Atoms4Food
In October 2023, at the World Food Forum in Rome, the Agency and FAO launched a joint initiative, Atoms4Food. This initiative aims to address Member State needs regarding food, diet quality, nutrition security and food safety, and to support their efforts in transforming agrifood systems to achieve the SDGs.
Building on almost 60 years of Agency–FAO strategic partnership through the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Atoms4Food seeks to provide Member States with groundbreaking solutions, tailored to their specific needs and circumstances, by harnessing the advantages of nuclear techniques and other advanced technologies to enhance crop and livestock productivity, ensure sustainable natural resources management, reduce food losses and waste, ensure food safety, improve diet quality and nutrition and adapt to the challenges of climate change.
A multidisciplinary approach and multistakeholder cooperation will be fostered, in conjunction with a resource mobilization mechanism to enable the scaling up of existing programmes and initiatives.
Seven essential services are available under Atoms4Food
- Assessment Mission to map food and nutrition security needs and develop tailored comprehensive technical packages to help Member States address challenges in transforming their agrifood systems.
- Crop Variety Improvement Service to build mutation breeding pipelines using nuclear and advanced technologies for enhanced resilience to climate change, pests and pathogens and better nutrition.
- Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Service to gather information on soil fertility, major crops and their average yields, availability of fertilizer and water irrigation systems.
- Animal Production and Health Service to support rapid disease diagnosis, provide safer, broadly protective irradiated vaccines and enhance animal production through improved reproductive performance and animal nutrition.
- Insect Pest Control Service to tackle insect pests that affect agricultural production, using the nuclear-based sterile insect technique along with other control methods as part of an area-wide integrated pest management approach.
- Food Safety and Control Service to enhance the surveillance of contaminants/residues associated with foodborne diseases, fight food fraud, promote food irradiation and facilitate market access.
- Public Health Nutrition Service to use stable isotope techniques to assess the nutritional value of foods, diet quality and associated nutrition outcomes.
Atoms4Food - New IAEA-FAO Initiative Announced
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has launched Atoms4Food, a new initiative bringing together the knowledge gathered during the IAEA’s 60 years of experience using nuclear science to grow stronger, healthier, safer crops and to protect the food we need to live. In a video statement, Director General Grossi set out the services offered by this new initiative.