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DISCUSSION No. 128 • FSN Forum digest No. 1238
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Pulses are praised for their health, environmental and economic benefits. How can their full potential be tapped?
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until 19 June 2016
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Dear Members,
We received many insightful comments from you over the past few days exploring the benefits of
pulses
(legumes harvested solely for the dry grain such as beans, chickpeas and lentils, etc.) and proposing ways to support their production and consumption across the world.
Below you can also read the feedback to some of the questions raised during the webinar and the discussion, posted by
Teodardo Calles and Fernanda Grande, our technical experts on pulses.
We are approaching the closure of this lively discussion and encourage you to keep sharing your knowledge, which will
contribute to enriching and raising awareness on pulses.
On the
discussion page you will find all comments received, which are welcome in all UN languages.
Best regards
Your FSN Forum team
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Teodardo Calles, FAO, Italy
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Dear Participants,
The first online discussion of the International year of Pulses (IYP) is coming to an end. As I said before, I am very
happy for all interesting contributions made by the participants. We will present a summary of this discussion to the IYP Steering Committee and I am sure that your comments will help us improve the second half of the IYP.
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If you know or you are organizing an event on pulses, you can contact me and we can include information about the event
in the website of the IYP ([log in to unmask]). Since we will probably need some additional information about some of the topics discussed here, I will
contact you through email personally.
We will have another online discussion between October and November and we hope you can contribute with again.
Teodardo Calles
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Fernanda Grande, FAO, Italy
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I would like to provide my answers to two questions posed during the webinar "Pulses
for Food Security and Nutrition" and that we could not answer due to lack of time.
Question posed by Mohamed:
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What are the specific advantages of pulses for small children?
Pulses represent a good source of plant-based protein, B vitamins and minerals which are important nutrients for growth.
A common problem regarding complementary feeding, especially in some developing countries, is that young children are fed thin, watery cereal-based porridges that cannot supply them with the energy and nutrients they need for growth. Therefore pulses are a
good choice to include in complementary feeding as part of a diversified diet.
Question posed by Mona Dhamankar:
Is it true that one needs to eat large quantities of pulses in order to meet the recommended daily allowance of
protein? as compared to animal protein?
Yes, it is true. Protein content of meat, for example, is double the content of cooked beans. So to have the same amount
of protein, a person needs to eat a larger portion of pulses. Moreover, it is also important to remember that in order to increase the protein quality of meals we can consume pulses with cereals to have a “complete” amino acid profile.
The recording to the full webinar is also online and available at this link: http://bit.ly/1U7sEuS
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CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED
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Germain
Grégoire
Eloundou Tsanga, CECOSDA, Cameroon
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Germain shares his experience in Cameroun, where CECOSDA carried out a survey of the most common pulses produced and
consumed in the country and contributes the recipe for Koki, a traditional and well known dish based on white beans.
Read the comment
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Fouad
Maalouf, ICARDA, Lebanon
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Fouad's contribution looks into the situation of pulses in countries such as Egypt and Sudan, where due to policies subsidizing
cereals crops, farmers tend to go for mono-cropping, despite pulses being important crops in the culinary tradition.
Read the contribution
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Pradip
Dey, Indian Institute of Soil Science, India
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Pradip acknowledges the role of pulses for protein security and soil revitalisation and outlines seven areas of work
to improve pulse production
Read the contribution
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Kien
Nguyen Van, Plant Resources Center (PRC), Viet Nam
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Kien supports the many valuable assets of pulses and calls for a stronger support for developing countries in realizing
the full potential of pulses' production and consumption.
Read the contribution
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Manoj
Kumar Behera, NRMC India, India
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Manoj highlights that the production of pulses has been neglected over the years in favour of cereals based systems,
with the result that poor people pay a double price for commonly consumed pulses. More funds should be dedicated to research and extension on pulses based farming systems.
Read the contribution
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Hagos
Mohammedseid Juhar, Mekelle University, Ethiopia
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In Ethiopia, Hagos says, pulses are a very important part of the food system. A common local dish is "Shiro wet", which
is prepared using bean powder.
Read the contribution
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David
Bergvinson, Director General of Icrisat, India
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David presents ICRISAT's research on pulses and elaborates on the many positive aspects of pulses consumption and production,
sharing relevant references and documents. ICRISAT's research focuses on: a) improved grain quality, nutritional traits, food safety, nitrogen fixing properties and hybrids; b) drought tolerance and adaptation to diverse dryland agroecosystems and to differing
rotations with cereal crops.
Read the contribution
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Manuel
Moya, International Pediatric Association, Spain
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Manuel explores the nutritional advantages of pulses, especially for children and calls for greater effort on promoting
their production and consumption.
Read the contribution
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Ilse
de Jager, Wageningen University, Netherlands
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Ilse shares an abstract from her PhD research, carried out in the context of the N2Africa project (www.n2africa.org)
which explores infants and young child's potential nutritional benefits of enhanced grain legume production.
Read the contribution
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Massimo
Iannetta, ENEA, Italy
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The main challenges faced by Italian farmers with regard to the production of pulses is posed by the low income that
they achieve from leguminous crops; therefore many farmers are reluctant to include these crops in the rotations of their farms.
Read
the contribution
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Esther
Ronner, Wageningen University, Netherlands
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Esther presents the potential that climbing beans offer to intensify bean production compared to bush beans, in particular
for the densely populated highlands of East Africa. She is involved in a project developing options for the design, implementation and evaluation of climbing bean technologies.
Read the contribution
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Dhanya
Praveen, Environment Protection Training and Research Institute, India
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Dhanya shares the challenges in convincing farmer communities to adopt drought resistant crops, such as pulses, in the
context of climate change risks and shares some related links.
Read the contribution
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Rattan
Lal, Ohio State University, USA
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Rattan's contribution presents some key features of pulses and in particular their linkages to soil health, to adaptation
and mitigation of climate change and to food security and nutrition.
Read the contribution
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