There’s a lot of fascinating stuff, mostly about processing, in this fascinating video. But they had me at “[s]mall daily doses of chocolate can actually improve vascular function.” Via.
Onions of the Southwest
There may be a chili in the photograph which goes along with the NY Times piece on Gary Nabhan’s new book “Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail,” but I have it from a reliable authority 1 that most of the plants are i’itoi onions. Which have a fascinating story of their own.
Its journey to the Southwest began in the late 1600’s when Jesuit missionaries coming from Spain shepherded the onion across the ocean. It adapted wonderfully to the arid environment and was soon a valuable food source and also used for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. The first harvest was completed on the soil rich “bajadas” or slopes of the Baboquivari Mountain. This mountain was considered the birthplace of the Hohokam people, the ancestors of today’s Tohono O’odham (The Desert People). I’itoi,or Elder Brother, was the creator of the desert people and still resides watching over his people high up in the mountain in a cave where few can ever visit.
Agricultural diversity improves health
Here’s a turn-up for the books. A newspaper article headlined New farming practices grow healthier children actually delivers some specifics.
The article reports on a project called Soils, Food and Healthy Communities, a joint effort by Canada and Malawi, and I’m ashamed to say (or can I blame the project’s communications?) that I knew nothing about it.
The evidence of healthier children?
Ten years ago Joyce Mhoni, head of the Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit at Ekwendeni Hospital in the Mzimba district of northern Malawi, would have been caring for to up to 30 severely malnourished children at a time. Today, at the peak of the usually lean months between December and April, when farmers are waiting to harvest, the unit is empty, and in the whole of 2010 only 15 children were admitted, mostly from outside the hospital’s catchment area.
I know, it’s only anecdotal, but be patient. There’s lots more in the article, which explains that the changes stem from the SFHC project’s decision, around 2000, to open an Agricultural Office at the hospital.
[T]he project’s staff taught farmers how to grow different varieties of legumes such as soy beans, peanuts, and peas. They were encouraged to grow a deep-rooted variety of legume, such as pigeon pea, in the same field as a shallow-rooted variety like soy bean, a method known as inter-cropping.
Soy bean is high-yielding and a nutritious food source, while pigeon pea produces a large amount of leaves that can be dug into the soil to make an effective natural fertilizer.
Pigeon pea is also rather good to eat, but leave that aside. There’s lots more lovely human interest stuff in the article, and another one at the BBC, about the project’s profound impact on families: new houses, school fees, better health, a life without hunger. At which point, of course, the hard-to-please scientist asks for solid evidence in a peer-reviewed journal. Will this do?
There was an improvement over initial conditions of up to 0.6 in weight-for-age Z-score (WAZ; from -0.4 (SD 0.5) to 0.3 (SD 0.4[/efn_note] for children in the longest involved villages, and an improvement over initial conditions of 0.8 in WAZ for children in the most intensely involved villages (from -0.6 (SD 0.4) to 0.2 (SD 0.4[/efn_note].
And there’s more where that come from, which is here: Effects of a participatory agriculture and nutrition education project on child growth in northern Malawi. 2
I wonder whether SFHC has considered going large and promoting other forms of agricultural and dietary diversity?
Brainfood: Brazil nut, Cassava relatives, Botanic gardens, Pollinators, OECD, IPM, Community genetics, Insect resistance, Marco Polo sheep, Abiotic stresses, Better climate change modelling
- Made in Brazil? Brazil Nut, yes. The genus Manihot, not so much.
- The role of botanic gardens as resource and introduction centres in the face of global change. They have one. But they need to be more like genebanks.
- Global growth and stability of agricultural yield decrease with pollinator dependence. Analysis of time-series FAO production data shows that more pollinator-dependent crops have lower yield growth and lower yield stability. So both should benefit from more active management of wild pollinators and their habitats. Results can be extended to other ecosystem services but that was a bridge too far for this reader.
- Draft Policy Framework for Investment in Agriculture. “The purpose of this document is … to initiate discussion.” Off you go.
- Deterrent and insecticidal properties of bean seed (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) whole meal or protein extract incorporated into the diet of Callosobruchus maculatus (F.) (Coleoptera: Bruchidae). To protect chickpeas from bruchid beetles, add bean proteins.
- Community genetics: at the crossroads of ecology and evolutionary genetics, a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, which includes …
- … Insect-resistant biotech crops and their impacts on beneficial arthropods. The abstract gives nothing away: “The findings … are discussed.”
- High connectivity among argali sheep from Afghanistan and adjacent countries means you need international collaboration for conservation. Good luck with that.
- Better phenomics and genomics means you can do really cool Genetic analysis of abiotic stress tolerance in crops, and their wild relatives of course. But we knew that.
- Five ways of Improving assessment and modelling of climate change impacts on global terrestrial biodiversity: more data, process-based modelling, better understanding of role of community interactions and of the effect of genetic variation, and better functional groupings of species for improved simulations of vegetation distribution.
To Serve and Conserve presentations
The presentations given at the Eucarpia To Serve and Conserve meeting are now up on the conference website. Have fun!