The IAF and the Global Food Security Strategy

The U.S. government is aiming to end global hunger and malnutrition through its Global Food Security Strategy. As one of 12 agencies partnering on this strategy, we work to advance its vision, including:

• Sustainable and inclusive farmer-led economic growth
• Strengthened resilience among people, communities, and systems for producing and distributing food, and
• Improved nutrition, especially for women and children.

In each of these areas, we've made significant progress in the local areas where our grantees work. This year, we reported an active portfolio of 216 food security-related grants from 2023, valued at $169.8 million ($74.8 million in IAF investments plus grantee coinvestment).

Farmer-led Economic Growth

To promote farmer-led economic growth, we invest in training for small-scale farmers in sustainable practices to improve yields, add value to their products, and command higher prices to earn more income for their families. We recently worked with farmers across Latin America and the Caribbean to improve farm management practices using an appthat they helped design. We've also worked with farmers to certify their products as meeting special standards that can make them more competitive in the market or more profitable.

Haiti's economy has steadily contracted over the past five years and 62 percent of Haitians reported not working in the past week, when surveyed in March 2023. Despite these dire circumstances, with ongoing and flexible IAF support, grantee Sant pou la Kilti ak Devlopman Karis (SKDK) has helped farmers (nearly 50 percent women) significantly increase their income in the small municipalities of Carice, Mont-Organisé, and Mombin-Crochu in the North East department through sustainable agriculture and access to credit. SKDK has helped peanut growers double their production, achieving two annual harvests with an average 15 percent increase in yield. This has more than doubled farmers' annual income to around $1,005 per farm. With its profits, the peanut growers' association built a storage facility that now generates additional income. Yam producers with SKDK doubled their cultivation area, increased yields by 35 percent, and cultivated a higher-value variety, increasing their annual income by 63 percent to around $1,170 per farm. To facilitate access to credit to invest in their farms and businesses, SKDK supports 28 savings and loan associations whose participation has grown by 8 percent since receiving the IAF grant, while the money they manage has more than tripled. The 800 loan applications they have received over the grant period indicate the tremendous local demand for capital to invest in improving farms and small businesses.

Strengthened Resilience Among People and Systems

To make individual people, communities, and their food systems more resilient, we invest in practices that make them better prepared to withstand crises. For example, our grantees provide technical assistance to help farmers grow a wider range of crops so they're less likely to suffer catastrophic loss from a disease or growing issue affecting one crop. We help agricultural organizations analyze local conditions and plan ahead with the best information available. We also work with people to protect and manage their sources of water and to improve their soil over the long term.

More than seven straight years of drought have left the department of Chuquisaca, Bolivia, in emergency status, plunging more than half of its residents into food insecurity. An organization led by Indigenous Quechua women, the Asociación de Mujeres Unidas Para el Desarrollo Sostenible (ASMUDES), is meeting the food needs of six Quechua communities in a protected natural area in Chuquisaca by advancing environmentally resilient agroforestry practices. With IAF funding, ASMUDES has strengthened the food security of nearly 12,000 Indigenous Bolivians, introducing eight new fruits and 10 new vegetables into families' diets, including papaya, lemon, grapefruit, and avocado. Participants have established three community nurseries to nurture seedlings, developed 27 new hectares of fruit trees, and last year produced more than 40 metric tons of fruits and vegetables in their gardens. They marketed the surplus in local and regional markets, producing value-added fruit and vegetable products to raise additional income, such as dried fruit. With support from ASMUDES and another IAF grantee, Fundación Taller de Iniciativas en Estudios Rurales y Reforma Agraria, community members successfully worked with the municipal government to establish an economic commission to support local produce markets. This enabled them to secure significant in-kind support to build two product warehouses.

Improved Nutrition for Women and Children

To improve nutrition, especially for women and children, we fund work to expand the range of crops farmers and home gardeners grow, and to supply a broader range of crops to school lunch programs. We also encourage the farmers' associations we fund to expand the involvement and leadership of women and youth, giving them access to more independent income as well as homegrown crops.

One in every two children in Guatemala is stunted from chronic malnourishment due to lack of access to a diverse, nutritious diet. Inspired by the Catholic social teaching of promoting human dignity through community-centered development, recent IAF grantee Proyecto de Salud Sangre de Cristo (PSSC) works with schoolchildren, their parents, and the broader community in San Pedro Ayampuc and Chinautla, Guatemala, to promote healthy eating and hygiene at home. PSSC's IAF-funded activities strengthened communities through nutrition education, training in cultivating family gardens, regular home visits, and peer-to-peer learning and action networks. PSSC trained 815 families on childhood nutrition, encouraging them to diversify their diets by incorporating fruits and vegetables from their family gardens as well as soy milk and vitamin supplements. Cooking classes for mothers strengthened their ability to produce nutritious food for their households, and when coupled with handicrafts and entrepreneurship workshops, prepared them to bring in additional household income. Thanks to these activities, approximately 1,000 children gained weight over the grant period, on average from three to five pounds, closing the gap for what they should weigh at their age.

No one, especially children, should ever go hungry. While we're up against significant challenges, the U.S. government is helping farmers to grow, earn more, and use practices that set them up for long term success, as well as helping families to consume a healthier diet-and we're proud of the part we play.