Diversity and utilization of indigenous wild edible plants and their contribution to food security in Turkana County, Kenya

Introduction Indigenous Wild edible plants (IWEPs) are consumed daily in some form by at least one in seven people worldwide. Many of them are rich in essential nutrients with the potential for dietary and nutrition improvement particularly for poor households. They are, however, often overlooked. This study investigated diversity, consumption frequency, and perceptions of IWEPs and the contribution they make to the food security of communities in Turkana County, northern Kenya. Our findings are aimed at stimulating targeted discussions among stakeholders involved in food security programs on best way to overcome the poverty stigma associated with IWEPs consumption and to promote their utilization for food security, nutritional and dietary improvement, and enhanced community resilience. Methods Applying a mixed-methods approach, we collected data using 12 gender-disaggregated focus group discussions and a questionnaire applied to a random sample of 360 households. Results and Discussion Participants identified 73 IWEPs, of which 24 were consumed in the preceding six months by 48.5% of households. Almost all surveyed households (96%) were classified as severely food insecure, and food insecurity did not differ significantly between households that consumed IWEPs and those that did not. Our results indicate that more IWEPs consumers than non-consumers reported eating foods they had not wanted to consume to cope with food scarcity, as well as having to eat fewer meals than normal. Just over half of the respondents (57.1%) held positive attitudes towards IWEPs, which was positively associated with a higher likelihood of IWEPs consumption. Long distances to harvest sites, lack of knowledge about the plants, their seasonality, and how to cook them appetizingly, coupled with overall unfavorable perceptions, are probable reasons for non-consumption of IWEPs among the survey respondents. In line with other studies cited on wild foods, we conclude that IWEPs have the potential to bridge food and nutritional deficits in food insecure households in the study area, although currently their consumption remains limited. Given this potential, further analysis of IWEPs’ nutritional composition and restoration of wild edible foods to local areas should be given priority, as well as interventions that help to overcome the challenges to their consumption and promote their wider use

How can emerging economies meet development and climate goals in the transport-energy system? : Modelling co-developed scenarios in Kenya using a socio-technical approach

Transport-energy transitions pose complex challenges that have been extensively studied in high-income countries in response to national mandates for climate action. Low- and middle-income countries, however, have low but rapidly growing motorisation rates and face very different challenges in adopting new technologies to foster economic development and ensure equitable access to clean transportation. Here, we present a set of narrative scenarios for the future of the Kenyan transport-energy system co-developed through engagement with 41 local experts and decision-makers. Through the co-development of a Kenyan transport-energy system model, we present a decision-support tool, populated with those scenarios, to assist policymakers at regional, national and international levels in building policy and investment pipelines to support low-carbon economic growth. We find that Kenya’s transport-energy system can meet both development and climate goals, but this demands strong policy support for efficient public transport and targeted support for road vehicle electrification. Increased support for non-motorised transport is essential to provide equitable access to services and economic opportunities. Favourable pathways result in significant e-mobility uptake, which is anticipated to increase electricity demand by 5-56% from 2023 to 2040, relative to the IEA Kenya Energy Outlook’s Stated Policies scenario, representing a 2.7-3.9x increase in Kenya’s total electricity demand over the same period. From a macro-fiscal perspective, results show that e-mobility has two important consequences for Kenya. Firstly, under high e-mobility scenarios, there is a negative fiscal impact that taxation revenues from the sale of transport fuels reduce by up to 41% relative to the low e-mobility scenario (though, notably, they still increase marginally from the 2023 level because of increasing transport demand). Secondly, high e-mobility scenarios have a positive impact on balance of payments by reducing the fuel import bill by up to 69% relative to the low e-mobility baseline. This corresponds to a reduction in foreign exchange requirement of up to $4.2bn annually by 2050

Children’s and adolescents’ rising animal-source food intakes in 1990–2018 were impacted by age, region, parental education and urbanicity

Animal-source foods (ASF) provide nutrition for children and adolescents’ physical and cognitive development. Here, we use data from the Global Dietary Database and Bayesian hierarchical models to quantify global, regional and national ASF intakes between 1990 and 2018 by age group across 185 countries, representing 93% of the world’s child population. Mean ASF intake was 1.9 servings per day, representing 16% of children consuming at least three daily servings. Intake was similar between boys and girls, but higher among urban children with educated parents. Consumption varied by age from 0.6 at <1 year to 2.5 servings per day at 15–19 years. Between 1990 and 2018, mean ASF intake increased by 0.5 servings per week, with increases in all regions except sub-Saharan Africa. In 2018, total ASF consumption was highest in Russia, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey, and lowest in Uganda, India, Kenya and Bangladesh. These findings can inform policy to address malnutrition through targeted ASF consumption programmes.publishedVersio

Incident type 2 diabetes attributable to suboptimal diet in 184 countries

The global burden of diet-attributable type 2 diabetes (T2D) is not well established. This risk assessment model estimated T2D incidence among adults attributable to direct and body weight-mediated effects of 11 dietary factors in 184 countries in 1990 and 2018. In 2018, suboptimal intake of these dietary factors was estimated to be attributable to 14.1 million (95% uncertainty interval (UI), 13.8–14.4 million) incident T2D cases, representing 70.3% (68.8–71.8%) of new cases globally. Largest T2D burdens were attributable to insufficient whole-grain intake (26.1% (25.0–27.1%)), excess refined rice and wheat intake (24.6% (22.3–27.2%)) and excess processed meat intake (20.3% (18.3–23.5%)). Across regions, highest proportional burdens were in central and eastern Europe and central Asia (85.6% (83.4–87.7%)) and Latin America and the Caribbean (81.8% (80.1–83.4%)); and lowest proportional burdens were in South Asia (55.4% (52.1–60.7%)). Proportions of diet-attributable T2D were generally larger in men than in women and were inversely correlated with age. Diet-attributable T2D was generally larger among urban versus rural residents and higher versus lower educated individuals, except in high-income countries, central and eastern Europe and central Asia, where burdens were larger in rural residents and in lower educated individuals. Compared with 1990, global diet-attributable T2D increased by 2.6 absolute percentage points (8.6 million more cases) in 2018, with variation in these trends by world region and dietary factor. These findings inform nutritional priorities and clinical and public health planning to improve dietary quality and reduce T2D globally

Mean Estimation of a Sensitive Variable under Measurement Errors using Three-Stage RRT Model in Stratified Two-Phase Sampling

In the present study, the problem of mean estimation of a sensitive variable using three-stage RRT model under measurement errors is addressed. A generalized class of estimators is proposed using a mixture of auxiliary attribute and variable. Some members of the proposed generalized class of estimators are identified and studied. The bias and mean squared error (MSE) expressions for the proposed estimators are correctly derived up to first order Taylor's series of approximation. The proposed estimator's efficiency is investigated theoretically and numerically using real data. From the numerical study, the proposed estimators outperforms existing mean estimators. Furthermore, the efficiencies of the mean estimators’ decreases as the sensitivity level of the survey question increases

Individual food comsumption data - Vihiga Baseline Assessment 2018

The data comes from the baseline study for a three year project aimed at at promoting community-led conservation and use of a wealth of diverse seeds to support on-farm diversity, production of year-round diverse foods, incomes and dietary quality by scaling out the positive experiences from the previous projects in more communities in Vihiga County and guiding the communities to establish a community seed bank to provide access to a diverse range of quality seeds, which are crucial for sustainability of the project. The dietary intake data was collected from 370 mother - infant dyads. The women were aged 15 -60 years and 372 childen aged 6 - 49 months. The sample was selected randomly from accross ten sublocations in Vihiga County. The dietary data was collected using a repeated non-consecutive quantitative 24-hour dietary intake recall following the methodology described by Rosalind and Gibson[37]. The respondents were mothers or primary caregivers of the children and who were responsible for food preparation and feeding of the children. The respondents was asked to describe all the foods and beverages consumed including those eaten away from home by the children during the day previous to the interview (24-hour period). The quantities cooked and eaten were estimated using household measures such as cups, spoons, and bowls; molding clay, water, market prices and where available direct weighing of the foods was done. Weights of ingredients consumed were estimated in raw forms and expressed as proportion of the total weights of food prepared. For foods consumed or prepared outside the home, standard recipes were used. The amounts recipe components and of foods and ingredients consumed were converted into nutrients using the Lucille software based on the Kenyan Food Composition Table 2018

Drought tolerant tropical maize (Zea mays L.) developed through genetic transformation with isopentenyltransferase gene

Maize is a staple food crop for millions of Africans. Despite this fact, African farmers have been harvesting average grain yield of not more than 2 t/ha while there is a potential of producing more than 10 t/ha. Drought is one of the major abiotic constraints contributing to this low productivity. Drought diminishes crop productivity mainly by causing premature leaf senescence. The ipt gene codes for isopentenyltransferase (IPT) enzyme which catalyzes the rate limiting step in the biosynthesis of cytokinin and has been shown to enhance tolerance to drought in transgenic crops by delaying drought-induced leaf senescence. This created interest to investigate if ipt gene can be useful in enhancing drought tolerance in locally adapted African tropical maize genotypes. The tropical maize inbred line CML216 was transformed with ipt gene using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation method. Five transgenic lines which were proved to be stably transformed through Southern blot analysis with copy number of 2 to 4 per event were developed. In drought assay carried out in the glass house, transgenic lines expressing the ipt gene showed tolerance to drought as revealed by delayed leaf senescence compared to the wild type plants. Transgenic plants maintained higher relative water content and total chlorophyll during the drought period and produced significantly higher mean grain yield of 44.3 g/plant while the wild type plants produced mean grain yield of 1.43 g/plant. It is proposed that the transgenic lines developed in this study can be further tested for tolerance to drought under contained field trials. Furthermore, transgenic lines developed can be used in breeding programs to improve drought tolerance in other commercial tropical maize genotypes through conventional breeding.Keywords: Cytokinin, delayed leaf senescence, drought inducible, CML216, ipt gen