The FAO’s latest food and agriculture series report is on the theme of better nutrition. Focusing on malnutrition in all its forms – underweight, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight/obesity – the report argues that approaches to improving nutrition need to move beyond a traditional focus on agricultural alone as a source of food and incomes.  Instead, it is necessary to consider the larger contribution that the entire food system (from inputs and production, through processing, storage, transport and retailing, to consumption) can play in influencing malnutrition outcomes.

The FAO’s 2013 report this time includes a special section on quinoa. The year 2013 has been declared “International Year of Quinoa” by the United Nations General Assembly, a tribute to a little-known agricultural product with outstanding nutritional and agronomic properties grown almost exclusively in the Andes.

A new study suggests that enriching crops by adding a naturally-occurring soil mineral to fertilisers could potentially help to reduce disease and premature death in Malawi. Dietary deficiency of the mineral selenium plays a vital role in keeping the immune system healthy and fighting illness and is likely to be endemic among the Malawi population.

This is an interesting paper because it considers one of the potential nutritional downsides of reducing meat consumption – the risk that iron intakes might be undesirably low. The study finds that a replacement of meat and dairy intakes with plant based substitutes has benefits in terms of reduced land requirements and delivers saturated fat reductions.