- Global estimation of dietary micronutrient inadequacies: a modelling analysis. Maybe 5 billion people don’t get enough micronutrients from their diets, absent fortification and supplementation.
- Global analysis reveals persistent shortfalls and regional differences in availability of foods needed for health. There’s enough food in the world, but not enough healthy foods. Those 5 billion people would probably agree.
- A multicriteria analysis of meat and milk alternatives from nutritional, health, environmental, and cost perspectives. Pulses would seem to be a good bet as healthy foods.
- Spanish chickpea gene-bank seeds (Cicer arietinum L.) offer an enhanced nutritional quality and polyphenol profile compared with commercial cultivars. Yeah, but some pulses are better than others.
- Selection criteria and yield stability in a large collection of African yam bean [Sphenostylis stenocarpa (Hochst ex. A. Rich) Harms] accessions. Wait, abut about the nutritional content?
- Climate change and nutrition-associated diseases. We’re going to need a lot more healthy foods. I vote for African yam bean.
- Biofortification: Future Challenges for a Newly Emerging Technology to Improve Nutrition Security Sustainably. Biofortification is still not delivering enough more healthy foods. Will it ever? Jeremy available for comment.
- Do diverse crops or diverse market purchases matter more for women’s diet quality in farm households of Mali? Do both, of course. Jeremy nods sagely.
- The nexus between agroforestry landscapes and dietary diversity: insights from Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone. Do agroforestry too, while you’re at it.
- Trees on farms improve dietary quality in rural Malawi. No, really, agroforestry works.
- The effects of market-oriented farming on living standards, nutrition, and informal sharing arrangements of smallholder farmers: the case of African indigenous vegetables in Kenya. Well, at least incomes went up.
- Unveiling the bountiful treasures of India’s fruit genetic resources. Plenty of scope for putting more healthy foods on tables. Or more income in pockets. Who knows, with any luck, maybe both? But don’t forget the pulses and vegetables too.
Brainfood: Maroon rice, Dutch aroids, Sicilian saffron, Inca agriculture, Native American agriculture, Mexican peppers, Afro-Mexican agriculture, Sahelian landraces, Small-scale fisheries, Coconut remote sensing
- The Mystery of Black Rice: Food, Medicinal, and Spiritual Uses of Oryza glaberrima by Maroon Communities in Suriname and French Guiana. There’s a rich oral history of African rice in Maroon communities, but that doesn’t mean either the traditional knowledge or diversity of the crop is safe.
- The Invisible Tropical Tuber Crop: Edible Aroids (Araceae) Sold as “Tajer” in the Netherlands. Another example of traditional knowledge on crops surviving far from their home.
- Rethinking Pliny’s “Sicilian Crocus”: Ecophysiology, Environment, and Classical Texts. There might have been two distinct saffron species in ancient Sicily. Another way of recovering traditional knowledge is by reading ancient texts.
- Trees, terraces and llamas: Resilient watershed management and sustainable agriculture the Inca way. The sedimentary record can be used to recover traditional knowledge too. No word on what ancient text have to say, but I’m sure it’s something.
- Yield, growth, and labor demands of growing maize, beans, and squash in monoculture versus the Three Sisters. Sometimes traditional knowledge can use a helping hand from scientists. And vice versa.
- Interdisciplinary insights into the cultural and chronological context of chili pepper (Capsicum annuum var. annuum L.) domestication in Mexico. About the only thing that’s missing here is traditional knowledge.
- Afro-Indigenous harvests: Cultivating participatory agroecologies in Guerrero, Mexico.
Makes one wish these authors had been involved in the pepper study above. - Tradeoffs between the use of improved varieties and agrobiodiversity conservation in the Sahel. The effect of improved varieties on local landraces (and presumably associated traditional knowledge) is different for pearl millet and groundnut, and for Mali and Niger.
- Illuminating the multidimensional contributions of small-scale fisheries. I’m sure lots of traditional knowledge is involved.
- Satellite imagery reveals widespread coconut plantations on Pacific atolls. They could have just asked the small-scale fisherfolk, but ok.
Nibbles: China grasslands, Edible lily, Ag data, China potatoes, CIP genebank, Vavilov book, Ghana seeds, Nutrition enterprises, Seed production films, Khoury pod, Relais & Châteaux
- China rehabilitates its grasslands.
- Not content with that, China breeds a new edible lily.
- Not sure what food group lilies are in, but farmers are growing more fruits and vegetables, it seems.
- Still not resting on its lilies, China breeds climate-smart potatoes.
- No doubt CIP and its genebank is helping with that.
- There’s a new book on Vavilov and his genebank. He knew a thing or two about potatoes.
- Ghana is totally on board with the whole genebank thing. And the Dutch are helping.
- Genebanks should hook up with small- and medium-sized enterprises for nutrition. What, not large ones?
- Genebanks also need nice education films on seed production.
- Friend-of-the-blog Colin Khoury interviewed on In Defence of Plants podcast.
- Luxury hotels and restaurants hook up with UNESCO to protect biodiversity. Vavilov would have been so proud.
Brainfood: CC & livelihoods, Landscape approaches, Seed system metrics, Grain traders, Cultivar adoption, WTP for African rice, Restoration networks
- A systematic literature review on the impact of climate change on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in South Africa. Things look bad, but crop and livestock diversity (among other things) can help. If only they can get out to farmers I guess.
- Reconciling conservation and development requires enhanced integration and broader aims: A cross-continental assessment of landscape approaches. Correction, I meant out into the landscape.
- Towards gender-transformative metrics in seed system performance measurement: insights for policy and practice in Sub-Sahara Africa. How do you know if crop diversity will be able to get into those farming landscapes? You need these gender-transformative metrics. Things like the number of community seed banks serving women and youths, for example.
- Cowpea grain sales by women and men traders in local markets of Senegal. Women seed traders need help scaling up. Maybe community seed banks could help?
- Promoting new crop cultivars in low-income countries requires a transdisciplinary approach. Maybe women seed traders could help.
- An experimental approach to farmer valuation of African rice genetic resources. Farmers are willing to pay as much for landrace seeds as for improved varieties, and those who know about landraces are willing to pay more for their seeds than those who don’t. Good for those women traders to know.
- Restoration seed and plant material supply chains are complex social networks. And not just for restoration, I’d say.
Nibbles: Diverse diets double, WB nutrition, Biodiversity credits, European ag, Indigenous ag, Asparagus varieties, Kenya genebank, CGIAR genebanks, Svalbard, Sierra Leone genebank
- A paean to diverse diets is just what we all need.
- And another one, from the MIT Technology Review of all places.
- Menawhile, there’s only one reference to dietary diversity in the World Bank’s investment framework for nutrition.
- Maybe you have to quantify that diversity before you can save it? Now where have I heard that before?
- Meanwhile, Europe reports on biodiversity-friendly farming practices. Does that include the biodiversity of the actual crops? Perhaps surprisingly, yes!
- You want biodiversity-friendly farming practices? Talk to Indigenous people. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has launched an e-consultation on “Preserving, strengthening and promoting Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems and traditional practices for sustainable food systems.”
- There’s diversity in asparagus too.
- Genebanks can help with those biodiversity-friendly practices, diverse diets and rops and Indigenous practices.
- Even big international genebanks.
- Even the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
- But some are in trouble.
- Though others are coming back.