The Role of Moringa oleifera to Attain the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 2 Worldwide

“In Sustainable Development Goal 2, the UN has sought to abolish both hunger and malnutrition by ensuring the continuous supply of sufficient, wholesome food enabling people to shift towards adopting healthier, well-balanced diets.

“In addition, it calls for the establishment of new ways to reduce current food wastage, farming in a manner which conserves biodiversity and environmental services, increases enterprise profitability through new business models and empowers women.

“Finally, it seeks for governments to create coherent policies at all levels allowing these positive changes in farming systems to take place in every country.

“Moringa will play a key role in helping these desirable visions be attained. Moringa is a reasonably unique species as its fresh leaves and pods are both edible and extremely micronutrient dense.”  (READ ON…)

CONCLUSIONS:

“Moringa has substantial potential to become a globally important vegetable not only in terms of its value as a key component of good nutrition for humans and livestock in well balanced diets in the developing world but also in terms of likely profitability, highly diverse markets and its possibilities associated with its pharmaceutical value in improved human health.

“There has been insufficient investment to date in ensuring that its agronomy is well understood and its relative resistance to pests and diseases compared to many other vegetables in open field cultivation is a major advantage which has certainly not yet been fully exploited. More rigorous research is needed on the economics of production,
postharvest and marketing as well as a better understanding of how to make its significant nutrient density as bioavailable as possible in human and livestock diets. Given such investment, the likelihood of moringa contributing substantially to the rapid attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 2 is very sure.”