- Combining traditional and scientific knowledge on an invasive species to manage forests.
- Variation in dryland trees: Balanites and Adansonia.
- Roundup of biofortification bloggers.
Where are the variety-level food composition data?
FAO has just announced the publication of Composition of Selected Foods from West Africa.
The table includes 173 foods and 30 components. It is mainly a compilation of data from other food composition tables, theses and the scientific literature. It is one of the first regional food composition tables not only including data on commonly consumed raw foods but also cooked foods and on food biodiversity, i.e. data on variety level and on underutilized foods.
Well, that is all true as far as it goes, but I’m afraid it doesn’t really go very far. There are indeed data on things like fonio and baobab leaves in the table, which is very welcome. But the variety-level data are very limited, with maybe a dozen pearl millet and a few maize entries. Still a lot of work to be done there. Interestingly, the pearl millet varieties all have ikmp numbers (like ikmp-5), which suggests that they are selections made in Burkina Faso by INERA (Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles).
Is diet on the agenda or not?
I’m puzzled. Having taken one attendee at the recent biofortification conference to task for utterly ignoring dietary diversity as a source of good nutrition, we were told, privately, that “biodiverse diets are 1st choice, but high nutrient crops can help in the mean time or in addition to a diverse diet”. And yet I have just read another stirring report from that conference that does not mention diversity of diet.
Am I still missing something?
Nibbles: Advice, Advice, Advice, IR8
- Americans advised to eat diversity, by USDA and others. Wot, no fortified staples?
- Webcast on Food Systems and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa. h/t The Agrobiodiversity Grapevine.
- French vegetables disappearing? Je ne le crois pas.
- The Scientist Gardener tackles declining yields of miracle rice, but what has he done to his colour scheme?
When did you stop beating your wife? The micronutrient edition
Nicholas Kristof was at the Biofortification Conference, telling the audience How to Get Micronutrient Malnutrition on the Public Health Agenda. ((The usual suspects.)) The organizers took the opportunity to capture the great man’s thoughts on video. And guess what? He thinks biofortification is more sustainable than supplements, even though, as he said:
Biofortification is in a sense unproven. We can’t be sure that these experiments in improving underlying foods are going to be scalable, that customers are going to accept them … there are things that can go wrong. But on the other hand, if you rely forever on drops or pills then that’s always going to cost money. It’s not sustainable in the same way. If you can get people to substitute the kind of rice they eat, the kind of bananas the eat, the kind of wheat they eat, then you’ve solved these nutrition problems that have been with us for all of human history. Is it going to work? We can’t be sure, but it’s a pretty good bet and it sure is exciting.
Absolutely spot on Nicholas. And given the two options your interviewer offered, I’d probably have answered in similar vein. But, er, did no one at the conference mention dietary diversity? Not even in the corridors where the video was filmed.
The value of dietary diversity is not unproven. People do eat diverse diets. And the approach is genuinely sustainable, quite apart from other benefits that come with increased agricultural biodiversity. It’s not a bet, it’s a racing certainty. And it is obviously being ignored by an influential sector of the community.
So, I’ve another topic for Mr Kristof and anyone else who cares to weigh in: How to get Dietary Diversity on the Solutions to Micronutrient Malnutrition Agenda.