Newly bred crop varieties that offer quadrupled vitamin A content could provide a lifesaving solution to millions in Africa suffering from malnutrition related to vitamin A deficiency. Globally, an estimated 250 million children are vitamin A deficient, according to the World Health Organization. Up to 500,000 will go blind every year – half of them will die within 12Read More …
We’ve travelled about an hour north of Bukavu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, against the flow of UN trucks, to pull up at a thronging crossroads in Mita village. On the dusty traffic island are indicators that we’re not far from one of the few refuges of the endangered eastern lowland gorilla: a dilapidated tourist sign for Kahuzi-Biega NationalRead More …
The 2011 annual report from HarvestPlus – the initiative tasked with developing nutrition-rich staple crops for Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia – is now available. The announcement on the HarvestPlus website gives a tantalising taster of what’s inside: You can learn more about Benard, a farmer in Zambia who is testing vitamin A maize, and Alamgir, a plant breederRead More …
Promising results just out from HarvestPlus, in the British Journal of Nutrition. It looks as though the orange sweet potato has been well-received in northern Mozambique, having been adopted by around 65 per cent those farmers who trialled it in Zambezia Province. The improved tuber was developed by crop breeders to contain higher levels of beta-carotene – which turnsRead More …
We’re sure you’ll be keen to read Michael Latham of Cornell University’s scathing comment piece, The great vitamin A fiasco, published in the first edition of the online journal World Nutrition recently. The article is an extensive, critical account of how the international nutrition community has responded to worldwide vitamin A deficiency by focusing on distributing vitamin A supplements,Read More …
When a consignment of carotene-rich cassava roots was packaged and sent for bioavailability tests, there was the usual, hopeful wait for results. Ten months later and those results, soon to be officially announced, suggest that the carotene contained in yellow-flesh of the so-called “egg yolk” cassava has good bioavailability, meaning it can be easily absorbed by humans, and convertedRead More …
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