Nutrition

April 6, 2011April 6, 2011

More on the orange sweet potato story

The author of the orange-fleshed sweet potato paper I talked about a couple of days ago has kindly informed me that the answer to the question I posed is that the impact of the dissemination of these new varieties in Uganda has indeed been measured, but just hasn’t been published yet. There was apparently a big multidisciplinary study in 2007-2009 both in Uganda and Mozambique, and the results are due to come out in the near future. Good to hear, and many thanks, Robert. In the meantime, we have the following snippet from an IFPRI publication to whet our collective, er, appetite.

April 6, 2011April 6, 2011

Nibbles: Lupine, Methane, Food crisis, Nutritionists, Carrots, Poi, Barhal, Mung bean, Invasives, European bison, Mango

Saving the scrub lupine. Well, it’s a crop wild relative of sorts.
Dietary approaches to reduction of belching. No, not less beer and peanuts in front of the TV.
“Governments and institutions should strongly promote new agricultural technologies suitable for smallholders through increased investment in crop breeding and livestock research.” That would be IFPRI on the actions needed to prevent recurring food crises. Hope that includes supporting the genebanks.
“Can’t nutritionists make up their minds? They keep changing things!” Nuff said.
Carrots are exotic? In Canada? Yes indeedy.
Rachel dissects the cost of proper poi in Hawaii.
Behold Barhal, relative of breadfruit.
High yielding mung-bean repatriated to Somalia. Genebanks protect and serve?
Do your bit for conservation, eat an invasive. Or, perhaps, a bison?
Bad news for Indian mangoes. What I want to know is whether there are any varieties that are doing really well.
Mediterranean forests going up in smoke. Bad for the crop wild relatives in them too, no doubt

April 5, 2011April 5, 2011

That elusive nutritional impact

Maybe it’s all the nutrition stuff going on here and at Vaviblog lately, but when I finally tried to catch up with a couple of papers from the recent special issue of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability on “Sustainable intensification: increasing productivity in African food and agricultural systems,” one thing struck above all else. And that was that both in the case of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes in Uganda and indigenous African vegetables in East Africa, there is still no evidence of a nutritional or health impact of adoption of that particular agrobiodiversity.

Ex ante predictions, sure. Economic impacts, plenty. Even in some cases nutritional impact of the same intervention (those orange sweet potatoes) in another place (South Africa). Maybe the impact on health and nutrition is there and just hasn’t been measured, or it has been measured but hasn’t been published yet. Or maybe it’s just too early for such an impact to have manifested itself. But when it comes to the specific agrobiodiversity cases of sweet potatoes in Uganda and traditional greens in East Africa, it seems to me that the biggest documented impact of so far has been on income.

Will someone out there set me straight? Please!

Oh, and since I’m at it, there’s a paper out by an old friend from the Pacific on a quick method of measuring some nutritional variables in sweet potatoes.

March 31, 2011March 31, 2011

Nutritionist tells researchers what to eat shock

According to a report over at the Vaviblog, Bioversity’s nutritionist Jessica Fanzo was beset by questioners after her talk at the Vavilov Institute mentioned both the bad nutritional status of most Russians and the high nutritional value of some fruits and berries at the threatened Pavlovsk Experiment Station. She was bombarded with requests for advice. The Vaviblog’s correspondent reports:

One response stuck in my mind. Jessica was asked whether one couldn’t get all the vitamins and minerals one needs from pills. She said yes, but you have to get everything else from food, so why not the vitamins as well, by choosing your food better?

Especially if you like your potatoes processed and potable.

March 30, 2011March 30, 2011

Yo! Pavlovsk Politicos! Listen up!

Some of the accessions investigated by the project are nutritionally much more valuable than others. Thanks to the project, we know which berries they are. Thanks to Pavlovsk, we have the berries. On that basis alone, surely they’re more valuable than the land they occupy on the outskirts of St Petersburg. Let’s hope that the project team is successful in getting that policy message across tomorrow.

The Vaviblog reports on the first day of an important meeting, a round-up of the project on Conservation, characterization and evaluation for nutrition and health of vegetatively propagated crop collections at the Vavilov Institute.