Assessing Nutritional Diversity of Cropping Systems in African Villages

Background In Sub-Saharan Africa, 40% of children under five years in age are chronically undernourished. As new investments and attention galvanize action on African agriculture to reduce hunger, there is an urgent need for metrics that monitor agricultural progress beyond calories produced per capita and address nutritional diversity essential for human health. In this study we demonstrate how an ecological tool, functional diversity (FD), has potential to address this need and provide new insights on nutritional diversity of cropping systems in rural Africa. Methods and Findings Data on edible plant species diversity, food security and diet diversity were collected for 170 farms in three rural settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nutritional FD metrics were calculated based on farm species composition and species nutritional composition. Iron and vitamin A deficiency were determined from blood samples of 90 adult women. Nutritional FD metrics summarized the diversity of nutrients provided by the farm and showed variability between farms and villages. Regression of nutritional FD against species richness and expected FD enabled identification of key species that add nutrient diversity to the system and assessed the degree of redundancy for nutrient traits. Nutritional FD analysis demonstrated that depending on the original composition of species on farm or village, adding or removing individual species can have radically different outcomes for nutritional diversity. While correlations between nutritional FD, food and nutrition indicators were not significant at household level, associations between these variables were observed at village level. Conclusion This study provides novel metrics to address nutritional diversity in farming systems and examples of how these metrics can help guide agricultural interventions towards adequate nutrient diversity. New hypotheses on the link between agro-diversity, food security and human nutrition are generated and strategies for future research are suggested calling for integration of agriculture, ecology, nutrition, and socio-economics.

[1]  M. Ikeda,et al.  Number of food items as an indicator of nutrient intake , 1994 .

[2]  Ross M. Welch,et al.  A new paradigm for world agriculture: meeting human needs: Productive, sustainable, nutritious , 1999 .

[3]  Un Millennium,et al.  Investing in development : a practical plan to achieve the Millennium Development Goals , 2005 .

[4]  C. Hawkes,et al.  From agriculture to nutrition : pathways, synergies and outcomes , 2008 .

[5]  R. Roff,et al.  Shifting agrifood systems: the contemporary geography of food and agriculture; an introduction , 2008 .

[6]  Kevin J. Gaston,et al.  Functional diversity (FD), species richness and community composition , 2002 .

[7]  Gert B. M. Mensink,et al.  A new index to measure healthy food diversity better reflects a healthy diet than traditional measures. , 2007, The Journal of nutrition.

[8]  F. Delpeuch,et al.  Dietary diversity is a good predictor of the micronutrient density of the diet of 6- to 23-month-old children in Madagascar. , 2008, The Journal of nutrition.

[9]  B. Burlingame,et al.  Analysis of food composition data on rice from a plant genetic resources perspective , 2003 .

[10]  Jennifer Coates,et al.  Burden of household food insecurity in urban slum settings , 2019, PloS one.

[11]  S. Noorani.  From Agriculture to Nutrition Pathways , Synergies and Outcomes , 2007 .

[12]  J. Fanzo,et al.  Ecology and Human Nutrition , 2012 .

[13]  J. Sachs,et al.  The African green revolution: results from the Millennium Villages Project. , 2010 .

[14]  Terri J. Ballard,et al.  Proxy measures of household food consumption for food security assessment and surveillance: comparison of the household dietary diversity and food consumption scores , 2010, Public Health Nutrition.

[15]  P. Eyzaguirre,et al.  African Leafy Vegetables: Their Role in the World Health Organization’s Global Fruit and Vegetables Initiative , 2007, African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development.

[16]  D Labadarios,et al.  Food variety and dietary diversity scores in children: are they good indicators of dietary adequacy? , 2006, Public Health Nutrition.

[17]  Owen L. Petchey,et al.  Low functional diversity and no redundancy in British avian assemblages. , 2007, The Journal of animal ecology.

[18]  E. Frison,et al.  Agricultural Biodiversity, Nutrition, and Health: Making a Difference to Hunger and Nutrition in the Developing World , 2006, Food and nutrition bulletin.

[19]  T. E. Bates.  FACTORS AFFECTING CRITICAL NUTRIENT CONCENTRATIONS IN PLANTS AND THEIR EVALUATION: A REVIEW , 1971 .

[20]  D. Jacobs,et al.  Food synergy: an operational concept for understanding nutrition. , 2009, The American journal of clinical nutrition.

[21]  J. Potter,et al.  Diet diversity, diet composition, and risk of colon cancer (United States) , 1997, Cancer Causes & Control.

[22]  Millennium Villages Project , 2010 .

[23]  B. Sthapit,et al.  Biocultural Diversity in the Sustainability of Developing-Country Food Systems , 2004, Food and nutrition bulletin.

[24]  Tamara B. Harris,et al.  Dietary diversity and subsequent mortality in the First National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiologic Follow-up Study. , 1993, The American journal of clinical nutrition.

[25]  G. Kennedy,et al.  Field testing of plant genetic diversity indicators for nutrition surveys: rice-based diet of rural Bangladesh as a model , 2005 .

[26]  S. Díaz,et al.  Vive la différence: plant functional diversity matters to ecosystem processes , 2001 .

[27]  J. Hebebrand,et al.  [Obesity and overweight]. , 2009, Zeitschrift fur Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und Psychotherapie.

[28]  Michael J. Potts,et al.  Nutritious subsistence food systems , 2007 .

[29]  L. Dintenfass,et al.  MYOCARDIAL DAMAGE DUE TO FAULTY HEAT EXCHANGE , 1976, The Lancet.

[30]  D. McLaren,et al.  A fresh look at protein-calorie malnutrition. , 1966, Lancet.

[31]  Joint Fao,et al.  Human vitamin and mineral requirements , 2002 .

[32]  P. Legendre,et al.  A distance-based framework for measuring functional diversity from multiple traits. , 2010, Ecology.

[33]  James Found.  Children's Fund , 2010 .

[34]  Wouter Saeys,et al.  Application of visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (Vis/NIRS) to determine carotenoid contents in banana (Musa spp.) fruit pulp. , 2009, Journal of agricultural and food chemistry.

[35]  Eoin J. O’Gorman,et al.  A functional guide to functional diversity measures , 2009 .

[36]  C. Cordova,et al.  TYPE-III HYPERUPOPROTEINÆMIA , 1977, The Lancet.

[37]  C. la Vecchia,et al.  Food groups and risk of oral and pharyngeal cancer , 1998, International journal of cancer.

[38]  F. DeClerck,et al.  Econutrition: Implementation Models from the Millennium Villages Project in Africa , 2006, Food and nutrition bulletin.

[39]  David Mouillot,et al.  Functional diversity measures: an overview of their redundancy and their ability to discriminate community assembly rules , 2010 .

[40]  M. Bonierbale,et al.  Understanding the role of potatoes in the Peruvian diet: An approach that combines food composition with household expenditure data , 2009 .

[41]  English Only.  THE USE AND EXCHANGE OF MICROBIAL GENETIC RESOURCES FOR FOOD AND AGRICULTURE Submission by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) , 2010 .

[42]  Vijay Modi,et al.  The African Millennium Villages. , 2019, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[43]  D. Rose,et al.  A Comparative Evaluation of Dietary Indicators Used in Food Consumption Assessments of at-Risk Populations , 2008, Food and nutrition bulletin.

[44]  A. Hatløy,et al.  Food variety—a good indicator of nutritional adequacy of the diet? A case study from an urban area in Mali, West Africa , 1998, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

[45]  E. E. Howe,et al.  Kwashiorkor and protein malnutrition; a dietary therapeutic trial. , 1955, Lancet.

[46]  Fabrice DeClerck,et al.  Loss of functional diversity under land use intensification across multiple taxa. , 2009, Ecology letters.

[47]  M. Latham.  The great Vitamin A fiasco , 2010 .

[48]  L. F. Gonzalez,et al.  Genetic diversity, inter-gene pool introgression and nutritional quality of common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) from Central Africa , 2010, Theoretical and Applied Genetics.

[49]  J. Ingram,et al.  The role of ecological theory and practice in poverty alleviation and environmental conservation , 2006, Frontiers in ecology and the environment.

[50]  Roger J. R. Levesque,et al.  Obesity and Overweight , 2011 .

[51]  E. Feskens,et al.  A critical review of predefined diet quality scores , 2007, British Journal of Nutrition.

[52]  Shahid Naeem,et al.  Functional and phylogenetic diversity as predictors of biodiversity--ecosystem-function relationships. , 2011, Ecology.

[53]  P. Maundu,et al.  Useful trees and shrubs for Kenya , 2005 .

[54]  D. Mclaren,et al.  The great protein fiasco. , 1974, Lancet.

[55]  R. Graham.  Micronutrient Deficiencies in Crops and Their Global Significance , 2008 .

[56]  P. Eyzaguirre,et al.  The biodiversity of traditional leafy vegetables , 1999 .

[57]  B. J. Alloway,et al.  Micronutrient deficiencies in global crop production , 2008 .

[58]  M. Maundu,et al.  Traditional food plants of Kenya , 1999 .

[59]  J. Fanzo,et al.  Integrating a broader notion of food security and gender empowerment into the African Green Revolution , 2009, Food Security.

[60]  E. McLean,et al.  Worldwide prevalence of anaemia, WHO Vitamin and Mineral Nutrition Information System, 1993–2005 , 2009, Public Health Nutrition.

[61]  Christian J Peters,et al.  Foodshed analysis and its relevance to sustainability , 2008, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems.

[62]  Robert E Black,et al.  What works? Interventions for maternal and child undernutrition and survival , 2008, The Lancet.

[63]  M. Ruel,et al.  Dietary diversity is associated with child nutritional status: evidence from 11 demographic and health surveys. , 2004, The Journal of nutrition.