Global efforts to address key SDG food security goals, particularly nutrition and good health, face considerable challenges due to the complexities of our unsustainable food system’s supply chain dynamics. The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES) is at the forefront of imagining and creating alternatives to our current unsustainable food systems.
We’ll be drawing often on the experience and dialogues of the IPES as we consider our grains supply chains and how we can reshape them.
Among the many challenges in our current grain supply chains is the privileging of refined and processed grains. This is a complex topic, driven as much by consumer taste and texture demands as the industrial processes that reinforce nutritionally compromised consumption.
Biofortification is but one among many strategies for addressing the nutritional deficiencies of refined grain products. Breeding innovations and artificially reintroducing vitamins and minerals during processing are a few examples of industry strategies. The top-down strategies for biofortification present a host of systemic challenges, a subject we’ll be engaging in future dialogues in the India Grains Collaborative.
In “The Whole Grain Manifesto: From Green Revolution to Grain Evolution”, by Peiman Milani et al., 2023, the authors reflect on the history of the transition favoring refined grains and argue that a shift to whole grains consumption leads to significant benefits in diets, particularly micronutrients, and in the structures for our global food systems.
(See the Tufts Food Lab link for more on whole grains and diet.)
Our first IGC event, 10 April 2023, showcases the potential for entrepreneur-led food fortification. The concept and potential of entrepreneur-led food fortification is discussed in a recent study in the journal Global Food Security by John R. N. Taylor et al., Entrepreneur-led food fortification: A complementary approach for nutritious diets in developing countries.
(Paywall) and in the (open access) article “What is food-to-food fortification? A working definition and framework for evaluation of efficiency and implementation of best practices”.
A focus on small and micro food enterprises, and the low cost processes they can employ, can be an effective market led strategy for increasing the nutritional quality of food products.
At the India Grains Collaborative April, 2023 event we showcase use examples of sprouted finger millet (ragi) flours produced by a small social enterprise in the Kumaon Himalaya and contemporary variant of emmer (khapli) wheat. In both cases the utilization of these grains, and the processes and methods used to retain their nutritional benefits, emphasizes the potential that exists to reimagine the supply chain of whole grains building on the strengths and flexibility of our small scale enterprises.
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