Michigan State University has landed a grant that will focus on different ways to increase the availability of nutritious foods and promote their consumption in developing countries.

The objective of the $1.2 million grant, provided by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, is to increase the capacity and willingness of consumers, especially low-income consumers, to acquire and consume more nutritious foods.

The scientific team includes researchers from the United States and Africa and will collect new data in Kenya. The consortium is led by MSU’s Food Security Group with partners from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and from Innovations for Poverty Action – Kenya.

“This multidisciplinary and multi-institutional team came together extremely well to produce a top-flight proposal,” said David Tschirley, professor of agricultural, food and resource economics and co-director of the Food Security Group.

This team has years of expertise in researching food security and diet transformation in developing countries, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. Tschirley, who is the principal investigator of the grant, said he is enthusiastic about this award. 

“It is a great opportunity for MSU, as it recognizes the work that our group has done," Tschirley said. "It explicitly encourages us to push the frontier on research in this area and investigate how the profound changes taking place in African economies are affecting food choice and nutritional outcomes.”