World Pulses Day highlights the role of pulses in improving nutrition, supporting sustainable food systems, and strengthening livelihoods. Pulses are a key component of affordable, nutrient-dense diets and play an important role in addressing malnutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies and non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
Explore GAIN’s insights on food fortification, diet quality, and nutrition-sensitive food systems, and check back for related content marking World Pulses Day.
Food choices play a dual role in shaping both human health and environmental sustainability. At the individual level, diets that lack diversity, fall short of essential nutrients, contain excessive amounts of foods high in sugar, unhealthy fats, and salt, or fail to meet food safety standards, and can have serious negative consequences for health (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2025; World Health Organization, n.d.). At the same time, the ways food is produced and consumed affect the environment, —contributing to land degradation, freshwater depletion, climate change, and biodiversity loss (Crippa et al., 2021; Tilman et al., 2017). These environmental impacts, in turn, influence which foods are available, accessible, and affordable, and can alter the nutrient density of crops (Beach et al., 2019; Smith & Myers, 2018), reinforcing this close connection between our food choices and the environment.
Latest Review Series reveals USD 11 Trillion Bill in Food System’s Hidden Costs, a Significant Underestimation
• A partial USD 11 trillion bill: According to FAO’s latest estimates, food systems cost the world over USD 11 trillion per year in hidden health, socioeconomic, and environmental burdens – an amount larger than the GDP of most major economies. However, this figure likely represents a substantial underestimation of true costs and benefits as it does not capture all relevant negative and positive impacts.
• Health costs are the largest contributor, but micronutrient malnutrition remains invisible: Diet-related diseases, premature mortality, and productivity losses from illness are the biggest drivers of these costs, yet we are still failing to measure the true price of micronutrient malnutrition.
• The equity crisis: Existing research and data are heavily skewed toward high-income countries, leaving the severe burdens in low- and middle-income nations largely hidden.
Global food systems generate significant socio-economic impacts (or externalities) – both positive and negative – which greatly vary across geographic regions, supply chains, and production systems.
Billions of people worldwide are malnourished. Despite our best efforts, the cost of a healthy diet and food insecurity continue heading in the wrong direction. Without significant intervention, this crisis will persist—but we believe artificial intelligence (AI) represents a powerful new tool to help change that trajectory.
Orphaned crops refer to a diverse group of foods, including cereals, legumes, vegetables, and fruits, that have been largely overlooked by mainstream agricultural research, breeding programs, and markets.
Many orphan crops contain higher concentrations of vitamins, minerals, and protein than major cereals. In soci eties facing a double burden of undernutrition and rising diet-related diseases, orphaned crops provide a crucial bridge. They nourish without harming.
Nutrition education in schools and public health programs can normalize the consumption of traditional foods, while media and culinary initiatives can make them fashionable. Changing perception is just as critical as changing production.
Global food systems face complex, multi-faceted challenges that greatly vary by context, and their environmental, health, and socio-economic impacts are equally diverse. A comprehensive understanding that integrates these disparate factors into unified, clear guidance is essential for decision-making, including policy measures and industry practices.
Investing in nutrition isn’t just possible, it’s smart. That’s the key message that sticks with us a few weeks after the GIIN Impact Forum 2025, where we organised a session, “Nutrition Lens Investing: A Framework for Action”.
Moderated by Roberta Bove (GAIN), the discussion brought together a diverse mix of development financiers, fund managers, and impact practitioners to explore how investors can move beyond broad food security goals to intentionally target nutrition impact, focusing on the quality, not just the quantity, of food reaching consumers.
This White Paper makes the case for a territorial governance approach that reinforces urban–rural linkages by empowering local actors and enabling their collective agency. Local, traditional, and farmers markets serve as strategic hubs that offer multiple levers and diverse forms of capital for transforming food systems within cities, across urban–rural interfaces, and throughout wider territorial landscapes. Investing in both hard (physical) and soft (capacity-building) market infrastructure, supporting diverse knowledge systems, and advancing inclusive “whole-of-society” governance are essential steps toward unlocking resilient and sustainable food systems now and in the future. With these foundations in place, communities, governments, and sectors can routinely apply best practices and participate meaningfully in decision-making processes that foster a wide range of regenerative, biodiverse food value chains. Such systems create market and food environments characterized by vibrant public spaces; access to affordable, safe, culturally preferred, healthy diets; reduced and valorized food waste; and opportunities for dignified, prosperous livelihoods.
Much of today’s headline news paint a grim picture — numerous crises unfolding alongside a sharp decline in global solidarity and the withdrawal of the private sector from net-zero commitments. The unity that inspired the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a decade ago now feels increasingly distant.
Yet, the embers of that spirit, which imbued the launch of the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge in 2021, remain.
