Category: Featured

wew had this to say in reply to a query from Jeremy three years back in connection with a very popular post (41 comments!) on the release of a new soybean variety in Uganda:

In Uganda, soybean is consumed by mixing the flour with millet or maize flour and preparing a porridge from this mixture. This is consumed by children and adults alike as a protein supplement (there are few cheap protein sources in Uganda). This method uses the greatest amount of soybean in Uganda but the most common method of consuming soybean in Uganda is by eating the roasted grain as a snack, often sold by hawkers or street vendors. Small amounts are also consumed as soymilk (locally prepared using a mortar, pestle and strainer) and as paste (mixed with local vegetables).

Now Matt Cognetti wants into the discussion:

I’m part of a Ugandan health team interested in making more efficient grinders to prepare soybeans. Can you please email me back with the method of preparing soybeans, ie. do they use hand mortar and pestle, etc.

We live to make such connections.

Robin Hide says nutritional data on PNG crops is pretty readily available:

The ready availability of such information to villagers is a problem, but at least this information is no longer buried in inaccessible journals.

And she has the references to prove it. But what about those villagers?

Zachee Ngoko answers (sort of) Afiniki Bawa Zarafi’s about the CABI Global Plant Clinic’s work on taro leaf blight.

Taro blight (P. colocassiae) is still a threat to farmers and “Achu” and “Ekwan” consummers in Cameroon. In the Western Highlands (WHL) and South West regions, that crop is disappearing at an alarming rate. Eating habit is being shifted to rice or maize or others comodities. At this moment, after the primary works we carried with CABI, future activities are slow to come. If nothing is done, in the next few years, that crop will joint cowpea (for the WHL) in a closed cupboard. Can you contribute? Please contact us.

Is CABI listening?

Afiniki Bawa Zarafi remains concerned about taro leaf blight:

Please what has been the finding of CABI/ Global plant clinic in respect to this coocyam leaf blight/ taro leaf blight? I am also interested in the result /findings of other scientists working on this disease.

And he’s right. More than a year ago in a comment to the same post Zachee Ngoko promised:

More information will come out as soon as available. Stay tuned!

Afiniki, and the rest of us, are still tuned. So what’s the news?

Michael says what Luigi was too much of a wuss to do more than imply:

These factsheets can be nice corporate/project hand-outs, if well done, but otherwise a waste of time. When I need information on baobab or other useful plants, I certainly will not go to an institutional website to look for factsheets. I google, and what usually comes up is a Wikipedia article (as for baobab) with oftentimes far better information.