New Institute to Help Farmers Meet Increasing World Challenges
Scientists with the University of Adelaide's Waite Research Institute. (Photo by Randy Larcombe)
The University of Adelaide has established a new research institute to help overcome the major threats facing world agricultural production.
The new Waite Research Institute aims to ensure profitable and productive agriculture in the face of climate change, increased costs of energy, limited natural resources, urbanization and environmental degradation.
“Agriculture must meet the challenges of the future against a background of declining land and water resources and the impacts that climate change will bring,” says the Director of the Waite Research Institute, Professor Roger Leigh.
“The new Waite Research Institute builds on the outstanding research achievements of the University’s Waite Campus, which is internationally recognized for research of the highest quality, focused on innovative solutions for improving agricultural systems.
“The research that the Institute will provide – in partnership with government, industry, and research collaborators – is exactly the kind of innovation needed to help the world’s agriculture and related sectors to overcome the challenges of today and of the future.
“We need to address these issues from paddock to plate. It’s a big challenge for researchers to do this. We’ve already discovered a lot of the easier solutions to the problems faced to date – we now have to be even smarter,” Professor Leigh says. (more…)
Report Finds Bioenergy Production Can Expand Across Africa Without Displacing Food
Dr Rocio Diaz-Chavez, Imperial College London.
Crops can be produced for bioenergy on a significant scale in west, eastern and southern Africa without doing damage to food production or natural habitats, according to a report produced by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Imperial College London, and CAMCO International. The study was released today at the 5th African Agriculture Science Week in Burkina Faso.
“If approached with the proper policies and processes and with the inclusion of all the various stakeholders, bioenergy is not only compatible with food production; it can also greatly benefit agriculture in Africa,” said Dr. Rocio Diaz-Chavez, the report’s lead author and Research Fellow at Imperial College London. “Bioenergy production can bring investments in land, infrastructure, and human resources that could help unlock Africa’s latent potential and positively increase food production.”
The conclusions of the report, Mapping Food and Bioenergy in Africa, were drawn from a review of existing research and case studies of biofuel production and policy in six countries: Senegal, Mali, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, and Mozambique. Among the report’s findings is that there is enough land available to significantly increase the cultivation of crops, such as sugar cane, sorghum, and jatropha for biofuels without diminishing food production. (more…)
New Report Reviews the Role of Food Science and Technology in Meeting the Needs of a Growing World Population
The world’s food system provides food for nearly seven billion people each day. But according to a new report from the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), more advances are critical for an adequate food supply, which must nearly double during the next several decades, for the future world population.
The first-of-its-kind scientific review, to be published in the September 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, takes a historical look at the food system, the many challenges ahead, and the crucial role of food science and technology in meeting the needs of the growing population.
The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) highlighted the report at IFT’s 2010 Annual Meeting and Food Expo in Chicago. IFT produced the report to inform the public about the advances in food science and technology that were necessary to meet the needs of an evolving society, which today has much greater access to an abundant, diverse food supply that is largely safe, flavorful, nutritious, convenient, and less costly than ever before. The report summarizes the historical developments of agriculture and food technology, details various food manufacturing methods, and explains why food is processed. The report also describes and stresses why further advancements in food science and technology are needed—to more equitably meet growing world population food needs with enhanced food security in developing countries and solutions to complex diet-and-health challenges in industrialized countries. (more…)
‘Business As Usual’ Crop Development Won’t Satisfy Future Demand
Amy Betzelberger, a graduate student in the U of I Department of Crop Sciences, discusses with students how wind speed and wind direction apparatus are being used in a CO2 FACE ring to control the carbon dioxide concentration within the ring. The elevated carbon dioxide experiment is being conducted in both corn and soybean at the Urbana SoyFACE facility. (Jennifer Shike, University of Illinois)
Although global grain production must double by 2050 to address rising population and demand, new data from the University of Illinois suggests crop yields will suffer unless new approaches to adapt crop plants to climate change are adopted. Improved agronomic traits responsible for the remarkable increases in yield accomplished during the past 50 years have reached their ceiling for some of the world’s most important crops.
“Global change is happening so quickly that its impact on agriculture is taking the world by surprise,” said Don Ort, U of I professor of crop sciences and USDA/ARS scientist. “Until recently, we haven’t understood the urgency of addressing global change in agriculture.”
The need for new technologies to conduct global change research on crops in an open-field environment is holding the commercial sector back from studying issues such as maximizing the elevated carbon dioxide advantage or studying the effects of ozone pollution on crops. (more…)
Officials Use Online Platform to Protect Food Supply
A farm manager cultivates a soybean field to control weeds. When an emergency jeopardizes the nation’s food supply, public health officials can discuss it on the FoodSHIELD platform. (USDA)
When public health experts trace the origins of illness to a food, government officials rush to protect the public by having the item removed from store shelves. Representatives from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as state officials visit or call thousands of retailers to ensure they are complying with the FDA food product recall. FDA reviews the information from these checks to ensure the recall is completed in an effort to prevent additional cases of food-borne illness. The process of conducting these recall audit checks involves significant communication among federal, state, and local public health officials.
To streamline the process, FDA officials are now working on a pilot program to coordinate food recalls on a secure online platform sponsored by the National Center for Food Protection and Defense (NCFPD), a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Center of Excellence. This online platform, called FoodSHIELD, provides a place for federal, state, and local public health officials, state laboratory personnel, and regulatory authorities to collaborate on drafting preparedness and response plans. During food system emergencies, this specifically includes the ability to quickly network and communicate with each other. (more…)
Food Security in the Face of Climate Change
Climate and agricultural researchers, policy makers, donors, and development agencies, both governmental and non-governmental, from all over the world have just met in Nairobi for a one-day conference, ‘Building Food Security in the Face of Climate Change’. The conference was an important part of a big international Mega Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). The programme’s secretariat is based at LIFE- Faculty of Life Sciences at University of Copenhagen.
Climate change represents an immediate and unprecedented threat to the food security of hundreds of millions of people who depend on small-scale agriculture and natural resource management for their livelihoods. At the same time, agriculture and forestry also contributes to climate change, by intensifying greenhouse gas emissions and altering the land surface.
To facilitate new research on the interactions between climate change, agriculture, natural resource management and food security, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) have initiated a Mega Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). CCAFS will create unique possibilities in the search for solutions to climate change and food security problems. (more…)
Low-Maintenance Strawberry May Be Good Crop to Grow in Space
by Brian Wallheimer
Purdue's Gioia Massa, from left, Cary Mitchell and Judith Santini found that a particular type of strawberry seems to meet NASA guidelines for foods that could be grown in space. (Purdue Agricultural Communication photo/Tom Campbell)
Astronauts could one day tend their own crops on long space missions, and Purdue University researchers have found a healthy candidate to help satisfy a sweet tooth - a strawberry that requires little maintenance and energy.
Cary Mitchell, professor of horticulture, and Gioia Massa, a horticulture research scientist, tested several cultivars of strawberries and found one variety, named Seascape, which seems to meet the requirements for becoming a space crop.
“What we’re trying to do is grow our plants and minimize all of our inputs,” Massa said. “We can grow these strawberries under shorter photoperiods than we thought and still get pretty much the same amount of yield.”
Seascape strawberries are day-neutral, meaning they aren’t sensitive to the length of available daylight to flower. Seascape was tested with as much as 20 hours of daylight and as little as 10 hours. While there were fewer strawberries with less light, each berry was larger and the volume of the yields was statistically the same. (more…)
Climate Change and the Right to Food
The Right To Food — December 10, 2009 — To read the report “Climate Change and the Right to Food”, please visit the website of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, www.srfood.org.
The United Nations held a World Summit on Food Security in November. But the three-day meeting in Rome produced only limited measures to fight rising hunger. The U.N. World Food Program says more than a billion people — one in six worldwide — do not get enough food to be healthy.
The troubled world economy is not the only cause of recent increases. The poorest countries continue to face high food prices, which have fallen elsewhere. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says more than thirty nations continue to need emergency food assistance.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the food crisis has forced millions of families into poverty and hunger. He said six million children die of hunger every year. And he warned that food security is closely connected to the issue of climate change.
He said: “At a time when the global population is growing, our global climate is changing. By twenty fifty we will need to grow seventy percent more food. Yet weather is becoming more extreme and unpredictable.”
The delegates in Rome promised to continue efforts to reduce by half the number of hungry people by two thousand fifteen. But critics pointed out that world leaders made a similar promise more than ten years ago.
Several countries promised to increase aid for agriculture, to help developing nations become more independent. Still, critics deplored a lack of greater action. Leaders from more than sixty countries were in Rome. But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the only leader from a major industrial nation in the Group of Eight. An official from Kenya said it showed a lack of unity in the fight against hunger.
The Food and Agriculture Organization says more than forty billion dollars a year needs to be invested in agriculture to defeat world hunger. The growing problem has affected developing countries, but also industrialized nations.
The government estimates that forty-nine million people in the United States were “food insecure” in two thousand eight. That means their households, at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all members because of a lack of resources. Almost fifteen percent of all households were in that situation. And the Agriculture Department says the numbers may be even higher in two thousand nine.
November 10, 2009 — Message of the Special Rapporteur on the Right of Food in advance of the World Summit on Food Security, 6th November 2009.
Educating Food Scientists for Sustainable Food Production
Streetlife in Guangzhou, SE China. The School of Business at Sun Yat-sen University is located in Guangzhou and will host ESR's from LEANGREENFOOD during the PhD course Global food production in a changing world. (Photo ©LHRasmussen)
A new international network will train food scientists to take due account of social and environmental aspects when developing new processes for food production.
The production of food must be sustainable and socially responsible. This is the thought behind a new international EU financed network called LeanGreenFood.
LeanGreenFood, which is based at Faculty of Life Sciences at University of Copenhagen, is a network of scientists from six countries. The scientists will help educate young food scientists to rethink current established food processes and to utilize new technology to ensure socially and environmentally responsible management of natural resources in a global change context.
Using our natural resources in a more sustainable way in food production will help reduce waste, reduce negative environmental impact and met the growing challenge of competing demands on biomass resources.
In the education of the new food scientists, the focus will be on improved yields of biomasses, decreased water and energy consumption and lower use of chemicals. (more…)
Researchers Find Long Awaited Key to Creating Drought Resistant Crops
Image courtesy of Nature.
Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) researchers have determined precisely how the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) works at the molecular level to help plants respond to environmental stresses such as drought and cold. Their findings, published in the journal Nature, could help engineer crops that thrive in harsh environments around the world and combat global food shortages.
VARI scientists have determined the structure of the receptors that plants use to sense ABA, a hormone that keeps seeds dormant and keeps buds from sprouting until the climate is right. Locating these receptors and understanding how they work is a key finding — one that has eluded researchers for nearly a half-century. This discovery is crucial to understanding how plants respond when they are under stress from extreme temperatures or lack of water.
“The plant community has been waiting for this discovery for many years,” said VARI Research Scientist Karsten Melcher, Ph.D., one of the lead authors of the study. “It could have major effects on nutrition and crop yields, especially as fresh water sources become scarcer.”
“The work by Dr. Xu and his colleagues, published in one of the most prestigious science journals in the world, will undoubtedly become known as an historic defining moment in our understanding of the mode of action of the important plant hormone abscisic acid,” said Grand Valley State University Plant Development Biologist Sheila A. Blackman, Ph.D. “They show how the signaling molecule and its receptor initiate a cascade of events that ultimately affects the expression of genes that are critical for a plant’s survival under harsh conditions. This work has enormous implications for global food supply.” (more…)
“Sustainable” Food Production Isn’t Always So Sustainable
Dried Salmon in Murakami city, Niigata, Japan.
Popular thinking about how to improve food systems for the better often misses the point, according to the results of a three-year global study of salmon production systems. Rather than pushing for organic or land-based production, or worrying about simple metrics such as “food miles,” the study finds that the world can achieve greater environmental benefits by focusing on improvements to key aspects of production and distribution.
For example, what farmed salmon are fed, how wild salmon are caught and the choice to buy frozen over fresh matters more than organic vs. conventional or wild vs. farmed when considering global scale environmental impacts such as climate change, ozone depletion, loss of critical habitat, and ocean acidification.
The study is the world’s first comprehensive global-scale look at a major food commodity from a full life cycle perspective, and the researchers examined everything — how salmon are caught in the wild, what they’re fed when farmed, how they’re transported, how they’re consumed, and how all of this contributes to both environmental degradation and socioeconomic benefits. (more…)
Failure to Focus on Farming Will Undermine Global Climate Agreement and Increase Hunger
Alarmed by a substantial oversight in the global climate talks leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month, more than 60 of the world’s most prominent agricultural scientists and leaders underscored how the almost total absence of agriculture in the agreement could lead to widespread famine and food shortages in the years ahead.
Signatories of a statement issued by leading thinkers in development include five World Food Prize laureates, former heads of development agencies, former Ministers of Agriculture, and heads of the world’s leading alliance of agricultural research centers.
“No credible or effective agreement to address the challenges of climate change can ignore agriculture and the need for crop adaptation to ensure the world’s future food supplies,” according to the statement. (more…)
Revolutionary Technology for Plant Breeding and Increased Sustainability
One of the greatest challenges of this century is making the food supply secure in a world that finds itself under increasing pressure from the growing population, changing food patterns and changing climate. The use of new molecular technologies for plant breeding is essential to increase both yield and stress tolerance in our crops.
The new technology is based on insights in epigenetics. The ‘epigenetic’ component is like an extra dimension on top of the genetic code of a living organism that is affected by the environment and in turn changes the activity of the genes. The efficiency of energy production is strongly related to its epigenetic code. By using a ’smart’ selection adapting the epigenetic code, Bayer BioScience’s hope is to use the technology in breeding and to develop improved yield varieties. (more…)
Carrots in Space: Fresh Food for Astronauts on Its Way
Dinnertime on board the International Space Station. (NASA)
New research indicates that astronauts will soon have their own gardens aboard the International Space Station with the ability to grow vitamin A-rich carrots in space, according to a study in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists.
Researchers from Tuskegee University in Alabama conducted a study targeted at finding a way to incorporate natural and fresh antioxidants into the diets of astronauts while traveling in space. They grew 18 different varieties of hydroponic carrots using two different methods of nutrient delivery. Growing carrots hydroponically cultivates the vegetables by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil.
Among all foods, carrots have the highest carotenoid content. They also contain a natural pigment known for provitamin A and have been associated with protection against cancer, cardiovascular diseases, cataracts and macular degeneration as well as enhancing the immune response. Astronauts can be exposed to elevated levels of radiation, which might put them at risk for some types of cancer. Researchers believe that the addition of unprocessed carrots to their diets may help reduce the negative effects of radiation and cancer development. (more…)
Experts Gather at McGill University to Address Food Security Challenges
Photo by by TRO Kilinochchi Staff of IDPs in the Vanni. TRO is providing humanitarian assistance to the 200,000 internally displaced persons. The Govt. of Sri Lanka is restricting international humanitarian assistance and access to these IDPs, resticting food, medicine, fuel, building materials for temporary shelters and other essential items.
Leading experts from international agencies, NGOs, the food industry and academia will meet at McGill University, in Montreal, Oct. 5-7 to discuss the increasing challenges relating to food security in the world. The 2nd McGill Conference on Global Food Security will focus on the effects of the global economic crisis on food supply and production.
In the past year, approximately 100 million people have been added to the ranks of the roughly 1 billion people worldwide considered to be undernourished, according to a recent report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization.
The discussions at the McGill conference will address topics such as food security in a challenging economic environment, the effects of markets and trade, climate change and the production of biofuels, access to farm credit, the investments needed for agricultural development as well as the response of international agencies to challenges of food security. (more…)
Keeping Nutrients in Astronauts’ Food Vital During Long Space Flights
Eating a meal aboard the International Space Station.
A new study in the Journal of Food Science explores the impact of space flight on the nutritional value of foods. Maintaining the health of the crew aboard a spacecraft is a critical issue especially during extended trips. Because foods may lose their nutrients during extended space missions, food scientists are analyzing ways to increase shelf life of nutrients in the food.
Researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Johnson Space Center in Houston evaluated the stability of fatty acids, amino acids and vitamins in supplements and in foods from a long-duration spaceflight on the International Space Station (ISS). Tested items included tortillas, almonds and dried apricots, commercially-packed salmon, freeze-dried broccoli au gratin, multivitamins, and vitamin D supplements. (more…)
Potato Blight Discovery Looks Promising for Food Security
Blighted potatoes.
Costs associated with crop losses and chemical control of blight exceed £3billion globally each year.
Over 160 years since potato blight wreaked havoc in Ireland and other northern European countries, scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) finally have the blight-causing pathogen in their sights and are working to accelerate breeding of more durable, disease resistant potato varieties.
Using pathogen genomics, Professor Paul Birch from the Division of Plant Sciences, University of Dundee (at Scottish Crop Research Institute - SCRI), alongside researchers from Warwick HRI and the University of Aberdeen, is looking at how the most significant potato pathogen, Phytopthora infestans causes disease and identifying essential pathogen virulence genes that may be durable targets for host resistance proteins. (more…)
Agricultural Research Key to Food Security
Professor Adel el-Beltagy, chair of the Global Form on Agricultural Research (GFAR)
Boosting agricultural research in the developing world is the key to ensuring food security for the world’s poorest, says Adel el-Beltagy, Chair of the Global Form on Agricultural Research (GFAR), writing in the latest issue of the TWAS Newsletter, published last week.
With nearly a billion people suffering from chronic hunger, global food security remains a major concern, despite being a key goal of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Extreme weather events due to climate change and the recent trend to convert croplands to biofuels both threaten to put even more people at risk. (more…)
Without Significant Change, Global Food Production Headed for a Crisis
With the caloric needs of the planet expected to soar by 50 percent in the next 40 years, planning and investment in global agriculture will become critically important, according a new report released today (June 25).
The report, produced by Deutsche Bank, one of the world’s leading global investment banks, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, provides a framework for investing in sustainable agriculture against a backdrop of massive population growth and escalating demands for food, fiber and fuel. (more…)
Discovery Could Help Feed Millions
Loretta Mayer is working on research to speed up fertility in rats to decrease the number of rodents munching on crops intended for humans. (Photo by Jerry Foreman, Northern Arizona University)
When scientist Loretta Mayer set out to alleviate diseases associated with menopause, she didn’t realize her work could lead to addressing world hunger and feeding hundreds of millions of people.
The Northern Arizona University researcher and her colleagues at NAU and the University of Arizona identified a nontoxic chemical technology that when applied to rodents, caused infertility in rats, which feast on crops intended for human consumption.
“This environmentally neutral approach, that has never been available before, will reduce the damage rice-field rats cause in countries that depend on rice as a main food supply,” Mayer said.
Rodents consume or damage up to 50 percent of pre-harvest rice crops. Due to the large-scale cultivation of rice worldwide, if rice production were to increase by 10 percent, “this would feed about 380 million people a year,” Mayer said. “We can easily increase rice production by 10 percent by reducing rodent fertility in half.” (more…)
Better Water Use Could Reduce Future Food Crises
If the overall water resources in river basins were acknowledged and managed better, future food crises could be significantly reduced, say researchers from Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, Stockholm Environment Institute and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The challenge of meeting future water needs under the impacts of climate change and rapidly growing human demands for water may be less bleak than widely portrayed. An analysis by a team of Swedish and German scientists quantifies for the first time the opportunities of effectively using both “green” and “blue” water to adapt to climate change and to feed the future world population. The study was recently published in the journal Water Resources Research. (more…)
Landmark Study Documents Increased Global Mercury Emissions
USGS scientist Dr. David P. Krabbenhoft sampling Ear Spring, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, for dissolved mercury species. Old Faithful is erupting in the background
A new landmark study published Friday documents for the first time the process in which increased mercury emissions from human sources across the globe, and in particular from Asia, make their way into the North Pacific Ocean and as a result contaminate tuna and other seafood. Because much of the mercury that enters the North Pacific comes from the atmosphere, scientists have predicted an additional 50 percent increase in mercury in the Pacific by 2050 if mercury emission rates continue as projected.
“This unprecedented USGS study is critically important to the health and safety of the American people and our wildlife because it helps us understand the relationship between atmospheric emissions of mercury and concentrations of mercury in marine fish,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. “We have always known that mercury can pose a risk, now we need to reduce the mercury emissions so that we can reduce the ocean mercury levels.” (more…)
Eat Less and Stay Slim to Combat Global Warming
Food production is a major contributor to global warming.A lean population, such as that seen in Vietnam, will consume almost 20% less food and produce fewer greenhouse gases.
Maintaining a healthy body weight is good news for the environment, according to a study which appears today in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Because food production is a major contributor to global warming, a lean population, such as that seen in Vietnam, will consume almost 20% less food and produce fewer greenhouse gases than a population in which 40% of people are obese (close to that seen in the USA today), according to Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Department of Epidemiology and Population Health.
Transport-related emissions will also be lower because it takes less energy to transport slim people. The researchers estimate that a lean population of 1 billion people would emit 1.0 GT (1,000 million tonnes) less carbon dioxide equivalents per year compared with a fat one. (more…)
Scientists to Texas Board of Education: Teach Evolution Right!
Over 50 scientific societies representing hundreds of thousands of American scientists today publicly urged the Texas Board of Education to support accurate science education. The board–dominated by creationists–has been embroiled in a debate over changes to the Texas science standards that could compromise the teaching of evolution.
“Evolution is the foundation of modern biology, and is crucial in fields as diverse as agriculture, computer science, engineering, geology, and medicine,” says the signed statement. “We oppose any efforts to undermine the teaching of biological evolution…whether by misrepresenting those subjects or by inaccurately describing them as controversial and in need of special scrutiny.” (more…)
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