NFSC230

Recommended: NFSC100 and NFSC112. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Goal 2) aims to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030. The West African sub region is among the most food insecure regions in the world, with an estimated 31% of the population projected to be food insecure by 2024. Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that by 2020, Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) will account for 80 percent of the global burden of disease, causing seven out of every 10 deaths in developing countries. To avert this situation, an integrated approach that involves all stakeholders - producers, processors, distributors, consumers, policy makers and research institutions - must be developed. A number of initiatives have already been implemented to examine how agriculture could be leveraged to become a more powerful tool to tackle the persistent problems of food insecurity, malnutrition, and poor health. This course will seek to build on the momentum created by these and similar conversations and initiatives to prepare students and participants to develop global solutions fit for local contexts that bridge the gap between agricultural development and its largely unfulfilled health and nutritional benefits. Our focus will be on Ghana, Africa. The course will be taught online by the faculty from the University of Maryland and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi Ghana.