scholarly journals The Trilogy of Wild Crops, Traditional Agronomic Practices, and UN-Sustainable Development Goals

Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajeet Singh ◽  
Rama Kant Dubey ◽  
Amit Kumar Bundela ◽  
Purushothaman C. Abhilash
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Calorie Intake ◽  
World Population ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Nutritional Security ◽  
Agronomic Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
Food And Nutritional Security

The world population is projected to become 10 billion by the end of this century. This growing population exerts tremendous pressure on our finite food resources. Unfortunately, the lion-share of the global calorie intake is reliant upon a handful of plant species like rice, wheat, maize, soybean and potato. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to expand our dietary reliance to nutritionally rich but neglected, underutilized and yet-to-be-used wild plants. Many wild plants are also having ethnomedicinal and biocultural significance. Owing to their ecosystem plasticity, they are adapted to diverse habitats including marginal, degraded and other disturbed soil systems. Due to these resilient attributes, they can be considered for large-scale cultivation. However, proper biotechnological interventions are important for (i) removing the negative traits (e.g., low yield, slow growth, antinutritional factors, etc.), (ii) improving the positive traits (e.g., nutritional quality, stress tolerance, etc.), as well as (iii) standardizing the mass multiplication and cultivation strategies of such species for various agro-climatic regions. Besides, learning the biocultural knowledge and traditional cultivation practices employed by the local people is also crucial for their exploitation. The Special Issue “Wild Crop Relatives and Associated Biocultural and Traditional Agronomic Practices for Food and Nutritional Security” was intended to showcase the potential wild crop varieties of nutritional significance and associated biocultural knowledge from the diverse agroecological regions of the world and also to formulate suitable policy frameworks for food and nutritional security. The novel recommendations brought by this Special Issue would serve as a stepping stone for utilizing wild and neglected crops as a supplemental food. Nevertheless, long-term cultivation trials under various agro-climatic conditions are utmost important for unlocking the real potential of these species.

Analysis of Global and National Scenario of Tuber Crops Production: Trends and Prospects

2020 ◽  
pp. 500-510
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Sweet Potatoes ◽  
Nutritional Security ◽  
Rate Analysis ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
The Status ◽  
Food And Nutritional Security ◽  
Tuber Crops

This paper attempts to explore the status of tuber crops cultivation with regard to area, production and productivity across countries and exports of cassava and sweet potatoes from India. The result indicated that among various tuber crops, potatoes were vastly cultivated and consumed by Europe and Asia. At the same time, cassava and sweet potatoes were generally grown and consumed by Africa and Asia. In India, cassava and sweet potatoes are the most important tuber crops due to their large scale and varied uses. The growth rate analysis showed that the area under cassava (-1.38 percent) and sweet potatoes (-0.70 percent) as a whole showed a declining trend in India due to various agro-climatic conditions and socioeconomic constraints. In the context of climate change and considering the importance of root and tuber crops for food and nutritional security, it would be a smart move to bring more area under tuber crops cultivation to achieve 'self-reliance' and ' Make in India Mission'.

scholarly journals Domesticating the Undomesticated for Global Food and Nutritional Security: Four Steps

Agronomy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajeet Singh ◽  
Pradeep Kumar Dubey ◽  
Rajan Chaurasia ◽  
Rama Kant Dubey ◽  
Krishna Kumar Pandey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Nutritional Security ◽  
Innovative Strategy ◽  
Crop Varieties ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Food And Nutritional Security ◽  
Poor Soil ◽  
Global Food

Ensuring the food and nutritional demand of the ever-growing human population is a major sustainability challenge for humanity in this Anthropocene. The cultivation of climate resilient, adaptive and underutilized wild crops along with modern crop varieties is proposed as an innovative strategy for managing future agricultural production under the changing environmental conditions. Such underutilized and neglected wild crops have been recently projected by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations as ‘future smart crops’ as they are not only hardy, and resilient to changing climatic conditions, but also rich in nutrients. They need only minimal care and input, and therefore, they can be easily grown in degraded and nutrient-poor soil also. Moreover, they can be used for improving the adaptive traits of modern crops. The contribution of such neglected, and underutilized crops and their wild relatives to global food production is estimated to be around 115–120 billion US$ per annum. Therefore, the exploitation of such lesser utilized and yet to be used wild crops is highly significant for climate resilient agriculture and thereby providing a good quality of life to one and all. Here we provide four steps, namely: (i) exploring the unexplored, (ii) refining the unrefined traits, (iii) cultivating the uncultivated, and (iv) popularizing the unpopular for the sustainable utilization of such wild crops as a resilient strategy for ensuring food and nutritional security and also urge the timely adoption of suitable frameworks for the large-scale exploitation of such wild species for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Indigenous Knowledge and Consumer’s Perspectives of Stinging Nettle (Urtica Simensis) in the Central and Southeastern Highlands of Oromia Regional States of Ethiopia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tigist Tadesse Shonte ◽  
Kebede W/Tsadik
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Dietary Diversity ◽  
Local People ◽  
Herbal Remedies ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Stinging Nettle ◽  
Nutritional Security ◽  
Arsi Zone ◽  
Food And Nutritional Security ◽  
Bale Zone

Abstract Background: Wild plants are essential for increased dietary diversity; for food and nutritional security and as herbal remedies. Stinging nettle, Urtica species, is one of the 20 widely consumed wild plants with cultural importance index ranging from 0.5-1.26 CI in different countries. As in previously conducted wild plants ethnobotanical studies in Ethiopia, the present study reported for the first time the indigenous knowledge and consumer’s perspectives of stinging nettle (Urtica simensis) in the central and southeastern highlands of Oromia regional states of Ethiopia.Methods: Data was collected through informed consent semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, key informant discussions, focus group discussions and tour-guided field observation in 13 districts of three zones (Arsi, Bale and North Shewa) of Oromia regional state, Ethiopia. Results: The local people gather, where women carries 69.2% of the responsibilities for collecting and cooking, stinging nettle in winter and spring season almost from everywhere with higher preference for road sides followed by homestead boundaries, waste land, field boundaries and agroforestry in order of importance. The factors limiting harvesting, consumption and marketing of stinging nettles could be ranked as cultural barriers (63.1%) > lack of knowledge (26.9%) > stinginess (10%). According to key informants, the local people who gather and cook stinging nettle are commonly referred as the poor and they call stinging nettle crop as a poor man crop. Interestingly, covering hands with cloths and wearing plastic bags were traditional manipulations practiced by the local community to protect themselves from stinging hairs thereby avoiding stinging sensation and collect the young and tender shoots from the plant. The highest use-value indices of stinging nettle plant was in North Shewa zone (UVc = 0.93), followed by Arsi zone (UVc = 0.9), and Bale zone (UVc = 0.63). Its central role in North Shewa (FL = 51.7%) and Arsi zone (FL = 50 %) is as a source of both food and fodder, where as in Bale zone (FL = 33.3%) is as a source of food only. In the study areas stinging nettle sauce is prepared by boiling young nettle leaves and roasted barley powder and then cooled sauce is served with injera. Conclusions: There exists biological security to livelihood of the people in the study areas by consuming stinging nettle to cope up times of food shortage. This result shed light on further research and a needs to popularize, awareness creation, the potential for domestication, value addition and processing for food and nutritional security and wellbeing of consumers.

Edible insect value chains in Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 199-201
Author(s):  
S. Niassy ◽  
R. Musundire ◽  
S. Ekesi ◽  
A. van Huis
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Edible Insects ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Nutritional Security ◽  
Edible Insect ◽  
Livestock Feed ◽  
Food And Nutritional Security

This special issue was organised in the context of the 22nd meeting of the Association of African Insect Scientists (AAIS), in Wad Medani, Sudan in 2017. The aim was to ‘support impactful research that will yield genuine edible insects products and sustain value chains that enhance food and nutritional security and support sustained livelihoods in Africa’. The issue is composed of contributions from the following countries: Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. The issue attempted to strengthen the traditional inventory and perception studies and emphasise on contributions that explore entrepreneurial developments of insects use as food and livestock feed. The issue also looked at emerging R&D and innovations to enhance the use of insects to improve food and nutritional security and as a major sector in economic development in Africa.

FRUIT AND BERRIES WORLD PRODUCTION AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1445-1464
Author(s):  
R.R. Mukhametzyanov ◽  
◽  
E.V. Britik ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Import Substitution ◽  
World Market ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Global Rating ◽  
Production Volume ◽  
Food And Agriculture ◽  
Food And Agriculture Organization ◽  
The World

Horticulture is an important branch of agriculture with particular importance in some countries of the world. The production of fruits, berries and nuts is an important part of forming a high-grade food supply for the population in many countries, including the developing ones. Basing on the statistical data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN), the authors examined the change in the production volume of these products in the world as a whole for 1961-2018, as well as for the period 1992-2018 in some countries - twenty largest producers in 2018; and a number of trends were identified. In particular, it was noted that in 2018 the global gross harvest of fruits and berries increased by 4.34 times compared to 1961, while that of nuts - by 7.04 times. A deeper analysis in the context of states, which are the main producers of fruits, berries and nuts, carried out for 1922-2018, indicates that there is a change in the positions of these countries in the corresponding world ranking. The quantitative and qualitative changes we observe inevitably have a significant impact both on the volume of the world market in terms of production, and, consequently, the supply of fruit and berry products, and on the parameters of international trade in fruits, berries and nuts. Due to the fact that the Russian Federation is not among the countries - largest producers of fruit and berry products (in 2018 it was the 31st in the global rating for fruits and berries, and the 52nd for nuts), it occupies a very significant position in the world on its imports, especially on some of them. In connection with the policy of import substitution, deployed in response to sanctions from a number of Western states, some positive changes are also observed in the Russian gardening industry. However, imports in the resources of fruits and berries still amounted to 53.6% in 2018. Naturally, many types of fruit and berry products are economically inexpedient to cultivate on an industrial scale in the natural and climatic conditions of our country, but it is necessary to carry out scientifically grounded and systematic work to increase the production of relatively traditional for Russia fruit and berry plants in the large-scale commodity sector.

scholarly journals Introduction to a Special Issue: Regional Food and Nutritional Security in Tanzania – Methods, Tools and Applications

Food Security ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1143-1145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Sieber ◽  
Frieder Graef ◽  
T.S. Amjath-Babu ◽  
Khamaldin D. Mutabazi ◽  
Siza D. Tumbo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Special Issue ◽  
Nutritional Security ◽  
Regional Food ◽  
Food And Nutritional Security

The Proteome Map and PeptideAtlas of a widely cultivated tropical water fish Labeo rohita: A resource for the Aquaculture Community

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehar Un Nissa ◽  
Jaipal Reddy ◽  
Arijit Mukherjee ◽  
Nevil Pinto ◽  
Biplab Ghosh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fish Species ◽  
Labeo Rohita ◽  
Sequence Information ◽  
World Population ◽  
Lysine Methylation ◽  
Proteomic Profiling ◽  
Nutritional Security ◽  
Sustainable Solutions ◽  
N Terminus ◽  
Food And Nutritional Security

Abstract With the global consumption of fish outpacing population growth, aquaculture sector is facing challenges to address the rising demand of food and nutritional security. Integrative omics research provides a strong platform to understand the basic biology and translate this knowledge into sustainable solutions in tackling disease outbreak, increasing productivity thus ensuring food security. To further understand the complex biology of host-pathogen response and support the aquaculture effort, genome and proteome reference maps moving beyond simple sequence information of cultivated fish species will accelerate research and translation of quality products for food industries. Towards this end, we have performed an extensive proteomics-based investigation of Labeo rohita, one of the economically important fish species produced in world aquaculture. Deep proteomic profiling of 17 histologically normal tissues, plasma and embryo provided mass-spectrometric evidence for 6015 high confident canonical proteins at 1% false discovery rate. Tissue enriched expression of several biologically important proteins was validated using targeted proteomics with high quantitative accuracy. We characterised the global post translational modifications (PTMs) in terms of acetylation (n-terminus and lysine), methylation (n-terminus, lysine and arginine) and phosphorylation (serine, threonine and tyrosine) to present a comprehensive proteome resource. An interactive web-based portal was developed to support the Labeo rohita PeptideAtlas, (www.peptideatlas.org), a unique community resource for mass spectrometry-based peptide/protein evidence in fish. This draft proteome map of Labeo rohita would advance basic and applied research in aquaculture to meet the most critical challenge of providing food and nutritional security to an increasing world population.

Which policies can stop large scale eutrophication?

1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curt Forsberg
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Organic Waste ◽  
Food Additives ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Point Sources ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
World Population ◽  
The World ◽  
New Policies

During a few decades, many fresh and marine water areas have been seriously affected by eutrophication, due to increasing discharges of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) from modern society. The aim of this paper is to discuss the policies that are used and have been suggested to reduce eutrophication, and the factors counteracting these efforts. Policy options to reduce the fluxes of nutrients from point and non-point sources are summarized. A number of processes and mechanisms counteract the control measures taken so far, namely: the growing world population, the increasing urbanization, the intensive land independent animal production, the over-consumption of N and P, the emissions of N to the atmosphere, and the losses of P from P-enriched sediments. It is concluded that the driving force for eutrophication, the losses of nutrients from food production, organic waste, sewage, sludge and ashes can be expected to increase during the coming decades, as the world population continues to grow. Strong policies are needed to promote birth control, and to stop over-consumption of N (animal protein) and unnecessary intake of P (food additives). There is a number of barriers to overcome to reduce large-scale eutrophication, but also a lot of space for new policies and innovation.

scholarly journals Pumpkin (Cucurbita spp.): A Crop to Mitigate Food and Nutritional Challenges

Horticulturae ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 352
Author(s):  
Monir Hosen ◽  
Mohd Y. Rafii ◽  
Norida Mazlan ◽  
Mashitah Jusoh ◽  
Yusuff Oladosu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dietary Habits ◽  
Water Shortage ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
World Population ◽  
Herbaceous Plant ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Nutritional Security ◽  
Climatic Regions ◽  
Diallel Mating Design ◽  
Food And Nutritional Security

The world’s food and agricultural programs have gradually declined into an unsustainable situation due to challenges such as increase in world population, varied agro-climatic regions, increase temperature, extreme sole-culture growing techniques, and water shortage. A considerable emphasis has been put on few staple food crops coupled with repeated dieting, food scarcity, and essential mineral deficits, frequently inducing dietary disorders. Because relying on staple crops may lead to serious food shortages in the future, we must adjust our dietary habits to include a diverse range of non-staple foods and maximize their use in order to achieve food security and reduce the nutritional gap. To assure healthy meals around the world, an authentic and reasonable strategy is presented to draw additional awareness towards variations in agricultural production techniques and dietary preferences. The EAT-Lancet declaration highlighted the importance of increasing agri-based foods to achieve sustainable health. Expanding overlooked crops with abundant genetic stocks and possibly beneficial characteristics is an approach that might meet food and nutritional security challenges. Although undervalued, pumpkin is a valuable vegetable herbaceous plant that contributes to global food and nutritional security. This crop has already been identified as a revolutionary age crop, balanced food, and more adapted to low soil and atmospheric circumstances than other major crops. This review paper focuses on the potential uses of pumpkin as an underutilized crop; diversification and development of hybrids, particularly hybridization breeding through diallel mating design; and how implementation of this “modern” technology would contribute to the breeding of the neglected pumpkin vegetable and stimulate productivity and nourish the world’s largest malnourished, deprived, and starved populations.

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