Page 60 - Today's Dietitian (March 2020)

Health Matters

this study can help the government in
deciding which regions would benefit the
most from promotion of these cereals.
“Our study provides a lot of value
because we’re able to pinpoint which dis-
tricts in which states could see the largest
improvements,” Davis says. “If the gov-
ernment had to prioritize a few states,
they could point to our results and say, for
example, ‘OK, these are the places where
our largest water savings are going to
happen, so we should focus here.’”
The next steps in implementing a more
widespread planting of sorghum and mil-
lets would be to quantify the willingness of
local populations to increase the amount
Diversifying Crops Can of these different cereals in their diets.
The government would also have
Improve Nutrition in India to make economic considerations to
protect the livelihoods of farmers,
W hen the Green Revolution traditional cereals that still are consumed different crop might mean that they
as asking a farmer to switch to a
came to India, it brought
in India but to a lesser extent.
have different fertilizer requirements
or would have to buy more seed. Davis
“We’ve found that those traditional
with it an emphasis on
high-yielding varieties
of rice and wheat, cereals have a higher nutritional quality says there are multiple government
and also tend to use less water, require
subsidy programs in India that help
which allowed India to triple its cereal less energy to be grown, and emit fewer support farmers, but those would
production over the past 50 years. As a greenhouse gases on a per-kilogram have to be modified to make sure they
result, rice contributes almost one-half basis,” Davis says. accommodate the changes.
of the country’s cereal production, and Because rice is flood irrigated, it Finally, Davis says that, while they
cereals continue to make up much of the requires a lot of water, which is a burden only looked at decreasing some of the
calorie consumption in India’s urban and in a country such as India that’s experi- rice area and increasing some of the
rural households. encing widespread depletion of ground- area allocated to these other cereals,
But that success has led to two new water resources. it’s also possible that India might look
problems: Rice doesn’t offer the nutri- In addition, the standing water in rice at areas that are currently used to
tional benefits of some other cereals, such fields contributes to anaerobic respira- produce cotton or sugar cane—water-
as sorghum and millets, and, at the same tion, which causes methane, a potent intensive crops that don’t contribute
time, it’s grown in areas that aren’t nec- greenhouse gas, to be emitted to the to nutrition—and replace them with
essarily suited to rice production, which atmosphere. Since the other cereals sorghum and millets.
can have adverse environmental impacts. aren’t flood irrigated, their production All of this could have positive envi-
A new study from the University of doesn’t produce any methane emissions. ronmental and nutritional benefits, and
Delaware published in the Proceedings of “These traditional cereals also tend to be Davis says he was happy to lead a study
the National Academy of Sciences shows less sensitive to variability in temperature that shows the positive impact agricul-
that India can sustainably enhance its and precipitation, so they’re more resilient ture can have on the planet.
food supply and improve its environmen- to climate variability,” Davis says. “There are “This was an India-focused study, but it
tal footprint by reducing its reliance on also many places where the yields of these makes a broader statement about sustain-
rice and planting more nutritious and less cereals are comparable to or higher than able agriculture and framing agriculture
environmentally damaging crops such as rice. For all of those reasons, we wanted to as a solution to multiple global challenges
sorghum, finger millet, and pearl millet. look at whether there were opportunities to like malnutrition, water scarcity, and
The study was led by Kyle Davis, PhD, an replace some rice production with some of greenhouse gas,” Davis says. “You often see
assistant professor in the College of Earth, these traditional cereals without reducing agriculture presented as causing environ-
Ocean, & Environment’s department of food supply in the country.” mental problems, when in fact agriculture
geography and spatial sciences and the Col- Sorghum and millets were consumed is the solution to many challenges. Our
lege of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ more widely in India a generation ago, study shows there are opportunities to real-
department of plant and soil sciences at and the government in India is inter- ize a number of different benefits through
the University of Delaware. Davis explains ested in promoting the production and more thoughtful agricultural practices,
that while the reliance on rice during the consumption of these different crops, and it shows that a single intervention can
Green Revolution succeeded in feeding a even going so far as to declare 2018 the change multiple outcomes for the better.”
large population, it also pushed out a lot of national year of millets. Davis says that SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE

60 TODAY’S DIETITIAN • MARCH 2020