The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation is attempting to promote higher consumption of fruits and vegetables, which it claims could prevent some of the world's most widespread and debilitating nutritional disorders.
Low fruit and vegetable intake is a major contributing factor to micronutrient deficiencies that lead to birth defects, mental and physical retardation, weakened immune systems, blindness, and even death, claims the WHO. But most populations are not consuming nearly enough, as shown by the FAO/WHO Expert Report on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases, released earlier this year.
While research shows nine or ten servings of fruits and vegetables a day is optimal, dietary guidelines tend to recommend a minimum of five servings a day. Yet studies show that most populations are consistently not reaching even half this goal.
There has been a surge of new science in the past year suggesting that fruits and vegetables can not only help prevent nutrient deficiency disorders, but also reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, another leading cause of morbidity and mortality around the globe, and many cancers.
While the rise of such diseases is partly due to declining physical activity and excessive food energy intake, the WHO attributes approximately 3 million deaths a year from such diseases to inadequate fruit and vegetable intake - a risk factor almost as deadly as tobacco use or unsafe sex.
"Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption is a major public health challenge at the moment," said Kraisid Tontisirin, director of the FAO's Food and Nutrition Division.
There are various reasons why different populations tend to shy away from fruits and vegetables, including cost, convenience, taste and stigma. The FAO says it is trying to make sure agriculture, particularly in the developing world, can help meet the demand for healthy foods.
"One of the main objectives is to make sure the safety and health of foods is not compromised by increasing production levels," said Alison Hodder, an agricultural officer in the FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division.
The FAO is trying to encourage farmers to follow good agricultural practices, and is working with different partners to develop a general framework for food production systems that are both economically and environmentally sustainable.
Since the harvest period for many fruits and vegetables can be limited, the FAO also provides information on the best methods for preserving produce (for example, drying, chemical processing and heat treatments) while retaining the maximum amount of nutrients.
It is also aiming to improve people's access to fruits and vegetables, by integrating gardening messages with nutrition information and encouraging local communities to grow and consume a variety of crops. In urban areas, the FAO has launched the 'Food for the cities' initiative, a programme designed to link production with transportation, storage and marketing strategies, and address such critical issues as urban poverty and food costs.
As public awareness campaigns about the benefits of fruits and vegetables continue to develop, producers may have a unique occasion to increase their production and enter new markets.
"The key is to utilize techniques like crop programming, which help growers schedule fruit and vegetable production throughout the year," said Hodder. "Agriculture can expand to meet consumers' increasing needs as long as growers can learn to anticipate them."