Among the great challenges the world faces is how to ensure that a growing global population - projected to rise to around 10 billion by 2050 – has enough quality food to meet their nutritional needs for a healthy life. This for a planet experiencing increasing water and land scarcity, soil, land and biodiversity degradation and more frequent and severe weather events. The impact of climate change on agriculture compounds the situation. There is more than enough food produced today to feed everyone, yet about 815 million people are chronically undernourished, and malnutrition affects around one in three people on the planet. FAO regards this situation as the most prioritized issue and thus, establishes as one of the Strategic Objectives “Zero Hunger: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”.

In Myanmar, significant improvements in the fight against hunger have been achieved in recent decades. Despite this progress, more than a quarter of Myanmar’s population still live in poverty while spending a high percentage of their limited income on food. In addition, Myanmar is vulnerable to serious disasters and sporadic conflicts that negatively affect food security. One major factor for hunger and malnutrition is a lack of diversification and over concentration on a few staple crops.

In view of the above consideration, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAO RAP) initiated the project “Creating Enabling Environments for Nutrition-sensitive Food and Agriculture to Address Malnutrition” to implement the “Zero Hunger Challenge” in four countries: Lao, Cambodia,  Nepal and Myanmar aiming to contribute for developing evidence based national crop diversification strategies, generating additional benefits to income generation and improving livelihoods of poor and marginalized farmers, national policy and strategy recommendations on a multi-dimensional enabling environment for nutrition-sensitive food and agriculture from a food system perspective.

Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS) that are nutrition-dense, climate-resilient, economically viable and locally available or adaptable and considered as Future Smart Food, offer high potential and is the main theme of this project. Building on previous knowledge on neglected and underutilized crops generated by multiple stakeholders, the FAO RAP has led the Future Smart Food initiative under Regional Initiative on Zero Hunger, in collaboration with member states and other stakeholders. Myanmar is one of the core members from the very start of this initiative.

In order to fulfil the planned activities in Myanmar, an Inception Workshop for this regional project on Creating Enabling Environments for Nutrition-sensitive Food and Agriculture to Address Malnutrition and Policy Dialogue on Neglected and Underutilized Species for Zero Hunger was held on 2 August 2018 in Nay Pyi Taw. U Naing Kyi Win, Director General of the Department of Agricultural Research and officials, Dr Xuan Li, Senior Policy Officer of FAO RAP, and the members of FAO Myanmar team participated the workshop. Through a series of presentation at the workshop, the status of hunger and malnutrition in Myanmar was overviewed, followed by the identification of challenges and opportunities concerning the agriculture, genetic resources and climate change issue in the country. National policy, regulations, laws and institutions covering the entire food value chain related to staple food and Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS) was discussed during the workshop.

The publication “Future Smart Food: Rediscovering Hidden Treasures of Neglected and Underutilized Species for Zero Hunger in Asia” was also launched at the workshop. This publication contributes directly to the eradication of hunger and malnutrition and under Regional Initiative on Zero Hunger Challenge.