Proponents for investing in agriculture include Jeffrey Sachs, who argues that wealthy countries should invest in fertilizer and seed for Africas farmers.Imported Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) has been used to treat malnutrition in northern Nigeria. Some Nigerians also use soy kunu, a locally sourced and prepared blend consisting of peanut, millet and soybeans.New technology in agricultural production has great potential to combat undernutrition. It makes farming easier, thus improving agricultural yields. By increasing farmers incomes, this could reduce poverty. It would also open up area which farmers could use to diversify crops for household use. The World Bank claims to be part of the solution to malnutrition, asserting that countries can best break the cycle of poverty and malnutrition by building export-led economies, giving them the financial means to buy foodstuffs on the world market. The role of the World Bank cannot be overemphasized in the prevention of malnutrition..

Economics
Many aid groups have found that giving cash assistance (or cash vouchers) is more effective than donating food. Particularly in areas where food is available but unaffordable, giving cash assistance is a cheaper, faster, and more efficient way to deliver help to the hungry. In 2008, the UNs World Food Program, the biggest non-governmental distributor of food, announced that it would begin distributing cash and vouchers instead of food in some areas, which Josette Sheeran, the WFPs executive director, described as a "revolution" in food aid.
In South Sudan, the prevalence of undernutrition explained by stunting, underweight and wasting in under-five children were 23.8%, 4.8% and 2.3% respectively.Vitamin A deficiency affects one third of children under age 5 around the world, leading to 670,000 deaths and 250,000–500,000 cases of blindness. In adults
As of June 2021, 1.9 billion adults were overweight or obese, and 462 million adults were underweight. Globally, two billion people had iodine deficiency in 2017. In 2020, 900 million women and children had anemia, which is often caused by iron deficiency.Certain groups have higher rates of undernutrition, including elderly people and women (in particular while pregnant or breastfeeding children under five years of age). Undernutrition is an increasing health problem in people aged over 65 years, even in developed countries, especially among nursing home residents and in acute care hospitals. In the elderly, undernutrition is more commonly due to physical, psychological, and social factors, not a lack of food. Age-related reduced dietary intake due to chewing and swallowing problems, sensory decline, depression, imbalanced gut microbiome, poverty and loneliness are major contributors to undernutrition in the elderly population. Recent increase
There has been an increase in world hunger over the past decade. In 2015, 795 million people (about one in ten people on earth) had undernutrition. In 2020, one in nine people in the world—or 820 million people worldwide—was hungry.These increases are partially related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to highlight the weaknesses of current food and health systems.