Saturday, September 8, 2012

Food Crops News 109

FOOD CROPS Food Crops News 109 (Bản tin Cây Lương thực Quốc tế)
Green Super Rice Trials in Long Phu, Soc Trang, Vietnam. Photo Hoang Long
 

Food Crops News Focus Papers 

Breeding for micronutrients in staple food crops from a human nutrition perspective
Ross M. Welch (1)  and Robin D. Graham (2)
1 USDA-ARS, US Plant, Soil and Nutrition Laboratory, Cornell University, Tower Road, Ithaca, NY 14853-0001, USA
2 University of Adelaide, Waite Campus, Glen Osmond, 5064, South Australia
Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 55, No. 396, pp. 353±364, February 2004
Received 21 February 2003; Accepted 11 November 2003

Abstract
Over three billion people are currently micronutrient  (i.e. micronutrient elements and vitamins) malnourished, resulting in egregious societal costs including learning disabilities among children, increased morbidity and mortality rates, lower worker productivity, and high healthcare costs, all factors diminishing human potential, felicity, and national economic development. Nutritional de®ciencies (e.g. iron, zinc, vitamin A) account for almost two-thirds of the childhood death worldwide. Most of those aficted are dependent on staple crops for their sustenance. Importantly, these crops can be enriched (i.e. `bioforti®ed') with micronutrients using plant breeding and/ or transgenic strategies, because micronutrient enrichment traits exist within their genomes that can to used for substantially increasing micronutrient levels in these foods without negatively impacting crop productivity. Furthermore, `proof of concept' studies have been published using transgenic approaches to biofortify staple crops (e.g. high b-carotene`golden rice' grain, high ferritin-Fe rice grain, etc). In addition, micronutrient element enrichment of seeds can increase crop yields when sowed to micronutrient- poor soils, assuring their adoption by farmers. Bioavailability issues must be addressed when employing plant breeding and/or transgenic approaches to reduce micronutrient malnutrition. Enhancing substances (e.g. ascorbic acid, S-containing amino acids, etc) that promote micronutrient bioavailability or decreasing antinutrient substances (e.g. phytate, polyphenolics, etc) that inhibit micronutrient bioavailability, are both options that could be pursued, but the latter approach should be used with caution. The world's agricultural community should adopt plant breeding and other genetic technologies to improve human health, and the world's nutrition and health communities should support these efforts. Sustainable solutions to this enormous global problem of `hidden hunger' will not come without employing agricultural approaches.
Key words: Agricultural intervention, food-based approach, human health, iron, malnutrition, minerals, nutritional quality, vitamins, sustainability, trace elements, zinc. (see more …)

People's plants: a guide to useful plants of Southern Africa.


Record Number 20013059055

Abstract
This book is intended as a guide and reference work on the useful plants of southern Africa. Traditional and contemporary uses of more than 650 plants are described. The book is well illustrated with good quality colour plates throughout. It is divided into 3 sections: foods and drinks, health and beauty, and skills and crafts with each section further divided into chapters. The foods and drinks section has chapters on cereals; seeds and nuts; fruits and berries; vegetables; roots, bulbs and tubers; and beverages. Health and beauty contains chapters on general medicines; tonic plants; mind and mood plants; women's health; wounds, burns and skin conditions; dental care; perfumes and repellents; and soaps and cosmetics. The skills and crafts section has chapters on hunting and fishing; dyes and tans; utility timbers; fire-making and firewood; basketry, weaving and ropes; and thatching, mats and brooms. In each chapter, the plants are discussed in alphabetical order with information on uses and, in some cases, their chemical constituents or biological effects. There is a bibliography at the end of each chapter.

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A new paradigm for world agriculture: meeting human needs Productive, sustainable, nutritious

Ross M. Welch (1) and  Robin D. Graham (2)

1) USDA-ARS, U.S. Plant, Soil and Nutrition Laboratory Tower Road, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
2) Department of Plant Science, Waite Agricultural Research Institute, Private Mail Bag 1, University of Adelaide, Glen Osmond, SA 5064, Australia
Field Crops Research 60 (1999) 1±10 Accepted 1 September 1998

Abstract

Micronutrient malnutrition (`Hidden Hunger') now af¯icts over two billion people worldwide, resulting in poor health, low worker productivity, high rates of mortality and morbidity, increased rates of chronic diseases (coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes), and permanent impairment of cognitive abilities of infants born to micronutrient-de®cient mothers. The consequences of food system failures include lethargic national development efforts, continued high population growth rates, and a vicious cycle of poverty for massive numbers of underprivileged people in all nations. Our food systems are failing us globally by not providing enough balanced nutrient output to meet all the nutritional needs of every person, especially resource-poor women, infants and children in developing countries. Agriculture is partly responsible because it has never held nutrient output as an explicit goal of its production systems. Indeed, many agricultural policies have fostered a decline in nutrition and diet diversity for the poor in many countries. Nutrition and health communities are also partly responsible because they have never considered using agriculture as a primary tool in their programs directed at alleviating poor nutrition and ill health globally. Now is the time for a new paradigm for agriculture and nutrition. We must consider ways in which agriculture can contribute to finding sustainable solutions to food system failures through holistic food-based system approaches, thereby closely linking agricultural production to improving human health, livelihood and well being. Such action will stimulate support for agricultural research in many developed countries because it addresses consumer issues as well as agricultural production issues and is, therefore, politically supportable.

® 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved see more....

Keywords: Sustainable agriculture; Human nutrition; Micronutrients; Malnutrition; Development; Health

Food Crops News


FOOD CROPS Food Crops News 105 (Bản tin Cây Lương thực Quốc tế)

Cassava News : Tin mới Cây Sắn, Photo by Hoàng Long


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