Closing Research Investment Gaps for a Global Food Transformation

Recent calls for a global food transformation have centered on simultaneously improving human and environmental health, recognizing that nutrient diversity declined over time while systems exacted heavy climate ecological toll. Grain legumes coarse grain crops provide important nutrition benefits, but the production consumption of many these remains relatively low compared to major commodities, such as maize, wheat, rice, soy. Outstanding hurdles scaling up “minor commodity” include (among other things) their lower yields, farmer adoption, based partly actual or perceived profitability marketability. We hypothesize limitations are attributable in part unequal funding crops' research development (R&D) both national scale. In United States, we show investment patterns snapshot USDA-funded grants from 2008 2019 consistently favor commodity crops, which received 3 4.5 times more 5 than minor crop groups. This current USDA allocation poses barrier system transformations. Achieving nutritious diets planetary health requires public agricultural toward increased collaboration between nutrition, agriculture, sectors.