, and how does one get the nutrition message to children who might only stay in school until they are 10 or 11 years of age?

One way to do it is to design a program of Behavior Change Communication (BCC) that is easily understood, can be repeated, and can be reinforced in the family and throughout the village. Effective BCC becomes a part of the daily routine and is successful when it produces positive results in health and nutrition. I saw it during my trip to Ghana last year, and I am seeing good examples of it here in Bangladesh.

I also saw the consequences of poor nutrition during a period in which cholera increased in the capital city of Dhaka. With the onset of the disease, dehydration quickly becomes a problem and if poorly nourished children don’t receive prompt treatment they are likely to die. At the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) we were taken through a children’s treatment ward. ICDDR, B is a facility that has received funds from the sale of donated surplus U.S. agricultural commodities under USDA’S 416(B) program. I was introduced to Mita and her daughter Anjali, who were admitted the night before. Mom was anxious to begin feeding her again since she responded so well to intravenous liquids.

Once the child is able to again eat solid foods, mothers in the ward are shown food that is available locally. It is explained that these foods are inexpensive, can be grown in a homestead garden, and, if eaten regularly, can provide good nutrition. They are taught about dietary diversity and “color is good,” meaning that most anything added to rice like greens, chick peas, and squash adds nutrition.

Nutritious foods given to recuperating children are sourced locally and are inexpensive. Photo: Scott Bleggi/Bread for the World Institute.

What is being learned about nutrition through BCC in Bangladesh is that changing traditional diets isn’t difficult, and doesn’t have to be expensive. Instruction is hands-on and is repeated in the village by health workers and local volunteers. Children learn about gardening at school and see raising their own healthy vegetables as an activity that can be done with Mom after school. Surplus production is shared in the village, as is the message that a traditional rice-based diet doesn’t have to be abandoned, just supplemented with healthy foods that they can grow themselves.

Nutrition’s links to health and agriculture are clearly being taught in Bangladesh. USAID-funded programming by in-country implementing partners, like Helen Keller International and Save the Children, includes local organizations as a key element. Working with these organizations will help sustain the lessons learned as examples for the government of Bangladesh which is sincere about its commitment to scale up nutrition. My next blog from South Asia will look at some examples of how local groups are sustaining developmental assistance programs after funding from donors ends.

Scott Bleggi is senior international policy analyst for hunger and nutrition with Bread for the World Institute.