New approaches to tackling hunger are needed, including growing a wider variety of crops and reducing reliance on chemical fertilisers, recommends a report by the Worldwatch Institute, an independent research organization based in Washington, D.C.

The report published yesterday says previous approaches to feeding the world’s population have “not really worked” since around 925 million people globally still go hungry everyday.

“The international community has been neglecting entire segments of the food system in its efforts to reduce hunger and poverty,” said Danielle Nierenberg, co-director of Worldwatch’s “nourishing the planet” project, which produced the report.

Developing new varieties of seeds should not be the default solution for tackling hunger and poverty, because it only provides poor farmers a “short-term payoff”, the report says. Rather, long-term investments to improve soil fertility and access to water will provide the biggest returns.

In addition, eliminating hunger will not just depend on producing more food. Rather, great gains can be made by making better use of the food that is already produced. Reducing the amount of the harvest that spoils in poorer nations due to contamination by pests or mould will go a long way to combating food waste.

Farmers in poorer countries are open to experimenting with new technologies to find solutions to the problems they face, the report says. But the research and development efforts of foreign agencies need to include these farmers to ensure the solutions they develop meet the farmers’ needs, it recommends.

The report calls on the international community to boost its financial aid for agricultural development, which it says is “near historic lows”.

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