Bioversity International's Erin Zettell and Jessica Raneri recently examined how consuming more roots, tubers and bananas, particularly micronutrient-rich varieties, can improve the malnourishment prevalent in northwest Vietnam.
Considering how Vietnam’s high prevalence of malnutrition in children and women contributes to high disease burden, economic insecurity, and political instability, Raneri and Zettell studied how implementing roots, tubers, and bananas (RTB) into agricultural systems could improve diets of women and children.
Zettell and Raneri noted RTB require few inputs and can provide superior energy and micronutrient yields in comparison to other major food crops, and many varieties can also be grown under harsh conditions. They traveled to the Mai Son district of the rural Son La province in northwest Vietnam, an area with malnutrition and poverty rates higher than the national average, to study the role of RTB in diets and see how they could be used to improve diet quality.
Read the full post, including findings from the study, on Bioversity International's website.
This summary was excerpted from the original post, linked above, by Erin Zettell and Jessica Raneri. Their work is carried out in collaboration with the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, and is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.
