The ‘Hyderabad Infoods Declaration’ has called for concerted global action from governments, researchers, voluntary organisations, scientists and all other stakeholders for compiling, dissemination and exchange of quality data on nutrition contents of foods from around the world. Over 350 delegates representing 37 countries around the world adopted the declaration at the recently-concluded 11th International Food Data Conference (IFDC 2015) at the city-based National Institute of Nutrition.
The declaration noted that the nutrition policies and programmes around the world depend to a great extent on the nutrient content related databases of foods consumed in their respective countries. While recognising the importance of biodiverse foods to promote dietary diversity and acknowledging the need to reform agriculture and food systems to meet the ever increasing challenges of nutritional needs of global population, the declaration urged all governments to invest in generation, compilation and dissemination of quality food composition data profiling all nutrients and non-nutrients including those in processed foods.
The declaration also emphasised on the need for national capacity building in all aspects of food database generation, compilation and dissemination and called for institutionalising the same in higher education.
“Considering that the food databases form the key information on various nutrients and non-nutrients available in foods, there is a need for each country to profile the data of all the foods commonly consumed by its people. Of course, there is a need to update them on a regular basis. In the context that foods from across the territories are being consumed by us, data exchange between the nations becomes a priority,” said T Longvah, director incharge, NIN and convenor, IFDC 2015.
