Smart Food, good for you, the planet, the farmer

ICRISAT  is working on ‘Smart Crops and Foods’: starting by developing the millets and sorghums in drylands across Asia and Africa. The February 2019 edition of ‘Inside’ magazine includes an interview with the Joanna Kane-Potaka, Director of Strategic Marketing & Communications at ICRISAT Hyderabad:

The drylands of Africa and Asia have harsh climates, plagued by water scarcity and degraded soils and are going to be hit the hardest by climate change. She notes that “They also have the highest poverty and malnutrition rates. Millets and sorghums are seen as ‘Climate-smart Crops’. They are also ‘Smart Foods’ in view of their favourable nutritive values. Joanna considered that the biggest challenge to popularizing these Smart Foods is not in achieving behavioural change by persuading people to change their diets but finding the funding and partners to do this at scale.

Asked of her own vision, Joanna explained “I envision Smart Food becoming a part of regular diets and the food system. By building millets and sorghums as a major business and progressing from the Big 3 staple crops to create the Big 5, and later the Big 7, we will have a major impact on global issues of nutrition/ health, environment and farmer welfare”.

Read more …….

TAAI members please note that this year’s TAA-Reading University Hugh Bunting Memorial Lecture, 13th November, will have the theme of “Improving Diets and Health”. A key speaker will be Rajeev Varshney, Director of ICRISAT’s Research Program for Genetic Gains, who will talk about Smart Crops.