Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets (FRESH)

Start Date: 2022

End Date: 2025

In brief

Poor diets are a primary cause of malnutrition and the leading cause of diseases worldwide. Improving diets, including increasing fruit and vegetable intake, could save one in five lives lost annually. Micronutrients and dietary fiber are essential for health; micronutrients obtained from fruit and vegetables have a lower environmental footprint than from other foods, making fruit and vegetables essential to healthy and sustainable diets. Globally, fruit and vegetable intake is far below recommended levels, however, the extent and nature of the problem is poorly understood due to insufficient dietary data, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

Increasing fruit and vegetable intake will require starting with consumers, understanding dietary patterns, and addressing desirability, accessibility, affordability, and availability barriers through cost-effective solutions. Solutions must take a holistic end-to-end approach that starts from intake and works back through the food system to improve accessibility of fruits and vegetables and increase year-round supply of a diverse range of safe, affordable, nutrient-dense vegetables.

WorldVeg is taking a leading role in the new Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets (FRESH) One CGIAR Initiative. The initiative aims to use an end-to-end approach to increase fruit and vegetable intake, improve diet quality, nutrition and health while also improving livelihoods, empowering women and youth and mitigating negative environmental impacts.

Impact areas

• Health and food security
• Poverty reduction, livelihoods, and jobs
• Gender equality, youth, and social inclusion
• Climate adaptation and mitigation
• Environmental health and biodiversity

Project Country

Benin, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines