The Contribution of Cereal Grains to Food Security and Sustainability in Africa: Potential Application of UAV in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, and Namibia

Raheem, Dele; Dayoub, Moammar; Birech, Rhoda; Nakiyemba, Alice

doi:10.3390/urbansci5010008

Cited by 69 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Pearl millet is a descendent of the wild West African grass and was domesticated over 4,000 years ago in the West African Sahel, spreading later to East Africa and India (Sharma et al, 2021 ). Now it is being cultivated over 30 million ha worldwide, with the majority of the crop grown in Africa (>18 million ha) and Asia (>10 million ha) (Raheem et al, 2021 ). Around 90 million people in the Sahelian region of Africa and northwestern India consume pearl millet grain as a staple food (Srivastava et al, 2020b ).…”

Section: Status Of Pearl Millet Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pearl Millet: A Climate-Resilient Nutricereal for Mitigating Hidden Hunger and Provide Nutritional Security

et al. 2021

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Pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] is the sixth most important cereal crop after rice, wheat, maize, barley and sorghum. It is widely grown on 30 million ha in the arid and semi-arid tropical regions of Asia and Africa, accounting for almost half of the global millet production. Climate change affects crop production by directly influencing biophysical factors such as plant and animal growth along with the various areas associated with food processing and distribution. Assessment of the effects of global climate changes on agriculture can be helpful to anticipate and adapt farming to maximize the agricultural production more effectively. Pearl millet being a climate-resilient crop is important to minimize the adverse effects of climate change and has the potential to increase income and food security of farming communities in arid regions. Pearl millet has a deep root system and can survive in a wide range of ecological conditions under water scarcity. It has high photosynthetic efficiency with an excellent productivity and growth in low nutrient soil conditions and is less reliant on chemical fertilizers. These attributes have made it a crop of choice for cultivation in arid and semi-arid regions of the world; however, fewer efforts have been made to study the climate-resilient features of pearl millet in comparison to the other major cereals. Several hybrids and varieties of pearl millet were developed during the past 50 years in India by both the public and private sectors. Pearl millet is also nutritionally superior and rich in micronutrients such as iron and zinc and can mitigate malnutrition and hidden hunger. Inclusion of minimum standards for micronutrients—grain iron and zinc content in the cultivar release policy—is the first of its kind step taken in pearl millet anywhere in the world, which can lead toward enhanced food and nutritional security. The availability of high-quality whole-genome sequencing and re-sequencing information of several lines may aid genomic dissection of stress tolerance and provide a good opportunity to further exploit the nutritional and climate-resilient attributes of pearl millet. Hence, more efforts should be put into its genetic enhancement and improvement in inheritance to exploit it in a better way. Thus, pearl millet is the next-generation crop holding the potential of nutritional richness and the climate resilience and efforts must be targeted to develop nutritionally dense hybrids/varieties tolerant to drought using different omics approaches.

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Section: Status Of Pearl Millet Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pearl Millet: A Climate-Resilient Nutricereal for Mitigating Hidden Hunger and Provide Nutritional Security

et al. 2021

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“…In any case, the farming sector and the associated dimensions are determinants for sustainable food security [33], including animal welfare [34], and the new technologies open new opportunities [35], including for monitoring [36] and assessments [37]. The population growth is particularly worrying in countries such as India, for example [38], but other specific contexts also deserve special attention [39], including those from Africa [40].…”

Section: Literature Surveymentioning

confidence: 99%

Food Security and Sustainability: Discussing the Four Pillars to Encompass Other Dimensions

Guiné

Pato

Costa

et al. 2021

Foods

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The unadjusted intake of food constitutes a real challenge for the several sustainability dimensions. In this perspective, the main objectives of this research are to characterise the current contexts of food security, its relationship with sustainability, and identify proposals and actions that may support the design of more adjusted policies in the future. In addition, it is intended to assess if the food security pillars properly address the sustainability goals and if the evolution of undernutrition is accompanied by sustainable frameworks. In this way, statistical information from the FAOSTAT database was considered for the several dimensions of food security over the period 2000–2020. These data were analysed through factor-cluster approaches and panel data methodologies, namely those related to quantile regressions. As main insights, we may refer that undernutrition is more impacted by the availability of food and nutrients and political stability than by the level of GDP—Gross Domestic Product (except for the extreme cases). This means that the level of development is not the primary explanation for the problems of nutrition. The main focus of the national and international policies must be to improve the agrifood supply chains and to support political stability, in order to mitigate undernutrition worldwide and ensure a global access to sustainable and healthy diets. In addition, it is suggested to rethink the four pillars of food security (availability, access, utilisation and stability), in order to encompass other dimensions, such as climate change.

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“…From a nutritional standpoint, the availability of cereals is important for meeting the global food demand since it is a cost-effective and nutritious food option, especially when considering the population of developing countries (Raheem et al, 2021). Cereals are botanically classified as grasses belonging to the monocot family Poaceae.…”

Section: Cereal Grains: Economic and Nutritional Importancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cereals are rich in protein, selected micronutrients, and even antinutrients. Maize, rice, wheat, barley, sorghum, millets, oat, and rye are among the most cultivated cereals globally, playing a vital role in the economy of both developed and developing countries (Raheem et al, 2021). However, the importance of cereals extends beyond their essential nutrients.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenolic compounds in cereal grains and effects of processing on their composition and bioactivities: a review

Shahidi¹,

Danielski²,

Ikeda³

2021

Journal of Food Bioactives

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Cereals are a staple food in the diets of many populations globally. Besides their nutritive function in food, they are also rich in various groups of bioactive compounds, especially polyphenols. Wheat, rice, barley, rye, oat, maize, millet, sorghum, and other cereal grains present a great variety of phenolic acids, flavonoids, proanthocyanidins, alkylresorcinols, and lignans, which can be affected in many ways by the post-harvest treatments and further processing of these feedstocks. This review discusses up-to-date studies about the effects of common cereal processing techniques on their phenolic composition, biological activities, and bioefficiency. Generally, mild thermal and high-pressure treatments enhance cereals’ phenolic composition by releasing the insoluble-bound fraction, which increases their bioaccessibility. On the other hand, processes involving extreme temperature conditions and removal of the grains’ outer layers may drastically reduce the phenolic content. Therefore, it is imperative to optimize the processing conditions of cereals, so their health-promoting benefits are preserved.

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The Contribution of Cereal Grains to Food Security and Sustainability in Africa: Potential Application of UAV in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, and Namibia

Cited by 69 publications

References 18 publications

Pearl Millet: A Climate-Resilient Nutricereal for Mitigating Hidden Hunger and Provide Nutritional Security

Pearl Millet: A Climate-Resilient Nutricereal for Mitigating Hidden Hunger and Provide Nutritional Security

Food Security and Sustainability: Discussing the Four Pillars to Encompass Other Dimensions

Phenolic compounds in cereal grains and effects of processing on their composition and bioactivities: a review

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