Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Type 2 diabetes is a global public health crisis that threatens the economies of all nations, particularly developing country like India. Fuelled by rapid urbanization, nutrition transition, and increasingly sedentary lifestyles, the epidemic has grown in parallel with the rise in obesity followed by type 2 Diabetes. The dynamics of the diabetes epidemic are changing rapidly. Once a disease of the West, type 2 diabetes has now spread to every country in the world. Once “a disease of affluence,” it is now increasingly common among the poor in India with the total of 65.1 million. Once an adult-onset disease almost unheard of in children, 19.2% rising rates of childhood obesity, 11% in adolescent and 20% of all adult in India have rendered it from recent research. A healthful eating pattern, regular physical activity, and often pharmacotherapy are key components of diabetes management and prevention. We know, we can not restrict a person to eat specific foods. The more we restrict, the more they thrive for the same. It may be easy to change the religion of a person but change in food habits and food culture is quite difficult. 

So there is a need of efforts to identify and promote intake of culturally-acceptable high-quality staple foods could be crucial in preventing diabetes. Low glycemic index based food like Pulses and lentils can play a major role in combating the incidence and mortality associated with Diabetes and allied complications.

Promoting industries / enterpreneurs to produce low glycemic indexed based foods, value addition to pulses (Pulse based value added products) to meet the dietary, affordability and taste requirement of a person can only make the envisioned nutrition transition successful to combat the incidence of Non communicable Diseases.  

I found institutions like CIGI, Canada and some others are working similarly. But there is a need of incubation to enterpreneurs to spread the same. Establishing industry, academic and enterprenurs interface can feed the Diabetics affordably and countries like India, china, others  (With high number of Diabetics) can be saved from high mortality.    

Thank you for this international initiative to promote pulses.  I’m delighted to be part of the discussion group.   I’m from Canada, which is a major grower and exporter of pulses.  According to an excellent new book called The Power of Pulses http://www.douglas-mcintyre.com/book/the-power-of-pulses, Canada is the world’s largest exporter of pulses, only 10% of which stay at home.  That's because the vast majority of Canadians – like citizens in many countries – don’t sufficiently appreciate their potential of these powerful food species.  So I’ll watch this site for suggestions on how we can effectively promote this dietary shift. 

The book mentioned above was written by Canadian seed expert and author Dan Jason along with Hilary Malone and Alison Malone Eathorne.   The book demonstrates the health and environmental benefits of beans, peas, chickpeas, favas and lentils, and also outlines how people can grow, save, cook, and eat their own. 

http://www.saltspringseeds.com/blogs/articles/84023366-foreword-to-the-power-of-pulses

As author of the book High Steaks: Why and How to Eat Less Meat (New Society, 2012), I have written about the environmental and health benefits of pulses, but am inspired by this FAO project to write more.  Thanks very much, and I look forward to the discussion. 

Eleanor Boyle, PhD,  Educator and Writer, Vancouver, BC, Canada

eleanorboyle.com   /   [email protected]

1 – 604 – 230-2561 mobile / text

To keep the ball rolling, and in the attempt to, at least partly, address most – if not all – of the questions proposed in the forum, here are three articles originating from around the world about pulse production and consumption patterns and their health benefits.

1 – “Factors influencing pulse consumption in Latin America”, written by Pascal Leterme from the National University of Colombia and L. Carmenza Muñoz from the International Center for Tropical Research, both based in Colombia, deconstructs consumption patterns in one of the highest consuming regions in the world. Higher and lower consumption can be due to a multitude of reasons, among them their high nutrition factor, their cultural importance in the region, their prevalence in rural areas and in lower income populations, etc. The authors then suggest how patterns may vary depending on urbanization and economic development and stress pulses’ health benefits as a reason to encourage increased consumption.

This article is available at http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBJN%2FBJN88_S3%2FS0007114502002532a.pdf&code=77edf1706aa915ece6bbfbf916a408e1

2- “Pulses Production in India: Present Status, Bottleneck and Way Forward” by Anil Kumar Singh, SS Singh, Ved Prakash, Santosh Kumar and SK Dwivedi from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The Indian population is largely vegetarian and India is the largest importer of pulses in the world. In this article Singh et al. comment on the need to encourage increased pulse production in India, not only to meet demand but also for its potential benefits on crop rotation, intercropping, among others, including in changing climates.

This article is available at http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/pulses%20production.pdf

3- “Pulses: The perfect food” developed for the Northern Pulses Growers Association in the United States by Julie Garden-Robinson, Ph.D from North Dakota State University. Finally, this more light hearted publication stresses the nutritional and health benefits of pulse consumption and makes several suggestions on how to prepare them and incorporate them in your diet. The publication is then complemented with an assortment of pulse-based recipes

This article is available at https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/foods/fn1508.pdf

Cheers,

Roberto

What Pulses Could Contribute to an Environmentally Sustainable Global Food Supply

Legumes, the source of pulses,  have a variety of advantages over most of the other crops. Their well-known ability to utilise atmospheric nitrogen enables the farmers to save on fertilizers and allows the use of crop residues to enhance the soil fertility and porosity in an environmentally sustainable way.

Moreover, there are a large number of legume species which could be grown under a wide variety of geographical and climatic conditions, like the xerophytic Carob at one extreme, and to the Andean Lupines believed to have been in use for millennia at the other. Archaeological evidence indicates that the pulses have been included in the food cultures of Sumerians, ancient Egyptians, Indus valley civilisation, etc. 

Household food security  is ascertained  with reference to the food culture to which the people involved conform. This may appear hard to accept at its face value, but, a foreign traveller in distant rural areas could easily find well-stocked small holdings, where people are friendly and hospitable while the visitor has to go hungry owing to the differences in their food cultures.  Local food culture identifies what food items are best raised in a given location by a group of people who subscribe to a certain set of shared beliefs.

When  the local food culture includes  pulses, it implies the crop can be successfully raised and consumed by those living there. This is the first pathway by which it contributes to household food security. Like other components of a culture, the food culture of an area may diffuse over an extensive area through education in its real sense, human migration and trade, travelling, etc.

As a result, new types of pulses like Mung beans and split red lentils have now become more or less household food items in Europe and elsewhere. Expansion of the health food industry and its vigorous publicity campaigns as well as the spreading of various sects of vegetarianism have further increased the importance of pulses as a food source. Their importance seems to be highest in South Asia including Nepal, while they are a significant food source in Mediterranean, Portugal, Mexico and South America.

As far as I know, there is still a significant shortfall between the supply and the demand for pulses, which if met in an environmentally sustainable manner,  could benefit everybody in several ways. At the same time,  a reasonable substitution of animal food by pulses  throughout the world would have the same spin-offs as the former. Taking them up collectively, their benefits include:

1. Environmentally beneficial, sustainable way of food production that may become a part of a farming package to attract youth to agricultural pursuits.
2. Their partial substitution of animal food would reduce the strain on the ecosystem services the current meat production imposes on them.
3. Legumes could reduce the need for nitrogen fertilisers and provide excellent mulch, or also serve as a crop/shade plant that would improve the local climate by regulating the ground-space heat exchange in the area, which is crucial to the maintenance of its salubriousness.

There are several verities of edible vetches, and some of them have been successfully used as an effective ground cover in rubber plantations as well as a source of food. Since the banana plantations display more or less the same soil and climatic conditions, the same mixed cropping may be introduced to improve the soil and provide an additional source of food.

Legumes could play an important role not only in mitigating the adverse effects of environmental degradation like local/regional/global warming, but also in increasing the available ecosystems services. If carefully selected, they  may serve as an adjunct to the local food supply or become a secondary source of income.

For instance, the Tamarind thrives under the arid environs of South Asia and is a plant endemic to the area. During the day, it provides the vital green cover that lowers the solar heat uptake by the barren soil, which raises the local temperature. At night, its leaves are folded, allowing a free air-flow, which enables the heat to escape into the air creating a gentle breeze. The pulp of its ripe pods is used as a condiment.

At the same time, no species that are not endemic should be introduced merely for economic reasons. There are great gaps in our understanding of how a new species may interact with the local species, and some  of them may turn out to be catastrophic. It is always prudent to keep in mind that both the flora and fauna of an area depend on each other for their continued existence in some way, and we are still ignorant of the complete picture. Introduction of the legume Prosopis spp. In India and its consequences for the continued existence of the Indian wild ass is

An example of what could happen when a new species is introduced into an area without due consideration.

However, I think planting of suitable variants of Carob on the Mediterranean basin, and extending it beyond it into Portugal could mitigate the excessive summer heat there while yielding  a useful article of commerce. I advocate the use of  existing legume species, perhaps improved by traditional breeding, but certainly not those whose genes have been modified.

Fortunately, regardless of the kind of use into which legumes are put, most of them are not difficult to cultivate, an adequate supply of water being the most important, especially for the seedlings. Moreover, as a dry and non-perishable item, pulses do not require sophisticated storage facilities or means of transport. At least in some parts of the world, some types of pulses, eg. Mung bean, black-eyed beans,  and red split pulse, have a huge demand.

Secure land tenure, access to sound viable seed at a reasonable price, appropriate advice and training, an adequate supply of water, and financial resources seem to be the most significant problems the legume farmers encounter. Further, I think they are often compelled to sell their produce at unreasonably low prices to the middlemen who make exorbitant profits at the expense of the producer and the end-user.

I envisage a two-pronged approach to promote the cultivation and consumption of  pulses, which may be extended to include the other useful legumes like Carob and Tamarind in order to increase the environmental benefits we all could derive from it.  Achievement of an optimal result would depend on a simultaneous undertaking of the following actions:

Promotion of pulse consumption:

1. Active public education concerning the direct and the indirect benefits of their consumption, and inform the public of the fallacy of regarding pulses as ‘health food’.
2. Facilitate the inventive uses of pulses in cookery, and actively disseminate the know-how so produced.
3. Encourage meal-providing institutions like schools, hospitals, etc., to increase their use of pulses.

Promotion of production:

1. Inclusion of the appropriate types of pulse in the package of produce proposed in connection with the discussion on how to help 15-17 year olds to take up agriculture.
2. Establishment, extension or maintenance of the infra-structure required to raise and dispose of pulses. In fact, pulses are among the least technology-intensive of crops, which makes them eminently suitable for countries with high unemployment and prevalence of hunger.
3. Enforceable and enforced laws that embody justice and fair play with respect to land tenure, the possibility of selling one’s products for a fair price, and access to financial resources at favourable terms.
4. Pro-active agricultural extension services that may encourage  farmers to take up  the cultivation of pulses, provide advice, on-the-job training and technical assistance, and in extreme cases,  even seed.
5. Encouraging the producers (this applies to all agricultural production) to establish and run cooperatives to store, process (often partially), transport and sell their own produce  to avoid unfair food prices for the producer and the end user, as well as to reduce waste inherent in ‘the modern food systems’.
6. Expanding the use of vetches yielding edible seeds as a ground cover and a soil enhancer in plantations of tropical fruits (bananas) and other suitable cultivars.
7. Though not pulses, many hardy leguminous  plants like Carob and Tamarind are very useful in reclaiming barren and semi-barren land,  re-establishing the plant cover that regulate the ground-space heat exchange, water retention, etc.
8. Research on optimal mixed farming on small scale (family farm level) where pulses are given the importance they are accorded by the local food cloture, and disseminating  the know-how gained.

I hope this might be of some use.

Cheers!

Lal Manavado.

Dear Moderator,

Please find attached paper related to pulse production. I hope that this will provide the basis for discussion on the above subject.

Best wishes.

Kadambot Siddique

Professor Kadambot Siddique, AM CitWA FTSE FAIA FNAAS

Hackett Professor of Agriculture Chair and Director

UN FAO Special Ambassador for the International Year of Pulses 2016

Some countries produce large amounts of pulses, but these are not a part of their respective diets. How can the use of pulses be increased in communities where these crops do not play an important role in the local cuisine/traditional meals?

View: One of the critical issue to look into is working on social factors and customs. There are hundreds if not thousands of traditional preparations and consumption habits in the world of pulses.  So with the recently emerging issues in making pulses part of the diets of the riches as a consequence of health, driving the culture that encourage mass population could be improved. It is about the food industrial application part of pulse , that still is too far behind, that make its utilization limited. It is also important to make a learning processes of pulses from most consumers to least consumers tradition.

Do you have any examples on how the consumption of pulses contributes to household food security and nutrition in your community or country, which may be useful in different contexts?

View: yes. There are different preparations and consumption habit in my community. In Ethiopia, coffee ceremony is always accompanied by snacks , which often is made out of pulses. Curry /shiro/which is best compatible  staple food with Enjera, have already been co-evolved over centuries and well serving as staple food of the community. Ethiopia as producer of some 15+ species of pulses, and with some 80 different traditional community of 100 million population, could demonstrate the diverse but strong utilization of pulses as food and nutrition sources.

What are the main challenges that farmers in your country face with regard to the production of pulses? How should these be addressed?

view: the seed system is poorly developed. poor investment is made in pulse research and development. poor involvement of the Pvt sector. weak policy support on radically changing the sector.

soln: The public system is mainstreaming an innovative approach of seed system enhancement by coordinating the farming community into seed production sources, with limited incentives. The PvT is expected to share some of the areas in seed.  The govt/pvt is to make substantial investment in the sector to respond best for market, consumption and agricultural health. The R4D part has to be capacitated like happening in other crops.

Are you aware of any research or studies on the role of pulses in climate change adaptation or mitigation? Please share them with us.

view yes: some of the attribution with pulses is by substituting the chemical N source fertilizer b/c of their ability to fix N2 from the air. By this it contributes for reduction of GHG emission into the air.

The International Year of Pulses also includes a call for recipes to provide ideas and inspiration on how to consume these nutritious seeds. Would you like to share yours?

 View; we did competition at national level of recipes made out of pulses. The idea was to enhance its application among the public. We learnt a lot on the industrial pathways of the competitors recipes/products that can easily be transferred into a standard industrial products. We had also the chance to collect taste preference and got interesting feedbacks.

Dear all,

Please find attached a publication on Pulses that you might find interesting.

Antonia Trichopoulou

English translation below

Saludo cordial a todos. Ciertamente las legumbres son un alimento de gran importancia nutricional y económicamente  accesible; adaptables a gran cantidad de recetarios y que igual influyen el suelo de manera muy positiva.Entonces son mayoria las virtudes de las mismas. Desde mi perspectiva - soy asiduo de su consumo -,lo que falta es divulgación de los valores nutricionales y de su facilidad relativa de cultivo y rendimientos, tanto para los agricultores como para los consumidores finales. En Costa Rica, la dieta diaria en los principales platos criollos nos da una ingesta nutricional elevada, ( gallo pinto, casados, arroces con vegetales, sopas de frijol blanco, cubaces, etc ), falta innovación e investigación para diversificar preparaciones comerciales ( polvos, pastas, concentrados, etc. ), lo cual daría mayor disponibilidad de usos y consumo propiamente.

Su papel en el cambio climático en nuestro país, creo que no ha sido analizado - resta investigar al respecto -,más por demás, me trae un interesante y potencial recurso a disponer en las alternativas para la adaptación al mismo y es por este medio que resulta valioso la divulgación del tema.

Muchos de los productores de leguminosas - frijoles negros más que todo - están limitados por los costos de producto importado, pues los costos de producción son más altos y la importación goza de beneficios arancelarios, aquí entra en juego el tema de la segridad alimentaria y el peso de los grandes productores  ( transnacionales ) y el fomento a la producción local, factores de financiamiento y valor agregado antes expuesto. Aparte cada región tiene condiciones geográficas y climáticas diferenciadas, que darán un mejor o peor producto, lo cual llevaría a establecer factores de identificación de variedades, con cualidades propias que no se dan en otros sitios y fomentarían intercambios comerciales, pudiendo generar un " comercio inteligente ",basado en necesidades y capacidades entre países y regiones, cosa que en el pasado se hacía sin tanta especulación financiera y política.

Mientras llegan más opiniones, me daré a la deliciosa tarea de buscar recetas - Y probarlas claro ! - para compartirlas.

Saludos y buen provecho !

Manuel Castrillo

Proyecto Camno Verde

Costa Rica

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Dear all,

Certainly, pulses are affordable plant foods of high nutritional importance; suitable for a large number of recipes and very beneficial for soils. As a regular consumer, I believe we need to disseminate their nutritional values, relative ease of cultivation and fairly straight yields, both for farmers and end consumers. In Costa Rica, the daily diet based on main creole dishes (gallo pinto, casado, rice with vegetables, white bean soups, cubaces, etc.) is highly nutritious. Innovation and research are needed to broaden the range of commercial preparations (powders, pastries, extracts, etc.) and diversify the use and consumption of pulses as a result.

The impact of pulses on climate change in our country has not been analysed yet and should therefore be investigated. It is an interesting alternative for climate change adaptation and raising awareness on the benefits of pulses for this purpose is useful.

Many pulses producers –particularly of black beans– are constrained by the costs of imports, leading to higher production costs. Food security, the influence of large producers (transnational), the promotion of local production, the financing conditions and the creation of added value come into play. Besides, each region has its own geographical and meteorological conditions which will affect the end product. Different varieties can be identified according to these conditions, with distinctive and exclusive features. Commercial activity can be stimulated, yielding a "smart trade" based on the needs and capabilities of each country and region. This was done in the past without so much financial and political speculation.

Whilst more contributions are being received, I will be happily looking for recipes –and tasting them as well- that I will be sharing with all of you.

Best regards and enjoy your meal!

Manuel Castrillo

Camino Verde Project

Costa Rica