Changing Perception through a Participatory Approach by Involving Adolescent School Children in Evaluating Smart Food Dishes in School Feeding Programs - Real-Time Experience from Central and Northern Tanzania.

The study aimed to test the prospects for, and acceptance of, pigeonpea and finger millet-based dishes in a school feeding program for 2822 adolescents' in Central Tanzania. The focus was on incorporating nutritious and resilient crops like finger millet and pigeonpea through a participatory approach involving series of theoretical and practical training sessions, for the period of 6 months on the nutritional quality and sensory characteristics of these two unexplored foods in Tanzania. Sharing knowledge on the nutritional value of these crops and involving students in the acceptance study changed their negative perception of finger millet and pigeonpea by 79.5% and 70.3%, respectively. Fifteen months after the study period, schools were still continued feeding the dishes and more than 95% of the students wanted to eat the finger millet and pigeonpea dishes at school. Around 84.2% of the students wanted to include pigeonpea 2-7 times a week and 79.6% of the students wanted to include finger millet on all 7 days in school meal. The study proved that it is possible to change food perceptions and bring about behavior change by sharing knowledge on their benefits and by engaging the consumers through a participatory and culturally appropriate approach.

SSR genetic diversity assessment of popular pigeonpea varieties in Malawi reveals unique fingerprints

Background: Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.) is a drought tolerant legume of the Fabaceae family and the only cultivated species in the genus Cajanus. It is mainly cultivated in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Oceania, Africa and America. In Malawi, it is grown as a source of food and income and for soil improvement in intercropping systems. However, varietal contamination due to natural outcrossing causes significant quality reduction and yield losses. In this study, 48 polymorphic SSR markers were used to assess the diversity among all pigeonpea varieties cultivated in Malawi to determine if a genetic fingerprint could be identified to distinguish the popular varieties. Results: A total of 212 alleles were observed with an average of 5.58 alleles per marker and a maximum of 14 alleles produced by CCttc019 (Marker 40). Polymorphic information content (PIC), ranged from 0.03 to 0.89 with an average of 0.30. A neighbor-joining tree produced 4 clusters. The most commonly cultivated varieties, which include released varieties and cultivated land races, were well-spread across all the clusters observed, indicating that they generally represented the genetic diversity available in Malawi, although substantial variation was evident that can still be exploited through further breeding. Conclusion: Screening of the allelic data associated with the five most popular cultivated varieties, revealed 6 markers - CCB1, CCB7, Ccac035, CCttc003, Ccac026 and CCttc019 - which displayed unique allelic profiles for each of the five varieties. This genetic fingerprint can potentially be applied for seed certification to confirm the genetic purity of seeds that are delivered to Malawi farmers.