Reuters: Taking wheat to its wild side boosts nutrients

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=healthNews&storyid=2006-11-23T193251Z_01_N21431258_RTRUKOC_0_US-SCIENCE-WHEAT.xml

Taking wheat to its wild side boosts nutrients

Thu Nov 23, 2006 2:33 PM ET

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have found a way to boost the protein, zinc and iron content in wheat, an achievement that could help bring more nutritious food to many millions of people worldwide.

A team led by University of California at Davis researcher Jorge Dubcovsky identified a gene in wild wheat that raises the grain's nutritional content. The gene became nonfunctional for unknown reasons during humankind's domestication of wheat.

Writing in the journal Science on Thursday, the researchers said they used conventional breeding methods to bring the gene into cultivated wheat varieties, enhancing the protein, zinc and iron value in the grain. The wild plant involved is known as wild emmer wheat, an ancestor of some cultivated wheat.

Wheat represents one of the major crops feeding people worldwide, providing about 20 percent of all calories consumed. The World Health Organization has said upward of 2 billion people get too little zinc and iron in their diet, and more than 160 million children under age 5 lack adequate protein.

"We really can produce wheat with more protein and more zinc and iron," Dubcovsky said in an interview. "So if that is grown in a developing country or is used as food aid, it will really provide more of those needed things in places where it's necessary."

...

[Jcrowley]

1. Sounds like "golden rice hoax"

redux being pushed by the Gene giants and the agribusiness corporate mouthpiece USDA.

More wrong questions leading to wrong answers PR using the "feeding the world" lie to drum up public sympathy.

[pinto]

2. Sounds like good, basic, and natural, plant genetic research practice.

Kudos to the UC Davis team.

<another snip from the article>

"I don't think a simple step like this will solve hunger in the world. I'm not that naive. But I think it's heading in the right direction," Dubcovsky said.

...

The wheat varieties bred by the scientists are not genetically modified, which could help them become accepted commercially, they said.

"We didn't do it by genetic modification. The normal wheat crosses perfectly well with the wild wheat. So we just crossed it after normal breeding," Dubcovsky said.

Dubcovsky heads a consortium of 20 public wheat-breeding programs called the Wheat Coordinated Agricultural Project.

[bperci108]

3. More proof...

...that plant biodiversity is so very important.

Let's work toward ending the "life patenting" that the industrial ag monster needs to survive (at the price of our ultimate demise...) as soon as possible.

[Lisa]

5. yes! A lot of those original "landrace" type varieties are endangered

Because of habitat loss, and the expansion of the agribusiness corporations (pushing hybrid seeds because they can make more money off them, than if farmers save their own seed the traditional way).

I've been studying Roman agriculture ... old types of wheat WERE more nutritious. A lot of people managed to live on little more than a couple of pounds of bread, and maybe some olive oil and greens each day -- the wheat back then seems to have had more protein and other nutrients, so today's "Wonder" brands are not really comparable.

A couple of thousand years ago, the price of a Roman loaf of bread was a dupondius (1/8 of a silver denarius coin, or maybe about $5-10 per day). Interestingly, this is roughly equivalent to a really good loaf of "artisan" bread today (which may use older, or at least whole, types of grains).

[w4rma]

4. Good news. (nt)