Treating malnutrition in the world is the goal of a recently-formed humanitarian partnership.
The Global Harvest Alliance (GHA) will bring together the efforts and expertise of the St. Louis Children’s Hospital, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the Washington University School of Medicine.
When it comes to dealing with malnutrition in the developing world, Dr Mark Manary, who will head the GHA partnership, said solutions will have to span a number of disciplines. Those include agriculture, healthcare and home economics.
"People in the developing world derive most of their nutrients from plants; plants constitute 90 percent of the diet of many Africans," Manary said. "Therefore effective prevention strategies must include food crops that provide more complete nutrition."
According to UNICEF, 25 percent of children in the underdeveloped world who are under the age of 5 suffer from undernutrition.
Manary has developed a peanut-butter-based nutritional food that can be used to help children who have been affected by malnutrition get restored to health. He has also worked with the Donald Danforth Plant Center in developing plants that can survive well in areas where malnutrition is a problem.
The plant center has been researching fortifying plants for over 10 years and has received funding through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to do research as part of an international research program called BioCassava Plus. Team members of the GHA partnership will test varieties of cassava in countries like Kenya and Nigeria.
The GHA has a number of goals for both the short- and long-term. In the next three to five years, the partnership hopes to develop feeding programs that deal with moderate malnutrition problems and raise awareness about the negative results of childhood malnutrition.
In five to 10 years, the group hopes to identify staple crops that will help the health of people in Africa, along with testing the cassava varieties. Beyond 10 years the partnership hopes to spread the use of improved cassava plants throughout the continent and implement strategies to treat malnutrition in children who have AIDS.