Category: Nutrition

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Orange sweet potato not a “magic bullet”

They are no magic bullet, but next to a more diverse diet, they may prove to be the most cost-effective approach to reducing hidden hunger.

This statement may well be something of a breakthrough, which is why I think it deserves some prominence here. In the battle against malnutrition there has long been a general needless opposition among supplements, biofortification (by genetic engineering and conventional breeding) and dietary diversity. Each has its place, and if we are highly biased towards dietary diversity, it is because we think it is the most sustainable option, with plenty of spin-off benefits. To hear IFPRI and HarvestPlus suggest that orange-fleshed sweet potatoes may actually be less cost effective than dietary diversity in fighting malnutrition is music indeed.

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A tale of two countries

Exhibit A:

Among 1.5 million children aged 0 to 2 years in communities where the program is implemented, the proportion of those who are underweight has fallen from 30 percent in January 2009 to 20 percent in March 2010. The average decline in the four participating regions … is a strong eight percentage points a year.

Exhibit B:

The ICDS and MDMS are the world’s largest nutrition supplement programs. These apart, 160 million families are given food grains at highly subsidized rates. With about half-a million fair price shops, India’s public distribution system (PDS) is rated as the world’s largest food subsidy program. But, the evidence shows that all these welfare measures have not made a difference.

There’s more to be had from these two reports, on Ethiopia and India respectively but the bottom-line observation, as the Times of India points out, is clear.

India is the world’s 10th largest economy with a GDP of $3.57 trillion and $3,100 as per capita income. Sub-Saharan Ethiopia has the 79th largest economy, with $900 as per capita income. It’s far behind India. Yet, Ethiopia and a handful of other sub-Saharan nations beat India in one of the most critical social indices.

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Nibbles: Milk-drinking, Diversity and stability, Indian sheep, Development of the African savannah, Teaching rice, Silk, Diverse diet, Huge phallic inflorescences

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A breakthrough in West Africa?

We nibbled this piece in The Guardian a couple days back, but it really deserves more:

Health, nutrition and agriculture experts from the 15 Ecowas countries said nutrition usually gains attention only in the context of crisis and emergency response, but it should be integral to agricultural and development programmes if countries are to pre-empt child malnutrition.

That seems to be quite a breakthrough. When I posted the link on the Biodiversity_for_Nutrition Yahoo Group, saying that putting “nutrition at the heart of agriculture” was quite a thought, Danny at Bioversity was quick off the mark:

A thought indeed. Raises some very good points – integration, policy and strategy fragmentation, need to mainstream nutrition into agriculture… All good stuff and hey, we even have a project in the pipeline that offers a great opportunity to address these issues. Unfortunately, the environment/biodiversity sectors are not highlighted as one of the sectors which should also be involved. They should be. Minor gripe. I would suggest that the focal points for the project in question circulate this short and to the point article to all their partners and beyond. Recommendation: Circulate widely!

Unfortunately, it is difficult to find details of the concrete actions that will be undertaken on the ECOWAS website. And one is also left wondering whether the link with biodiversity will be made. There is a parallel ECOWAS effort on biodiversity in which Bioversity is involved, so perhaps it will.