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Bioversity International is shaking up the food system says Food Tank
Bioversity International was mentioned by the Food Tank: The Food Think Tank as one of the 40 organizations that are shaking up the food system. "Our hope is that the more people know about the work that these groups are doing, the more people can be inspired to make their own change in the food system," said the co-founders of the blog.
Semantics for Biodiversity – International Workshop
The 1st international workshop on Web Semantics for Biodiversity, held on 27 May in Montpellier, France, will define key challenges identified by the bioinformatics community, discuss solutions and identify opportunities emerging from interactions across plant science and informatics disciplines.
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Celebrating local foods on a global scale
Traditional Sri Lankan meal. Photo: S. Landersz/Bioversity International
What do white termites, indigenous chickens, mushrooms, sorghum, millets, rice and indigenous fruits have in common? These are some of the local species that Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Turkey will explore - nutritionally speaking - during the next five years through the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition project.
These four countries have joined efforts under the umbrella of a new global initiative funded by the Global Environment Facility and organized by Bioversity International to conserve locally-important biodiversity, both among and within species. The goal of the project is to conserve local agricultural biodiversity by demonstrating its value for nutrition, food security and improved livelihoods.
It is widely recognised that no two varieties of food are the same, with nutrient content varying significantly between varieties of the same species, be it rice, bananas, sweet potatoes or grapes. Nutritional content may also vary depending on the environmental and soil conditions where the species grows, to such an extent that consuming one variety versus another could tip the balance between nutrient adequacy and insufficiency.
Despite this realization, much of this diversity is under threat, due to environmental pressures, unsuitable land management practices and to changes in consumer preferences, dietary patterns and lifestyles.
Also disappearing is the traditional knowledge associated with the preparation, storage and cultural use of these foods, which, in the past, made up a significant proportion of local diets.
Where once hundreds of species were recorded as providing 90% of world’s plant food supply (1, 2 see below) we now rely on a handful of crops, mostly staple grains, for achieving caloric adequacy, missing out on essential vitamins and minerals needed for balanced diets and healthy living. While this is happening, the number of people suffering from micronutrient deficiencies is on the rise: 1.6 billion are diagnosed with iron deficiency and over 200 million from lack of sufficient amount of vitamin A (3, 4). At the same time overweight and obesity are becoming a burden on over-stretched national economies both in the developed and developing world.
Spices in a market in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo: R. Khalil/Bioversity
The Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition project aims to reverse these trends by promoting an alternative food-based approach to tackling malnutrition.
At the heart of the project is the idea that enhanced nutrition and food security can be achieved by promoting dietary diversity, but most of all by reviving local foods and food cultures to provide more balanced diets, improve incomes, provide a safety net in time of food shortage and market disruptions, and create more resilient ecosystems.
Each country has identified a select number of crops which had so far been neglected but that may hold nutritional potential to be incorporated into national strategies that promote dietary diversity for nutrition and health.
To stimulate consumption of these foods, awareness-raising and education activities will be carried out and strategic partnerships sought with the environment, agriculture, nutrition, health and education sectors to mainstream agricultural biodiversity into national environmental, nutrition and health policies. Furthermore, effective marketing and value chain enhancement will ensure these crops are adequately promoted, used and ultimately conserved.
Feeding our growing population is a tremendous challenge in the next few years, and this project is a step to unlocking the potential of biodiversity to improve food and nutrition.
The initiative is coordinated by Bioversity International with implementation support from the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Additional funding from the four countries, the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) and support from the World Food Programme, the Earth Institute, Columbia University, Crops for the Future, the World Agroforestry Centre and AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center is being received to facilitate both implementation and scaling up of activities. National partners come from relevant ministries, the scientific community, non-government organizations, civil society and local communities.
1 - Stolton S., Maxted N., Ford-Lloyd B., Kell S. and Dudley N. (2006). Food Stores. Using Protected Areas to Secure Crop Genetic Diversity, WWF, UK. wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/
2 - Prescott-Allen, R and C Prescott-Allen (1990); How Many Plants Feed the World?, Conservation Biology, 4:4, 365-374
3 - WHO (2008) WHO global database on anaemia In: de Benoist B., E. McLean, I. Egli and M. Cogswell Eds.) Worldwide prevalence of anaemia. Geneva, Switzerland http://www.who.int/vmnis/publications/anaemia_prevalence/en/index.html
4 - WHO (2009) Global prevalence of vitamin A deficiency in populations at risk 1995-2005. WHO Global Database on Vitamin A Deficiency. Geneva, Switzerland. whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241598019_eng.pdf
 | Bioversity International is a member of the CGIAR consortium |
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This work by Bioversity International is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. |
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