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…)
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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…)
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“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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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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Plasma Field Used to Keep Food Bacteria Free
Kevin Keener’s in-bag ozonation method creates ozone in packaged foods by using high-voltage coils to charge the gas inside sealed food packages, effectively killing any bacteria inside them. (Purdue Agricultural Communication photo/Tom Campbell)
by Brian Wallheimer
A Purdue University researcher has found a way to eliminate bacteria in packaged foods such as spinach and tomatoes, a process that could eliminate worries concerning some food-borne illnesses.
Kevin Keener designed a device consisting of a set of high-voltage coils attached to a small transformer that generates a room-temperature plasma field inside a package, ionizing the gases inside. The process kills harmful bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella, which have caused major public health concerns.
Keener’s process is outlined in an article released online early in LWT - Food Science and Technology, a journal for the Swiss Society of Food and Technology and the International Union of Food Science and Technology. (more…)
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With Global Warming, Plants Move to Higher Elevations
by Megan Levardo
Dave Bertelsen hikes Finger Rock trail in the Santa Catalina Mountains. Tucson, Ariz., can be seen in the valley below. Bertelsen has been hiking the trail and recording the locations of plants in bloom for more than 25 years. Credit: Ben Wilder.
Plants are flowering at higher elevations in Arizona’s Santa Catalina Mountains as summer temperatures rise, according to new research from The University of Arizona in Tucson.
The flowering ranges of 93 plant species moved uphill during 1994 to 2003, compared to where the same species flowered the previous ten years. During the 20-year study period, summer temperatures in the region increased about 1.8 degree Fahrenheit (1 degree C.).
“For years, probably decades now, scientists have been trying to understand how species are going to respond to the anticipated global changes and global warming,” said Theresa Crimmins, research specialist for the UA’s Arid Lands Information Center and the network liaison for the National Phenology Network. (more…)
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Earth’s Climate Troubles - More On Crop Burial at Sea
Making bales with 30 percent of global crop residues – the stalks and such left after harvesting – and then sinking the bales into the deep ocean could reduce the build up of global carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by up to 15 percent a year, according to just published calculations.
That is a significant amount of carbon, the process can be accomplished with existing technology and it can be done year after year, according to Stuart Strand, a University of Washington research professor. Further the technique would sequester – or lock up – the carbon in seafloor sediments and deep ocean waters for thousands of years, he says. (more…)
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Biofuels Ignite Food Crisis Debate
Taking up valuable land and growing edible crops for biofuels poses a dilemma: Is it ethical to produce inefficient renewable energies at the expense of an already malnourished population? David Pimentel and his colleagues from Cornell University in New York highlight the problems linked to converting a variety of crops into biofuels. Not only are these renewable energies inefficient, they are also economically and environmentally costly and nowhere near as productive as projected. Their findings1 are published online this week in Springer’s journal Human Ecology. (more…)
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Half of World’s Population Could Face Climate-Induced Food Crisis by 2100
Rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, will leave half the world’s population facing serious food shortages, new research shows.
To compound matters, the population of this equatorial belt – from about 35 degrees north latitude to 35 degrees south latitude – is among the poorest on Earth and is growing faster than anywhere else.
“The stresses on global food production from temperature alone are going to be huge, and that doesn’t take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures,” said David Battisti, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor. (more…)
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