Annual Report 2018

In October 2018, the leading scientific journal Nature published a sober assessment of the impact of the global food system on planetary health. It concluded that if we were to stand any chance of feeding 10 billion people in 2050 without breaching the “safe operating space for humanity,” global food systems would have to change in several important ways. Among them, “changes towards healthier, more plant-based diets.” In particular, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and pulses are lacking in our food systems as low intakes of these plant-based foods are identified among the top dietary risk factors.¹

Bioversity International scientists contributed to the Nature paper, but our contributions to the changes it seeks long predate that paper. Most recently, we have been extending our understanding of nutritious but neglected plant species to help communities make better use of these assets.

In many countries, basic household surveys have revealed two common patterns; there are times of year when people experience food insecurity, and their diets are often not very diverse, often lacking fruits and vegetables. We have also asked communities about the fruits and vegetables they grow and that they harvest from the wild, showing that there are many more species that could contribute to diets which are more diverse and more nutritious.

In all the communities Bioversity International has worked with, we have discovered nutritious species neglected by mainstream research. But how widespread is this neglect? To find out, we trawled through a classic handbook of horticulture to identify 1,097 species eaten in one form or another. Then we looked at the research and information on each. Our results published in the journal Agriculture  show that the greater majority of these species have received limited attention from research, conservation and national production statistics, and the neglect is worst for species that originate in Africa and in the Pacific region.

“The vegetables that have received the most attention are annual plants,” said Gennifer Meldrum, Research Officer and lead author of the paper. Many shrubs and trees provide leafy vegetables and “more research on these is needed because these plants can pave the way to more integrated, holistic farming systems that can adapt to climate change and supply more nutrient-dense food.”

Recent studies² pointed out that if every person on the planet tried to eat their recommended daily amount of 400g of fruits and vegetables, there would be a global shortfall of 22%, rising to 50% in some low-income countries. But we also know that more fruits and vegetables in the diet is good for human health and planetary health alike.

Tools like the Seasonal Availability Calendar Booklet, which are easily adapted to specific communities, can help to improve the year-round supply of nutritious fruits and vegetables. Boosted by a little more research, these species could show the way to the globally significant changes to the food system that are so important to future sustainability.

Contact
Gennifer Meldrum

_{[1] Afshin et al. (2019) Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet 393: 1958–7}

_{[2] Siegel KR, et al. (2014) Do we produce enough fruits and vegetables to meet global health needs? PLoS ONE 9(8):e104059}

Seasonal calendars for Mali, Guatemala and India were prepared by G. Lochetti, N. Lauridsen, R. Robitaille and G. Meldrum with inputs from J. Raneri, Y. Koreissi, G. Kennedy, T. Agrawal, S. Priyam, N. Amaya, M. Ahern, S. Roy, R. Cifuentes, A. Sidibe, S. Padulosi and others during the project “Linking agrobiodiversity value chains, climate adaptation and nutrition: Empowering the poor to manage risk" supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); the European Union; and the CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), which are supported by CGIAR Trust Fund Donors.

• More than a thousand vegetables, many of them forgotten
• Adding colour to rural diets year round with the Seasonal Food Availability Booklet
• Joining the diversity club – how village health workers in Vietnam are putting nutrition back on the menu
• Underutilized crops to enhance resilience and nutrition in Mali, India and Guatemala