Chennai, India
April 22, 2005
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Quinoa growing in Bolivia |
T. V. Padma
Source: SciDev.Net
Eradicating hunger will require
more research on nutritious but largely ignored crop species,
said specialists in agriculture and biodiversity who met this
week (19 April) in Chennai, India.
Participants in the meeting
said farmers in developing countries should be encouraged to
grow a wider range of native crops to provide local populations
with greater dietary diversity.
In Asia, these crops could
include varieties of millet; in the Andes region of South
America, tubers and grains such as quinoa, canihua and amaranth;
and in Africa, green leafy vegetables.
The current focus on just a few
crops means there is "a strong chance that the global community
will miss the first UN Millennium Development Goal on hunger by
several decades beyond 2015," said Olanrewaju Smith, executive
secretary of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research.
The United Nations Millennium
Development Goals (MDG) are a set of international targets that
member nations of the UN have pledged to meet by 2015. The first
MDG is to "reduce by half the number of people who suffer from
hunger".
Participants in the Chennai
meeting said national development plans should make better use
of agricultural biodiversity and that there needs to be better
access to traditional foods.
The world increasingly relies
on a "shrinking food basket" of a few crops to fulfil the
dietary needs of its people, said M. S. Swaminathan, chair of
the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.
Of the 7,000 plant species that
are cultivated worldwide, just 30 provide 90 per cent of human
calorie intake. Three — rice, wheat and maize — provide more
than half of the planet's food.
The International Plant Genetic
Resources Institute warns that interpreting the first MDG as
meaning that each person gets more food, ignores the fact that
malnutrition is also about people not getting enough of
micronutrients, vitamins and minerals.
Malnutrition contributes to at
least half the of the 10.4 million child deaths each year,
according to the institute.
Swaminathan said that tackling
malnutrition by increasing dietary diversity would not only help
address this 'hidden hunger' but could also help achieve two
more of the Millennium Development Goals, namely reducing infant
mortality and reducing the number of women who die in
childbirth.
The meeting's recommendations
are being finalised, and will taken into consideration when the
UN reviews progress in achieving the MDGs in September.
More than 100 participants from
20 countries attended the meeting. It was organised by the
International Plant Genetic Resources Institute and Global
Facilitation Unit for Underutilised Species, both based in Rome,
Italy, and by the Chennai-based M. S. Swaminathan Research
Foundation.
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