Going Past Food Quantity to Food Quality

The subject of food and nutrition security is a complex one. According to FAO (2000), Food Security is achieved when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. This heavily loaded definition presupposes that such food is adequate in terms of both quantity and quality. Four important elements which must exist for food security to prevail are availability, access, use/utilization and stability/sustainability.
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Yuppie Chow?

Organic food, taken over by big business, has become an assembly-line product marketed as yuppie chow for the privileged, a Canadian researcher says.
Multinational food-processing giants such as ConAgra Foods, Cargill, Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo now own most organic brands, Irena Knezevic of Toronto's York University said in advance of a presentation she will make to social science scholars.
We expect any day now that our consumers will ask for organic Twinkies -- individually wrapped, of course, she added.
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A Good Thing?

In developed nations, factory farms have expanded rapidly since their origins in the early 20th Century. So much so that in the U.S. only 3% of farms now generate an astonishing 62% of that nation’s agricultural output! In fact, they have so consolidated the agricultural sector that only five food retailers (Kroger, Albertson’s, Wal-Mart, Safeway and Ahold USA) account for a whopping 42% of all retail food sales in the U.S. And because they are able to produce food cheaper, factory farms are forcing several smaller farms out of business (according to Natural Agricultural Statistics Service, 330 farmers leave their land every week). Typically, they control all aspects of production, including animal rearing, feeding, slaughtering, packaging and distribution—a process known as “vertical integration.”
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Starvation In Malawi

The imposed compulsion to spend the attractive food aid packages on American produce is ensuring handsome rewards for farmers in Iowa and Wyoming with an additional boon for American shipping: it has begun to spell doom for indigenous African farmers. In addition there is evidence that some of the ‘in kind’ donation being sent to many African countries, is being delivered for sale at market prices to US based NGOs like Save the Children and World Vision, to generate cash to support the work of the organizations themselves.
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Darfur, Saving Itself

The people of Ain Siro are among the 1 million who are "out of reach" of aid agencies -- people who we automatically assume must be facing starvation because we are not feeding them. But in North Darfur, at least, there is no starvation. Much is needed -- medicines, schoolbooks, decent wells -- but people are cultivating millet, rebuilding their herds after the devastation of 2003-04 and, when rains permit, gathering wild grasses and fruits to supplement their diet.
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Turning Farming Sideways

The vertical farm’s power would come from solar panels and wind spires on the roof. Its circular (cylindrical) design uses the space most efficiently, allowing maximum light into the center. The city’s wastewater would be filtered and sterilized, then used for irrigation, and rainwater would also be collected and used to clean pollutants off the building’s outside surface. An electronic crop picker would monitor fruits and vegetables, using color detection to check for ripeness, and an electronic feeder would direct programmed amounts of water and light to crops according to a set schedule. Crops could grow both up (like corn) and down (like hanging tomatoes), maximizing space.
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Desert-to-Food Programme. . . Another Revolution in Agriculture

In a unique collaboration between Nigerian and Israeli companies as well as governments of both countries, the desert region of the north would be transformed into habitable and cultivable farm lands through afforestation. The idea is to reclaim the desert for productive use and assist to create abundant food production through gradual planned technological advancement.
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Bamboo flowering threatens famine in Assam's North Cachar

The cricket ball-sized flowers have sprouted along entire lengths of bamboo stalks to produce a huge volume of seeds that attract thousands of rats, which feed on them as they are very nutritious, say agriculture and forest experts.
And the flowers are threatening to create a famine, a phenomenon the district has witnessed every 50 years due to the cyclical flowering. Previous recorded famines were in 1862, 1911 and 1958-62.
Agricultural experts said the marauding army of rats, which multiply quickly, eventually turn to paddy, potato plants and grain in granaries, leading to famine or 'mautam', the name given to the phenomenon in Mizoram which literally means "death of bamboo".AEVIA Reveals the Source

Farm group warns of looming global food crisis

"We've got a static land base. We're trying to feed more people every year. We're adding the equivalent of a North American population every six years."
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Israeli researcher discovers new fungus that could provide low-cost alternative fuel

Dr. Amir Sharon of Tel Aviv University has discovered a transgenic fungus strong enough to convert even the most resilient plant parts into bioethanol, a chemical used for biofuel. Strengthened with an anti-death gene, this fungus is resistant to harsh conditions such as heat and toxic substances - both of which are released while converting plant biomass into ethanol. As a result, the production of ethanol using this transgenic fungus could be much more efficient than with conventional fungi.
Most bioethanol produced in the US is derived from the edible parts of corn crops. The stalks and leaves, comprised of cellulose and known to scientists as cellulosic biomass, are much harder to convert into ethanol. The cellulose is bound with a chemical called lignin, which causes the plant material to be rigid and difficult to break down.
As a result, some grain crops that could be used for food production are being used for fuel production instead. The prevailing criticism is that there is not enough farmland to produce crops for biofuel and still maintain an adequate supply of food. Sharon's new fungus, with its capability to convert inedible plant cellulose into ethanol, could have a significant impact on ethanol production.
The unusual hardiness of the fungus may also be important for the food and drug industries, which rely on the process of fermentation. More than 20 drugs, including penicillin, require fungi in the manufacturing process. Sharon says, "Our fungus can grow for much longer in the fermenter - twice as long or more. This can allow for the production of many more fermentation units." Doubling the efficiency of food and drug manufacture could mean significant cost savings for these industries.
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Africa's booming food exports

Africans feeding Americans - it sounds like one whopper of a fish tale. Africa remains a continent of episodic starvation and chronic food shortages; tens of millions of sub-Saharan Africans are unable to reliably and consistently feed themselves. But these imbalances coexist with pockets of increasingly vibrant commercial farming throughout much of the continent.
Uganda is ground zero for a startling transformation of African agribusiness that's spawning scores of entrepreneurial opportunities. The country boasts two growing seasons, ample rain, rich volcanic soils, and millions of small farmers eager to expand production of cash crops. Output of everything from fish to rice, vanilla to sunflower seeds, roses to potatoes is soaring. Overall, Ugandan farm output increased nearly 50 percent during the past decade.
Investors and agriculture experts from the world over are flocking to Uganda, seeking ways to ride the emerging boom in African agribusiness. Israelis are building greenhouses and setting up the latest in hydroponic irrigation systems. Indians are growing rice and sunflower seeds. South Africans and Americans have invested in cotton gins. Europeans have opened fish-processing plants. Chinese traders are buying up specialty woods, leather hides, and fish innards - a delicacy not relished by most Westerners but big in Asia.
Scouring Uganda for other food sources, Chinese officials are talking about buying a million tons of soybeans a year from Uganda and an equally gargantuan amount of cassava, a tuber the Chinese fry up and gobble the way Westerners devour french fries.
The boom is also fueled by Europe's emerging taste for year-round and exotic fresh foods and by increases in the wholesale prices of specialty items that make it economical to fly certain goods halfway around the world on commercial airlines so American consumers can enjoy Africa's bounty just days after harvest.
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Diminishing Land, Water Resources Pose Threat To Rice Production

Diminishing land and water resources due to increasing pressure from industrialization and urbanization pose real threats to the global rice production and its future, Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said today. He said other factors like climate change and uncertainties over policy and trade practices had also greatly influenced the world's rice situation.
Addressing the Thailand Rice Convention here, Surayud said the growth of world population could not be under-estimate as well, citing the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) projections that the population will grow to an estimated 8.3 billion in the next 30 years. "FAO further projected that unless global food production increases by 60 per cent, we would not be able to close the nutrition gaps, cope with the population growth and accommodate changes in diets," he said.
To face the challenges, Thailand, the world's biggest rice exporter, would strive for greater efficiency and productivity by using new technologies and modern farming techniques, he said.
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Feeding the world's hungry: the World Food Programme

In 1996 world leaders gathered at the World Food Summit in Rome pledged to halve the number of hungry people in the world by 2015. This commitment was reiterated in 2000 as part of the United Nations (UN) development goals. In the meantime millions of tonnes of food and other resources have been poured into fighting hunger, and yet the number of hungry people is on the rise: from 800 million out of a total population of 5.8 billion in 1996 to 854 million against a population of 6.5 billion ten years later.
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BRETHREN GIVE $50,000 TO AGRICULTURE IN NORTH KOREA

Recent grants from two Church of the Brethren funds--the Global Food Crisis Fund and the Emergency Disaster Fund--include $50,000 to support agriculture in North Korea, which continues to experience periodic famine. "The Church of the Brethren's reaching out to North Koreans goes beyond the matter of food security," said Howard Royer, manager of the Global Food Crisis Fund. "It is a testament to risk-taking, bridge- building, and reconciliation in witness to the compassion and love of Jesus Christ for all peoples, and especially for the impoverished and estranged."
The Global Food Crisis Fund allocation for the Sustainable Agriculture and Community Development Program in North Korea represents the fourth year of supporting Agglobe International with the endeavor. Funds will help purchase seed, plastic sheeting, and fertilizer for farms in the program. The alleviation of periodic famine in North Korea remains a compelling factor, said the grant request.
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Indian farmers braced for rat plague

Nearly 500,000 Indian farmers are facing the prospect of famine as a plague of rats that strikes once every 50 years threatens to destroy their crops, rice paddies and village granaries. Efforts to control the rodent plague in the north east Indian state of Mizoram have led the local government to offer a reward of one rupee (1.2 pence) for every rat tail delivered to the authorities. More than 400,000 rats have already been killed, creating piles of tails, which have to be counted by officials before reward money can be disbursed to the catchers.
The rat plague occurs once every 50 years in Mizoram - a tiny state of 900,000 people squeezed between India's borders with Bangladesh and Burma. It is linked to the flowering of a rare species of bamboo, the Mautam or melocanna baccifera. It flowers all together, dropping millions of protein-rich seeds that are devoured by the rats, causing a population explosion. When the seed supply is exhausted, the rats move to crops and granaries.
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More Crops per Drop

To measure a farmer’s ability to produce “more crop per drop”, agricultural scientists now use the term “water productivity”. Farm water productivity can be as high as 20kg/cubic metre water with cereals, or about 10kg/cubic metre with oilseeds and legumes, but such high efficiencies are obtained only in the best managed crops. Almost any factor that can influence crop yield or vigour will influence water efficiency.
Over the coming decades, rises in global demand for food, fibre, feed and fuel are predicted to cause large increases in the amount of water used by agriculture. Currently, agriculture world-wide uses 6,800 cubic kilometre of water annually (km3/y), but by 2050 global water use in farming will need to rise to dramatically to 12,600km3/y unless substantial improvements occur in the water-use efficiency of farming.
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Potato as staple food in Bangladesh

The country is almost self-sufficient now in rice production because of the modernisation of the production system and the use of high yielding variety of seeds as well as chemical fertiliser. For Bangladesh this is all the more important because of the size of population and its rate of growth. During the last four decades wheat and many types of food prepared out of it have beocme popular in the country. There is now a wide scope to use potato as another staple food item. Potato is very wholesome, rich carbohydrate, fat and protein.
Bangladeshis use potato mainly as a vegetable to prepare curry. The country now produces enough potatoes and its price is also affordable to average people. The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) has disclosed that it has targetted to produce 39 lakh tons of potato only in northern districts of the country. Potato is better produced in some central districts of the country including those of greater Dhaka and some parts of greater Comilla.
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The New Cooperative Movement In Venezuela’s Bolivarian Process

The cooperative production model has increasingly come to define the development strategies of the “Bolivarian Revolution.” In its August 2005 report, SUNACOOP registered a total of 83,769 cooperatives, with more than 40,000 cooperatives created in 2004 and almost 30,000 more cooperatives formed in the first eight months of 2005. The total number of associates in October 2004 was 945,517, up from 215,000 in 1998.
This proliferation originates in the recognition of cooperatives throughout the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution as key economic actors within the nation’s social economy, portrayed as tools for economic inclusion, participation (article 70), and state decentralization (article 184). More significantly, the state is expected to “promote and protect” cooperatives (articles 118 and 308). It wasn’t until the Ley Especial de Asociaciones Cooperativas (Special Law of Cooperative Associations) was published in September 2001 that numbers started growing with almost 1,000 cooperatives in 2001, more than 2,000 the following year, and more than 8,000 in 2003.
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A Breakthrough in Hydroponics

An Indian hobbyist has created a purely organic nutrient mixture for growing plants in water.
Although it is still an evolving science, hydroponic agriculture (growing plants in water solution rather than soil) is spreading fast the world over.
The nutritional requirement of the plants in this system of soilless farming is met by the nutrient mixtures, called hydroponics fertiliser mixtures, added to the water in which the plant roots are kept submerged. These mixtures are made of chemical plant nutrients.
A breakthrough has now been achieved by an Indian hydroponics hobbyist in creating a purely organic nutrient mixture for growing plants in water.
This wholly chemical-free plant growth solution has been tested successfully for growing several plants, including common vegetables like tomato and arbi and some high value medicinal plants like Brahmi, Arjun and Cineraria.
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Mushrooms Give Hope to Henties

A Ground-breaking ceremony marked the beginning of a mushroom production initiative in Henties Bay, which is said to have a huge potential for lifting the coastal town and the entire Erongo Region out of poverty, providing employment and ensuring food security. Situated on a plot of land right next to the Tulongeni Garden project, the mushroom production project of the University of Namibia is geared towards ensuring sustainable food production for the poor communities of Henties Bay.
The construction of the new mushroom house that will mainly be producing oyster mushrooms further paves the way for the commercialisation of this type of mushroom farming at the town, which is expected to be further expanded to nearby towns of Arandis, Swakopmund and Usakos.
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Organic farms 'best for wildlife'

Organic farms are better for wildlife than those run conventionally, according to a study covering 180 farms from Cornwall to Cumbria.
The organic farms were found to contain 85% more plant species, 33% more bats, 17% more spiders and 5% more birds.
Scientists - from Oxford University, the British Trust for Ornithology, and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology - spent five years on the research.
Funded by the government, it was the largest ever survey of organic farming.
"The exclusion of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers from organic is a fundamental difference between systems," the study says.
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Increasing Crop Yields

The key question, at least in the near term, is to determine whether increased vitamin C and photosynthesis will result in greater crop yields.
The harmful effects of smog on people and animals—the stinging eyes and decreased lung capacity—are the stuff of well-researched fact. Now, the body of knowledge about air pollution’s effects on plants has grown with University of California, Riverside Biochemistry Professor Daniel Gallie’s discovery of the importance of vitamin C in helping plants defend themselves against the ravages of ozone—smog’s particularly nasty component.
By manipulating dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR), a naturally occurring enzyme that recycles vitamin C, to increase the level of the vitamin in leaves, Gallie has been able to reduce the harmful effects of ozone on plants, apparent as brown spots, stunted size, and lowered crop yields. He and Assistant Research Biochemist Dr. Zhong Chen published their findings in a recent paper titled “Increasing Tolerance to Ozone by Elevating Foliar Ascorbic Acid Confers Greater Protection against Ozone than Increasing Avoidance”, in the journal Plant Physiology.
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Tree Crops

A tremendous knowledge of tree crops has been amassed by many at great cost in time and energy . . . but is virtually unknown or unaccepted by contemporary farmers.
There is no better example of this unfortunate situation than exists in a review of the life work of J. Russell Smith, tree-man par excellence. Smith launched his study of commercially useless trees in 1910, with a worldwide quest for new varieties. In 1929 he published TREE CROPS—A PERMANENT AGRICULTURE. His valuable tree discoveries were then intensified with more worldwide travel followed by a revised edition of his book in 1954.
As a loyal tree-man, Smith (who, incidentally was professor of economic geography at Columbia University) spoke vehemently against annual row crops. Crops that must build themselves from scratch for each harvest are victims of the climatic uncertainty of short seasons. Tree crops, on the other hand, are not affected by drought to the same degree . . . deep roots enable a tree to accumulate and store moisture.
Smith was repulsed by the fact that four-fifths of everything raised by the American farmer goes to feed animals. He made a good case for a tree crop diet instead, realizing that meat contains 800 calories as compared to nuts which contain 3,200 calories. If animals are to be raised, Smith maintained that they should be allowed to harvest their own crops. This "hogging down" principle is nowadays a major agricultural innovation . . . as when hogs are permitted to harvest corn, soybeans, peanuts, etc. Smith maintained that tree crops can also be harvested directly by animals . . . mulberry, persimmon, oak, chestnut, honey locust, and carob are all excellent stock-food trees.
Andrew Jackson Downing continues to be the tree-crop giant of them all. One of his major works, FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES OF AMERICA, published in 1845, remains today an essential tree crop reference. Resulting from the publication of a number of his important books, Downing's influence on American fruit tree culture is apparent to this day. He fully remodeled western European fruit growing practices to fit American site and climatic conditions. One contemporary tree crop author found that fruit trees planted in Massachusetts and Michigan during the height of Downing's influence (18701890) are still standing and bearing fruit. Yet thousands of trees planted in subsequent years (1890-1920) have broken down or died. There is a refreshing simplicity in Downing's basic principles:
A judicious pruning to modify the form of our standard trees is nearly all that is required in ordinary practice. Every fruit tree, grown in the open orchard or garden as a common standard, should be allowed to take its natural form, the whole efforts of the pruner going no further than to take out all weak and crowded branches.
The tree-men who have qualified the science of pomology are in unanimous agreement on one important aspect: interplanting is a desirable practice. Interplanting makes good sense to the homesteader from a purely economic standpoint. Where peaches, pears and plums are interplanted in apple orchards, revenue from their yields subsidize the apples to production. Rapidly maturing 'tree crops (like dwarfed varieties) can be alternated with slowly maturing species. Mulberry trees are an excellent choice to interplant in a nut tree orchard . . . they grow rapidly, bear young and are resistant to shade.
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Cost Comparisons

True costs of industrial food production system
• 1 000 tonnes of water are consumed to produce one tonne of grain
• 10 energy units are spent for every energy unit of food on our dinner table
• Up to 1 000 energy units are used for every energy unit of processed food
• 17% of the total energy use in the United States goes into food production & distribution, accounting for more than 20% of all transport within the country; this excludes energy used in import and export
• 12.5 energy units are wasted for every energy unit of food transported per thousand air-miles
• Current EU and WTO agricultural policies maximise food miles resulting in scandalous "food swaps"
• Up to 25% of CO2, 60% of CH4 and 60% of N2O in the world come from current agriculture
• US$318 billion of taxpayer’s money was spent to subsidize agriculture in OECD countries in 2002, while more than 2 billion subsistence farmers in developing countries tried to survive on $2 a day
• Nearly 90% of the agricultural subsidies benefit corporations and big farmers growing food for export; while 500 family farms close down every week in the US
• Subsidized surplus food dumped on developing countries creates poverty, hunger and homelessness on massive scales
Some benefits of sustainable food production systems
• 2- to 7-fold energy saving on switching to low-input/organic agriculture
• 5 to 15% global fossil fuel emissions offset by sequestration of carbon in organically managed soil
• 5.3 to 7.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission disappear with every tonne of nitrogen fertilizer phased out
• Up to 258 tonnes of carbon per hectare can be stored in tropical agro-forests, which in addition, sequester 6 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year
• Biogas digesters provide energy and turn agricultural wastes into rich fertilizers for zero-input, zero-emission farms
• 625 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions prevented each year in Nepal through harvesting biogas from agricultural wastes
• 2- to 3-fold increase in crop yield using compost in Ethiopia, outperforming chemical fertilizers
• Organic farming in the US yields comparable or better than conventional industrial farming [33, 34], especially in times of drought
• Organic farms in Europe support more birds, butterflies, beetles, bats, and wild flowers than conventional farms
• Organic foods contain more vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients, and more antioxidants than conventionally produced foods
• 1 000 or more community-supported farms across US and Canada bring $36m income per year directly to the farms
• £50-78m go directly into the pocket of farmers trading in some 200 established local farmers’ markets in the UK
• Buying food in local farmers’ market generates twice as much for the local economy than buying food in supermarkets chains
• Money spent with a local supplier is worth four times as much as money spent with non-local supplier
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THE WINDOWSILL, HYDROPONIC, INFLATION-BUSTER GARDEN

How to save $40 or more a year on the family food bill..by growing fresh, succulent salads right on your favorite windowsill!
The "new, improved" hydroponic tank designed and built from odds and ends and a few purchased items. James Dekorne states that this—byfar—has been the most successful of his homebuilt windowsill hydroponic systems. "These four mini-gardens have a combined surface area of 5.1 square feet ... which is roughly four square feet smaller than the top of an average-sized card table. And the window we placed them in faces a full seventy-five degrees east of due south . . . which is certainly not the best orientation for growing anything, but was the only orientation we had to work with so we used it.
Despite the small size of our four-sectioned salad plot and despite their less-than-ideal exposure to the sun, during the one-month period between February 19 and March 19, we picked a total of 6.15 pounds of greens from our 5.1-square-foot hydroponic garden. That's almost 1.2 pounds of edible tissue per square foot of growing space.
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Countertop Garden

AeroGrow International, Inc. was founded in July of 2002 to develop and market the world's first hydroponic kitchen-crop appliance for the mass-consumer market. Funded with $5 million of initial capital, it has 1 issued U.S. patent, 10 U.S. patents pending, and 2 pending international patent applications.
The AeroGrow Kitchen Garden has been designed for the mass-consumer market and uses a new, patent-pending technology to create a self-watering, self-feeding, high-yield "Smart Garden." The Kitchen Garden is intended to provide a fun, convenient, simple-to-use way to enjoy an ongoing, year-round supply of tasty, organic, vine-ripened herbs, vegetables, and tomatoes, ripe from the garden in homes, apartments and offices, regardless of climate and space restrictions.
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University of Arizona Growth Chambers visit Mars, South Pole

South Pole inhabitants can now indulge on self-grown, fresh veggies, instead of living off canned and frozen cuisine.
Gene Giacomelli, director of the controlled environment agriculture program, built a growth chamber that is currently producing lettuce and other goodies at the South Pole. He also works on another chamber that is planned to go to Mars or the moon in a NASA spacecraft, he said.
How does it work? In extreme environments, such as those of the South Pole or Mars, plants can be grown in controlled rooms without windows, using artificial light sources, Giacomelli said. "We believe that we can grow any crop anywhere, anytime," he said. "What I don't add on there is at what cost." But despite the high costs of such a project, researchers at the South Pole were demanding for fresh vegetables because it is impossible to maintain any supply traffic to and from the pole during the long winters, Giacomelli said.
The plants had to grow from sterile seeds that were brought to the pole because it is illegal to import soil and live plants, Giacomelli said. Therefore, all the plants grow hydroponically, which means they grow in a nutrient solution without soil. A glass wall divides the chamber and the real growth room, where the plants get warm lights, humidity and greenery. Hypothetically, 10,000 heads of small lettuce could be grown in the costly $500,000 chamber annually, but the pole residents also grow herbs, tomatoes and cucumbers in it, Giacomelli said. "We provided a product that solves problems down there. And we will see in the future how well it works."
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Scientists Unite in Call for Action as Global Food Demands Threaten to Outstrip World Water Supply

While many of today’s rivers, lakes and groundwater reservoirs continue to be overexploited, a new report launched today by leading scientists at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development warns that unless steps are taken to improve the way water is managed, twice the world’s current water consumption may be needed by 2050 to feed a global population of some 9 billion. The scientists from the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), World Conservation Union (IUCN) and International Water Management Institute (IWMI) said that the ambitious international commitment to halve the number of people facing hunger have missed a fundamental question: where is the water needed to grow the food to feed future generations properly? The report, "Let It Reign: The New Water Paradigm for Global Food Security" points out that feeding the world is in many ways a daunting water challenge.
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Good practice keeps the water clean and green

AGRICULTURE dominates land use and has a fundamental role in maintaining the countryside and protecting the environment. The development of intensive farming practices and the increased use of agrochemicals, which more than quadrupled food production last century, has resulted in potential environmental problems, which are being addressed by codes of good practice and a more positive integration of agricultural and environmental policies.
With agriculture becoming more mechanised and intensive, the productivity of the soil and crop yields have been markedly improved by fertilisers and pesticides. These changes have resulted in a wide range of potential environmental impacts on water quality. These impacts can be controlled by good farming practice through guidance given in the Scottish Executive’s "Prevention of Environmental Pollution from Agricultural Activity" - the PEPFAA Code.
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Indiana Farmer Raises Cows Naturally, Without Using Methods of Mainstream Production

"Mad cow is telling us something," Mike Eliason said. "I think mad cow is a wake-up call to say there's a better way," to raise and eat cattle.
The cattle in Mike Eliason's organic herd are raised on a chemical-free grass acreage. On his farm near Centerville, Eliason has been working on producing all-natural beef for 15 years. He guarantees mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform enceph-alopathy (BSE), has no place in his herd now or in the future.
Eliason originally wanted to get away from plowing his fields every year. The grasses on his farm are perennial, so now he never plows and the grasses are ready for cattle to eat each spring, summer and fall. "I let the cows do my harvesting," he said. Now he continues to let his farm evolve into a facility that produces all-natural beef raised on all-natural grass, as opposed to the grains that mainstream cattle are fed.
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Diversity in the food chain

The European Commission has adopted a proposal for a second EU programme for the conservation, characterisation, collection and use of genetic resources in agriculture. The new programme, covering the period 2004-2006, will promote genetic diversity and the exchange of information including close co-ordination between Member States and between the Member States and the European Commission for the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources in agriculture. It will also facilitate co-ordination in the field of international undertakings on genetic resources. The budget allocated to this programme is €10 million.
"Biological and genetic diversity in agriculture is essential for the sustainable development of agricultural production and of rural areas. This new Community programme will contribute to maintaining this biological diversity and to improving the quality of our agricultural products as well as promoting the diversification in rural areas and the reduction of inputs and agricultural production costs", said Franz Fischler, Commissioner for agriculture, rural development and fisheries. The EU has long been keen to promote diversification in the food chain. When the genetic diversity of crops and breeds diminishes and genes are lost, this can lead to a higher susceptibility to diseases and stress factors. It can also lead to a loss of genes which allow the crop or breed to adapt itself to specific local growth conditions.
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Australia - Tomatoes get high-tech treatment

A STATE-of-the-art computerised system has been installed at Blackmans Point where a new 3000 square metre greenhouse is embracing new technology to grow hydroponic tomatoes. Some 7000 tomato plants were planted recently and are being computer-control fed and watered every hour between 7am and 10pm with each plant getting exactly the right amount or nutrients.
Part-owner Anthony Sarks said the operation was "controlled environment agriculture" which wastes no water and uses up to 75 per cent less water than the open field system and where nutrients are recirculated. "This packaging shed contains the most up-to -date technology in Australia at present," Mr Sarks said. "We believe this is the agriculture of the future. It is more efficient and environmentally sustainable."
The new equipment is Australian-made for Australian conditions, but based on Dutch technology. The greenhouse has double-skin plastic walls with roof vents to control circulation. Pipes circulate hot water at ground level and they double as running rails for work trolleys that run up and down the rows of tomatoes. A glass panel in the packing shed wall enables people to see what's going on in the greenhouse without going in. Mr Sarks said the only function the computer did not complete was picking. The computer control is constantly monitor and can be adjusted according to needs. "We would like to think that what we are doing here would enco-urage other operations. "Many crops can be grown in a similar way, but not in the same shed as tomatoes."
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A&M Research Helps To Grow Plants In Space

It's ancient speculation. Surely, even the earliest humans looked to the stars and wondered if perhaps somewhere "out there" someone was looking back at them. President George W. Bush has recently proposed a new initiative to build a moon base as a precursor to a manned mission to Mars. However, in spite of these lofty goals, numerous obstacles still remain before us. Associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering Ronald Lacey and fellow researchers at Texas A&M are working to help overcome some of those obstacles. "Right now, even when the planets are aligned right, it will take us about 900 days round trip to go to Mars," said Lacey. "If we want to do these kind of extended, manned space flights then they will have to vastly improve life support systems."
Astronauts cannot afford to bring enough provisions with them to survive extensive space flights. The substantial amount of money and room required to "pack" for such a trip is simply not feasible, but the answer to this problem may be found all around us. "If you look at life support, it's air, food and water," Lacey said. "If we could somehow grow plants on these trips or on the planets we visit then they could supply all these things." Lacey has developed a low-leak, translucent chamber that allows long-term studies of plant growth under various pressure conditions. It is hoped that the chambers will offer insight into the response of plant life during extended space voyages.
Specifically, if NASA wishes to grow plant life on cold, barren planets, then low-pressure containment chambers will need to be used. The keywords here: low pressure. To eliminate leakage, the chambers will need to operate near the pressure level of the planet they are on, which promises to be a very low atmospheric pressure. "We have actually seen that plants do better under lower pressures," Lacey said. "We have found that plants produce less ethylene, which allows for better growth, and at lower pressures we found better gas exchange and transpiration rates."
Lacey's plant chambers boast exceptional "tightness." Even under large pressure differences, the plant chambers have minimal leakage, allowing for wide-scale growth testing under numerous pressure levels and gas compositions. The chambers are capable of maintaining pressures as low as 5 percent of atmospheric (14.7 psi) for weeks while exhibiting leak rates as low as 1.5 percent of the volume. The chambers were built to accommodate gas supply, nutrient supply, water drainage, instrumentation, fans and a cooling system. They were designed to support solid plant growth or hydroponic systems. They also ensure that the plants will receive ample light availability - almost the entire surface area allows for photosynthetic radiation.
While the initial motivation for developing the plant chambers was for extended space travel, they could soon become useful to biological research here on Earth. Due to the exceptionally low leak rate and ability to precisely alter the composition of gas in the chamber, environmental concerns such as the effects of global warming and air pollution could be studied more precisely.
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Agriscience students transform lab into a mini ecosystem

Northshore High junior Beau Arieux said he knew nothing of aquaponics or hydroponics before enrolling in the school's agriscience education class two years ago. Now he can tell you in detail how to grow plants without soil -- hydroponics -- and how fish wastewater can be used in an enclosed system to do the same thing -- aquaponics. "To see it done and be a part of the process is a lot of fun," Arieux said. "You learn so much but most of the work is hands-on. And it's really common sense on how to do all this."
Northshore agriscience teachers Paul Payne and Paul Theriot have developed and built a lab -- with the help of students -- that holds two 1,200-gallon fish tanks that grow hybrid bream. The facility also houses several hydroponic and aquaponic units.
It's these unique programs that have filled Northshore's agriscience classes despite the fact that there are few farm or rural students in the subdivisions east of Slidell who attend the suburban school. From the lab, the students learn about the latest techniques in growing plants without soil and how to farm fish, a part of aquaculture.
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If You Feed Me, I'll Feed You

Ken Konschel, 49, of Empangeni in KwaZulu-Natal, has won the Inventor Award from the International Foundation for Science in Sweden for his self-sustaining farm on which fish, vegetables, chicken and worms feed off each other.
A series of pipes connects a 40 000-litre fish tank to a hydroponic farm. Waste from fish is used as liquid fertiliser for the plants, which are grown in water. The roots of the plants, in turn, filter algae and excess fish food from the water. The filtered water is then pumped back into the tank.
Konschel breeds red-breasted tilapia or bream, which feed on lettuce, carrot leaves, lawn cuttings and spinach.
"Nothing goes to waste," says Konschel, who has spent two years in the US studying the latest technology in fish farming. "The system provides fresh, nutritious fish and organic vegetables, irrespective of seasonal or climatic changes. It also uses very little water." He also breeds chickens whose waste is used as compost in his vegetable gardens and to feed worms - which in turn are used to feed fish. Konschel says he wants to teach his methods to local people.
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Recycled water put to good use

NORTH East Water is leading a series of scientific trials that will see hydroponic lettuces grown with recycled water. Trial co-ordinator Ms Brooke Anderson said the project would involve growing 300 plants with three different water sources: class A water which is high-quality recycled water from waste water treatment, class C which is lower quality recycled water, and river water. “We are investigating the microbiological effects of growing the lettuces hydroponically with each of the three sources of water, and aiming to prove that our class A water is a safe and reliable source for the horticulture industry,” Ms Anderson said.
“The West Wodonga wastewater treatment plant produces the class A water in line with strict EPA (Environment Protection Authority) guidelines, and it is 100 per cent safe to use on fruit and vegetables for human consumption.” She said class A water was considered cleaner than river water because it was treated with chlorine. Along with testing the water being used in the tests, the lettuce will be tested for any bacteria or viruses that may have been transmitted to the plants from the water.
The eight-week trial involves North East Water, the Wodonga Institute of TAFE, Melbourne University and Yackandandah hydroponic producer Gnangara Premium Fresh and is funded through the Victorian Governments Water for Growth scheme.
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U.N. food agency endorses biotechnology's use for farming

The United Nations' food agency endorsed biotechnology Monday as a promising way to improve farming around the world, but complained the technology is still not designed to meet the needs of poor countries.
The FAO expects the world's population to grow to 8 billion by 2030 and said food production must increase by 60% to feed the world. The agency said biotechnology can help meet that demand, but warned it was no panacea for world hunger. Further, the FAO concluded that poor farmers have seen little benefit so far because the Western corporations driving most of the field's research have put their energies behind only four crops — corn, soy, cotton and canola — that aren't widely grown in most Third World countries.
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Green revolutionary blasts opponents of biotechnology

In an era of war and global terrorism, Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug sees agriculture as an instrument of peace.
Though he's revered as a peacemaker, this pugnacious 90-year-old is quick to wrestle with procrastinating bureaucrats in third-world countries, and he's worked tirelessly to convince kings and presidents of the value of his agricultural advancements. These days, Borlaug is speaking out against those who fervently oppose biotechnology, referring to them as "extremist greenies" who have never seen the misery and hopelessness that he's seen up close.
Borlaug is famous for developing a hearty strain of dwarf wheat in Mexico. He took the new hybrid seeds and fertilizing practices to India and Pakistan to launch the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s, and for that he's credited with saving a billion lives.
Borlaug is motivated by the sight of starving children who can barely stand on spindly legs -- children barely alive, many of whom die. "I hate poverty and misery," Borlaug said, his boyish face full of anger. "I've seen people suffering."
Amid his busy schedule, Borlaug continues his alliances with agricultural scientists around the world, such as M.S. Swaminathan -- India's most famous scientist. Borlaug is most consumed, however, with his efforts in Africa, where he, former President Jimmy Carter and the Sasakawa family of Japan are trying to bring a new Green Revolution in food production to millions of small-scale farmers. "African food production remains in crisis, even though technology is available to double and triple yields of the major food crops," he said.
Worldwide, agricultural technology has improved food availability, yet the need remains great: In 2002, the United Nations estimated that about 24,000 people die of hunger-related causes each day around the globe.
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By 2020, moon cukes and other crops?

Although fresh veggies grown in self-sufficient space greenhouses are at least 15 years away, scientists already are testing experimental greenhouses in laboratories on Earth and in harsh environments like Devon Island in the Canadian high Arctic.
"For a mission of a year, it's possible to pack enough food and water," says Rob Ferl, director of the NASA-affiliated Space Agriculture Biotechnology Research and Education center at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "But for a Martian mission we're compelled to take along a recycling or bio- regenerative life-support system so plants can reproduce food from our waste and vice versa. And in the process of making food, we're also making oxygen and purifying water."
Mars presents tough challenges for both greenhouses and their plant inhabitants. The Red Planet's temperature extremes - which can range from 50 degrees F. in the day to more than negative 200 degrees F. at night - could crack the shell of a greenhouse, and could make the internal environment too cold to sustain the plants.
The thin Martian atmosphere does not screen out deadly ultraviolet radiation. Also, the atmospheric pressure on the planet's surface is less than 1 percent of that on Earth, a situation that causes plants to react as if they were dehydrated and can affect the structural stability of greenhouses. Mars has only about half the light of Earth, so costly artificial light might be needed for plants to grow.
"One thing is absolutely certain. We're not getting off this planet without plants and the microbial systems that do a lot of the recycling for us," says Michael Dixon, director of the Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility on Devon Island and chair of environmental biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario. "We've got to resolve the management issues, and the mass and energy requirements of the plant production system to give us all the food, water, and oxygen we need, and to consume our carbon dioxide."
While much is known about the lunar surface, no Martian soil has been tested yet, so it's not known whether the soil is dangerous or whether it can grow plants. There also is evidence that water once existed on Mars. "Whether it's still there ... and in significant quantities that can be easily had is another issue," Dr. Dixon says. "If it isn't, life support on Mars is going to be a very tricky thing indeed."
Dixon is not yet convinced that plants will have difficulty surviving in low- pressure environments. He and Dr. Ferl are in the process of conducting joint experiments to see whether it is necessary to counteract the effects of low pressure. Ferl says low pressure causes water to move more quickly through plants, making them act as if they are becoming too dry. "One of the things we might want to do is breed out this response genetically so plants don't interpret this movement of water as a drought and waste any energy," he says. Ferl is using DNA microchips and fluorescent dyes to look at precisely what is going on inside a plant. There is one benefit of low pressure: Natural hormones like ethylene that cause ripening also move through a plant more quickly, so fruit and vegetables may last longer.
Researcher Michael Dixon firmly believes that some space-greenhouse technologies should be applied on Earth. For instance, if plants are genetically modified to thrive in shady environments on Mars, they could also be planted in northern climates on Earth. "For six months of the year, if you're going to grow a plant in Canada, you have to do it in a glass or plastic box with significant energy costs to maintain temperature and lighting," says Dr. Dixon, director of the Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility on Canada's Devon Island and chair of environmental biology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. "If you put shade-tolerant genetics into every Canadian greenhouse plant you would instantly transform the competitiveness of that industry."
Industry collaborations are a key part of Dixon's efforts. For example: one space technology making its way into industry is a biofiltration system that works in sealed environments, like office buildings, to manage air quality. The first company to use the technology, dubbed the "breathing wall," was insurer Canada Life Assurance Co. in Toronto. The biofilter, which looks like a tropical garden, resides in its 1,600-square-foot boardroom on three walls, Dixon says. It pulls air out and recycles it back into the room.
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Changi General Hospital's rooftop vegetable garden wins agriculture award

Changi General Hospital plants vegetables on its rooftop, harvests them and offers them to patients. For its efforts, it has been awarded an Urban Agriculture Achievement Award, given by The Urban Agriculture Network, a regional agriculture group.
The vegetable farm is found right on the rooftop of the hospital. Using the hydroponic method, about 10 kilos of vegetables are harvested daily. Besides green peas, previous harvests include tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce.
From the rooftop, the fresh vegetables are sent directly to the kitchen for preparation. Larry Khoo, engineer (facilities development) at Changi General Hospital, said, "We're basically using a dripper to deliver nutrients to our plants. The benefit is that we're able to achieve faster growth and harvest more tomatoes in a shorter period of time."
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Vancouver joining push for rooftop oases among cityscape canyons

New convention centre to boast a meadow on top -- the largest green roof in country
When the Vancouver convention centre spreads its sails in 2008 with a $500-million expansion, it will be sporting a 2.4-hectare roof alive with flowers and grasses. Destined to be the largest green roof in Canada, it will cover the equivalent of four city blocks.
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Learning business beyond books

It has been a year since farming operations in Ceballos’ small lot in Caloocan began. At only 200 sq.m., the area is obviously small for commercial production. But the young entrepreneur used the financial grants anyway to build a greenhouse and assemble a Nutrient Film Technique-driven hydroponic system in the family backyard.
Throughout the course of his research, Ceballos realized he still had so much to learn about this water-based farming technique, and that he could not go full blast on production unless he unravels the many “mysteries” of hydroponics. He wanted to know why some seeds won’t sprout, and why some plants suddenly dry up among other farming concerns. Despite the setbacks, Ceballos is confident he would eventually make it in the agriculture business.
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Relief project touches Maasai hearts in famine-stricken Kenya

Famine has struck Kenya in a big way, with more than 2.3 million people requiring emergency assistance. For these subsistence farmers, the shortage of rain over the past three years has left them with no food. Kenyan President Kibaki declared the famine a national disaster and asked the international community for assistance.
Members of Tigoni Baptist Fellowship, along with faculty, students and staff from the Kenya Baptist Theological College and Brackenhurst Baptist International Conference Center, responded to Kibaki's call for assistance.
The Kenyans raised money from donations within the church and two institutions. When volunteer missionaries working at Brackenhurst wrote home telling what students were doing to help famine victims, a group of Mississippi Baptists decided to get involved too.
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Space explores new science for food industry

The final frontier opens up opportunities for food makers and Europe’s space agency pushes its latest technologies at the massive food fair in Paris this week.
The European Space Agency (ESA) said this week at the end-products food show SIAL that the current focus for its scientists is to solve the problem of food production on long space missions to Mars – a conundrum that could bring new production methods to the food industry. "We cannot grow every type of plant so we have to select a few which can be the basis for multiple dishes. At the moment we are experimenting with eight plants, but we may have to raise this number,” said Christophe Lasseur, ESA's biological life support coordinator, responsible for recycling and production of air, water and food for long-term manned missions.
A mission to Mars is likely to last at least 24 months, six to go, six to return and 12 months on the planet. With the criteria 'the less food to transport from Earth the better', the initial objective is that food grown in space should cover 5 to 10 per cent during the mission and 40 to 50 per cent during a stay on another planet, a challenge for the food technologists. The European Space Agency activities follow similar reports from the US equivalent agency NASA earlier this year that said it was targeting a range of crops, including: lettuce, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, onions, cabbage, bell peppers, strawberries, fresh herbs, and radishes. Other baseline crops that require processing would be wheat, soybeans, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, dried beans, rice, and tomatoes.
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FYI

About 20 airplanes, 5,000 trucks, and 40 ships deliver food aid to poor countries every day, according to the WFP. The average daily expenditure on food in the developed world is $10; WFP food rations cost 29 cents per person fed per day.
Food drops from low-flying airplanes are mostly a thing of the past. Today, food delivery is satellite-based. The WFP keeps food stored in strategic locations of regions with ethnic tensions that could erupt into war, or with frequent national disasters, like drought or crop failure. It also relies heavily on drought early-warning systems, which use a variety of agricultural and weather indicators to forecast looming droughts. Thousands of former beneficiaries of food aid today work for development organizations such as the WFP, the World Bank, the United Nations, or nongovernmental organizations such as CARE.
Food aid traditionally has gone to victims of weather and other disasters, but since the start of the 1990s, it has increasingly gone to victims of war. The number of refugees and internally displaced people has risen dramatically in the past decade. Today, camps of displaced people are found throughout eastern Congo, Gaza and the West Bank, parts of the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Colombia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan, and most recently Sudan's Darfur region and Haiti.
In the past, deciding where and how to distribute food aid involved much guesswork, from estimating how many people live in a country to how much food is needed, and in what parts of the country or population groups. Aid organizations now fund country census surveys, which give a much more accurate picture of population size and distribution. In some part of Africa, Asia and Latin America, small pockets of people live far from roads, in remote areas where even FM radio is silent.
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The Slow Food Movement

The problem, perhaps, is that techniques such as inter-cropping, agroforestry, green manuring, composting and biological pest control offer less prospect of commercial gain to those who have money to invest. The hundreds of millions of people who would gain are the much-derided practitioners of so-called “peasant agriculture”, who have very little money, but who are the long-term guardians of biodiversity.
One of the arguments used by the “agricultural industrialists” is that it is only through intensification that we will be able to feed an expanded world population. But even without significant investment, and often in the face of official disapproval, improved organic practices have increased yields and outputs dramatically. A recent UN-FAO study revealed that in Bolivia potato yields went up from four to fifteen tonnes per hectare. In Cuba, the vegetable yields of organic urban gardens almost doubled. In Ethiopia, which twenty years ago suffered appalling famine, sweet potato yields went up from six to thirty tonnes per hectare. In Kenya, maize yields increased from two-and-a-quarter to nine tonnes per hectare. And in Pakistan, mango yields have gone up from seven-and-a-half to twenty-two tonnes per hectare.
Slow food is traditional food. It is also local - and local cuisine is one of the most important ways we identify with the place and region where we live. It is the same with the buildings in our towns, cities and villages. Well-designed places and buildings that relate to locality and landscape and that put people before cars enhance a sense of community and rootedness. All these things are connected. We no more want to live in anonymous concrete blocks that are just like anywhere else in the world than we want to eat anonymous junk food which can be bought anywhere. At the end of the day, values such as sustainability, community, health and taste are more important than pure convenience. We need to have distinctive and varied places and distinctive and varied food in order to retain our sanity, if nothing else.
The Slow Food Movement is about celebrating the culture of food, and about sharing the extraordinary knowledge - developed over millennia - of the traditions involved with quality food production.
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Greenhouse technology uses 1/100th the fresh water to grow food for livestock

A method that uses roughly only one-hundredth the fresh water customarily needed to grow forage for livestock may leave much more water available for human consumption, as well as for residential and industrial uses.
The method for lessening water use is being tested by 42 wireless sensors being installed in a forage-growing hydroponic greenhouse built barely a stone's throw from the Mexico border. Experiments will reduce light intensity and restrict certain frequencies, using a variety of shading mechanisms to avoid overheating and improve plant growth.
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Israeli Firm Puts Lettuce On Top

"Lettuce has become like bread," says Lior Hessel, CEO and a co-founder of OrganiTech, which is based in the northern town of Yokneam. "It has to be on the supermarket shelves 12 months a year."
A robotics engineer by trade, Hessel and his brother, Ohad, began thinking about solutions for lettuce cultivation as they were working on the application of robotics to agronomy. Using the more classic definition of hydroponics, cultivating produce using water (instead of soil), they worked to find a solution that would involve water, less energy and fewer square meters of space.
The Hessels created indoor fields of crops, developed mechanized fields of Styrofoam beds of lettuce plugs that are rotated over recirculated, nutrient-filled water for a period of four to five weeks. The crop beds, which are 35 meters long and 2.5 meters wide, are housed in an environmentally controlled, 40-foot container that uses artificial light, or a greenhouse that uses natural sunlight.
Because all growth takes place indoors, the lettuce greens can be grown 12 months a year. Planting, harvesting and packaging are performed by intelligent robots, monitored by a computerized control center. "We basically supply the conditions of springtime, not summer, not winter, for 12 months a year," explains Hessel.
The company is developing a series of growing machines for different kinds of produce, and currently sells GrowTech 2000, a standard 40-foot container that uses a specially developed fluorescent light and computers that monitor oxygen, light, carbon dioxide, humidity and temperature levels.
At around $180,000 for a greenhouse version, and nearly double that for a container using artificial light, the hydroponic platforms can produce from 150,000 to 400,000 heads of lettuce per year, but can be an expensive proposition, admits Hessel. Then again, the system can lead to a reduction of up to 80% of the costs for heating and labor, two of the most serious costs in the greenhouse industry, according to the company's figures.
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Ethiopia looks to a time beyond food aid

She became the face of famine, yet no one knew her name. Birhan Weldu’s emaciated face became the despairing image of Ethiopia in 1984 and was beamed to TV screens all over the world. Now Birhan, who miraculously survived the 1984 disaster that claimed the lives of one million Ethiopians, has become a symbol of hope for her country. Birhan is in her first year of agricultural college.
Key institutions now play an integral role in aid effectiveness, which was lacking 20 years ago. One of the best organisations set up during that time period, the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC), keeps track of crucial food reserves and serves as the government’s emergency and relief arm.
The government also has crucial food reserves in place, which now can hold up to 400 000 tonnes. Early warning systems at the local level feed into a national database that means officials maintain an accurate picture of the food status in the country. The government has already launched the much-heralded $3,2-billion, five-year New Coalition for Food Security strategy that aims to end hunger for up to 15-million people.
Within the coalition there is a new approach to using food aid to boost development by encouraging people to work rather than just rely on handouts. Called productive safety nets, the government plans to launch the scheme for five million people in January. Tigray, the northern province of Ethiopia that was the epicentre of the 1984 famine and was, at that time, ravaged by a civil war, is home to Birhan. A quarter of its 4-million people still need food aid to survive.
Birhan fears that without real help the dependency and quick fix solutions will continue. “I pray this never happens again and I am thankful for all the help we have received,” Birhan said from the stone house she shares with her father, stepmother, and six brothers and sisters. “But what we need is schools to educate ourselves, dams for farmers so they are not dependent on the rains. We need health centres and industries for people to have jobs. We need to be able to stand on our own and not always be reliant on aid.”
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Swaminathan calls for empowering farmers with knowledge, skill

Renowned agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan called for empowering farmers with knowledge and skill to make India hunger free. "We need to cover the entire country with the right infrastructure and empower the farmer community," said Swaminathan, chairman of the National Commission on Famrers (NCF). He cited the recent project launched by the prime minister making available Indian Space Research Organisation data for farmers across the country as an example of information dissemination.
"India is home to the green revolution and the white revolution, but we are in an unenviable position when it comes to food security as India has the largest number of malnourished children in the world," Swaminathan said opening the regional round of consultations on "Mission 2007: initiatives for hunger-free India".
World Food Programme (WFP) country director Pedro Medrano stressed the need for setting out clearly defined priorities in making India hunger free. "At one point, this country decided to be self-sufficient in food and it did it, setting an example for the rest of the world," Medrano said.
Swaminathan suggested that the focus be on crop insurance, cotton, employment generation, women in farming, horticulture and knowledge and skill empowerment. "Cotton and textile sector provide employment opportunities to a large section of the society. The upcoming Multi Fibre Agreement can be an opportunity as well as a problem. We have to prepare for the new international trade system.
Medrano pointed out that India had no problems of human resources or financial resources. "It is only a question of priority." You have sufficient quantity of food production along with a large number of (food distribution) schemes. All the elements are in place and yet India is home to the largest number of malnourished children in the world. It is not enough to achieve food security by increasing food production. Similarly, poverty alleviation is not the same as hunger alleviation. It is high time to synergise all resources if the goal is to make the nation hunger-free by 2007," he said.
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Rice, wheat and coarse grain

Developed countries fear giving up the security of basic food production, while transitioning and developing countries are motivated at becoming self-sufficient and even exporters.
Global rice, wheat and coarse grains stocks as a percent of consumption have fallen to dangerously low levels that have not been experienced in several decades, with the global marketplace seemly paying little attention. Trade is small relative to production. World rice trade is about 6 percent of production; world wheat trade is about 13 percent of production and world coarse grain production is around 10 percent of production.
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Electricity-free food production for the developing world

A production system that requires no electricity, generator or running water has been created for food applications in the developing world. The innovative system has been developed by small Canadian-based non-profit organisation, Malnutrition Matters, which focuses on food technology applications in developing countries.
The charity believes that the VitaGoat system demonstrates how simple innovations in food production can make a significant difference. This equipment requires no electricity, generator or running water, which is critical due to the expensive, unavailable or unreliable electrical supply in much of the developing world. Instead, it uses pedal power for grinding and mashing, and an innovative, energy-efficient steam boiler and cooking section.
The equipment consists of four main components: a cycle-grinder, which is adjustable for various foods, and operator size and strength; an energy-efficient steam-boiler which burns almost any local fuel such as wood, gas, dung chips, or other biomass; a pressure cooker which gets steam injected from the boiler; and a filter press for separation of soymilk or juices. A food preservation-vessel can also be added.
The system provides dry or uncooked products such as flour, meal, and peanut butter, and cooked products such as soymilk, fruit and vegetable purees, sauces and juices. Malnutrition Matters says that the daily output can serve 500 to 1,000 people, while improving food security and health, and creating additional local employment and micro-enterprise development.
The first technology transfer has been started with a fabricator in Benin, West Africa. This will allow the local fabrication of the systems for approximately $2,000, or less than half of the current cost to build them in North America. This will also create a local training and parts centre in West Africa. Meanwhile a limited numbers of systems will still be built in Canada to supply priority pilot projects and as models for tech transfers. The priority now for Malnutrition Matters is finding other sponsors and partners, commercial or NGO, to initiate technology transfers to other regions in the developing world.
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Christian Aid - UK

Christian Aid is concerned about the possible effects of genetically modified (GM) crops on developing countries and on the poor in those countries – so many of whom depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and an adequate and reliable food supply.
Our first contribution to the GM debate, Selling Suicide: Farming, False Promises and Genetic Engineering in Developing Countries, published in May 1999, showed how a handful of GM corporations are gaining increasing control over global food supply, and it also raised questions about the safety of the technology itself.
This ongoing controversy, and the unresolved issues which lie behind it, justifies our continuing support to a call for a moratorium on commercial applications of GM crops to allow time for the issues to be further researched, discussed, agreed and implemented, not only at the national level but globally, particularly in terms of how they affect developing countries.1
Proponents of GM crops argue that they could prove highly beneficial to poor farmers, and could help developing countries meet their future food needs:
- Increased drought resistance could enable crops to be grown on unirrigated and currently marginal lands, and reduce reliance on scarce water supplies.
- Engineered pest resistance could reduce reliance on expensive and environmentally damaging chemical pesticides, both in the growing and storage of crops.
- Making it possible for certain plants to use atmospheric nitrogen to help them grow into major food crops such as cereals could increase yields and reduce or perhaps even remove the need for chemical fertilisers. The possibilities appear to be endless.
However, it is not at all clear whether or not such benefits can or will be delivered without accompanying and unacceptable costs, either in terms of the technology itself or in terms of how it is controlled. Nor is it clear what the balance of benefits and costs might be, or, most importantly, for whom.
Christian Aid is concerned that:
- Too much significance is placed on GM crops in terms of their ability to end hunger in the developing world . It has been claimed that GM crops are necessary for the future food security of poor people in developing countries. Such claims are misleading because they ignore the complexities of overcoming poverty and food shortages in such countries. The solutions to hunger and food insecurity lie mainly in overcoming social and economic barriers that limit poor people’s ability to buy or produce and sell food. A costly technology such as GM crops, owned by powerful corporations, risks increasing such barriers, leading to more inequality, poverty and food insecurity.
- Too much control over the world’s agriculture and food system is ending up in the hands of a small number of purely commercial interests. The development and marketing of GM technology, including patented seeds tied to proprietary agrochemicals, is leading to a smaller and smaller number of companies having more and more influence over food production and the global food system. There is no mechanism at international level to prevent this trend continuing and developing countries also lack the power to stop it.
- Too little is known about the possible environmental, ecological, health or nutritional effects of GM crops, particularly in developing countries. As in many areas of science and its application, there are differences of opinion and indeed strong disagreements among those involved in GM crops. However, in this case the disagreements are not just academic. The widespread use of particular GM crops and foodstuffs may risk serious damage to the environment – to both wild and agricultural biodiversity – as modified genes are spread by cross-pollination, for example. They may even pose a threat to human health.
Point Source
PracticalSustenance.Net

UN Launches Web Site on Humanitarian Early Warning

United Nations humanitarian agencies and partners of the Inter Agency Standing
Committee (IASC) has launched a new humanitarian early warning service Web site, HEWSweb. The Web site displays the latest forecasts, reports and alerts on drought, floods, tropical storms, locust infestation, El Nino, earthquakes and volcanic activity. It has dedicated pages for each of these natural hazards, including additional references and resources. In the near future, HEWSweb will also offer the opportunity to access and share information on sociopolitical crises.
HEWSweb represents a humanitarian partnership project developed by the
IASC to foster enhanced humanitarian preparedness, and it is supported by a
variety of partners including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN
refugee organization (UNHCR), UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Health
Organization (WHO), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as a consortium of international non-governmental organizations.
Point Source
PracticalSustenance.Net

Scientist group calls for tighter rules on biopharming

Companies and researchers engaged in biopharming - genetically modifying crops to produce drugs and industrial chemicals - need to take a step back if the process is to safely move forward, according to a report.
The technology could lead to cheap and abundant production of much-needed vaccines and medical treatments, as well as valuable plastics and polymers, said a panel of six academic experts commissioned by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based environmental advocacy group. But unless regulations are tightened and new agricultural oversight systems put in place, the scientists fear that plant-made chemicals could turn up in consumers' corn flakes. The Union is calling for an immediate ban on biopharming research and production in food crops in open fields, to avoid contamination of the food supply.
Biopharming, which is still in an early and largely experimental phase, uses plants such as corn and soybeans to produce non-food chemicals and proteins that could be harmful if eaten. These valuable ingredients are extracted, purified and processed into drugs, vaccines or industrial enzymes; the plants themselves are destroyed.
Point Source
PracticalSustenance.Net

Batswana urged to utilise assistance programmes to improve food production

Batswana have been urged to utilize government assistance programmes and venture into food production for the country to be self-sufficient by 2016. Principal Agricultural Engineer, Dirilwe Matoto said despite government efforts to empower Batswana economically, little effort is being done to produce enough food to feed the country. Officiating at a BAGAKGAKGWE horticultural association open day, he expressed concern that Botswana still imports 80% of its vegetable requirements from neighbouring countries.
Matoto said a country like Botswana with a small population should be able to sustain itself on food production. He said he was aware of problems encountered by farmers such as shortage of water and advised that: "Where you could be lucky to strike water, I urge you to use it sparingly." He said the ministry of agriculture is concerned about the supply of low quality materials to irrigation farmers. Matoto advised farmers to seek expert advice before drawing business plans as well as purchasing irrigation equipment.
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Average paddy yields in Lanka higher than in most countries

The average paddy yields in Sri Lanka were higher than in most countries in Asia except Japan and Indonesia, said Dr Nimal H.E. Sandaratne. "However the costs of products in Sri Lanka were much higher than in the large rice producing countries Like Burma, Thailand and Vietnam," he said.
"Most significantly, average rice yields in the country are about a third of the potential yields, Dr. Sandaratne said. "Self-sufficiency in food, especially rice is deemed Synonymous with food security. In fact national food security could be achieved by a greater diversification of the economy into industries and services than by attempting to be self-sufficient."
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Jamaica: $20 million to help develop organic agriculture industry

The Ministry of Agriculture has allocated $20 million for the development of the organic agriculture industry over the next three years. The allocation, the ministry said, is to allow the local industry to tap into the international organic market, which is estimated to value US$25 billion. Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke, who made the announcement at a special meeting of stakeholders involved in organic production at his Hope offices in Kingston this week, said the project would get under way in January of next year. The priority commodities initially targeted for production under the project include vegetables, root crops, tropical fruits, herbs/spices and medicinal plants, beverage crops - cocoa, coffee and coconut - banana, plantain, grass-fed beef, mutton and goat.
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The Power of Poo

Human compost boosts harvests in Mozambique
The more than 2,500 residents of Mozambique's impoverished village of Matimangwe have harnessed the power of their poo to fertilize their crops, and the village is now on the road to sustainable food production and development. Thanks to a human-waste compost latrine system called EcoSan, villagers have seen a major difference in the size of their harvests. Built with an investment of about $20, the EcoSan is essentially a pit latrine that gets covered with soil and ash once it's filled and is then left for up to eight months while a family moves to a new pit. As the waste is composted, harmful pathogens die off and a rich humus remains. Using this humus, farmers are able to produce enough crops for their families and sell the extra to raise money for clean drinking-water wells and school materials for their children. Says the village chief, "Our goal is more latrines -- no deaths, more food."
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Singapore’s Food Supply resilience

Did you know that even in land scarce Singapore, there are more than 50 vegetable farms producing mainly leafy vegetables. And more than 80% of the leafy vegetables produced are derived from soil cultivation under protective netting which protects the vegetables underneath.
There are 6 agrotechnology parks in Singapore, located in Lim Chu Kang, Murai, Sungei Tengah, Mandai, Nee Soon and Loyang. There are 230 farms in the agrotechnology parks. Of these 230 farms, 55 are vegetable farms. The first vegetable farm in the agrotechnology parks started in 1987.
Most of the vegetable farms here practise soil cultivation using rain shelters or netted structures. Besides soil cultivation there is one aeroponic vegetable farm and 3 hydroponic vegetable farms.
What is the difference between rain shelters and netted structures to farmers? The rain shelters: shield the vegetables from rain drops which can cause damage to the leaves, while the netted structure protect the vegetables from insects and pests, resulting in higher productivity and safer vegetables because of the use of less pesticides. The farms grow mainly leafy vegetables e.g. bayam, chai sim, xiao bai cai, which are sold for local consumption.
What about the productivity of the farms? In the 1980s, the vegetables farms produced about 40 tonnes of vegetables per ha. Now, some of the vegetable farms have achieved productivity levels of more than 100 tonnes per ha. In 2003, the vegetable farms produced about 16,000 tonnes of vegetables valued at about S$14 million, of which about 7,500 tonnes were leafy vegetables valued at about S$8 million.
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China’s developer of super hybrid rice receives World Food Prize

Yuan Longping wants to share technology with other countries
It’s not often that one person can be said to be responsible for feeding 60 million people. But then Yuan Longping has never been an ordinary person. Yuan, 74, a Chinese agricultural scientist, is widely acknowledged as having discovered the genetic basis of heterosis in rice – a breakthrough that helped lead to the development of hybrid rice.
In the three decades that followed the discovery, hybrid rice has spread so that it is now planted on about half of China’ rice area, resulting in a 20 percent higher yield over previously grown varieties. That 20 percent increase translates into enough food to feed an additional 60 million people per year in China, according to scientists with the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences where Yuan serves as a research professor and mentor to a number of other agricultural scientists.
For that and other accomplishments, including helping establish the hybrid rice seed production industry in China, Yuan was recently named recipient of the 2004 World Food Price.
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23 African Countries Face Famine

Twenty-three African countries face food emergencies despite normal or above-average food production in others during 2004, says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
In its latest report, the UN agency said food security in sub-Saharan Africa has been hit by several factors, including drought, invasions by crop-devouring locusts and civil conflicts. According to the document, food needs in the 2003-2004 period amounted to 3.1 million tonnes, of which 2.8 million tonnes have been delivered so far. Some 4 million tonnes were delivered in 2002/2003.
Due to production shortfall in several countries, food needs are expected to increase in 2004-05, although the actual aid requirements will only be known after the ongoing harvests in eastern and western Africa.
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Incorrect IMF advice and the US push for genetically modified food only worsen existing food crises

A gift of dependency? American GM corn is unloaded in hungry Malawai, leading to concern about the future.
From disease to civil strife, Sub-Saharan Africa has a host of troubles. But in the last five years, the problem of hunger also has come to the top of the list of woes. Developed countries have responded both bilaterally and multilaterally to help African farmers through policy interventions and humanitarian aid – though with debatable success. While grateful for the help, the countries find some of the solutions of dubious long-term value. And the US, in particular, has been blamed for using the situation to promote inappropriate agricultural policies through international institutions and to propagate genetically modified products.
In the UN Food and Agricultural Organization's October 2004 assessment report, twenty-three countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region are listed as requiring emergency food intervention. Malawi stands out as a country that has been in dire straits for some time, with the situation worsening during the past three years. This small, impoverished, landlocked country of 12 million generally fed itself until the late 1990s. What is the real root cause of the drop in food production?
To access concessionary loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Malawi had to complete the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) from the late 1980s, a program replete with troublesome conditionalities. One of the conditions under SAP required full liberalization of the economy, the IMF's prescription for improving economic growth; the actual results, however, were cuts in social services and the removal of all agricultural subsidies. A bag of fertilizer that cost farmers about US$5 in 1990 more than doubled its price by 1998, rendering it unaffordable for most Malawians, half of whom live on an income equivalent to less than a dollar a day.
In 2002, during the country's worst food crisis, when hundreds of Malawians reportedly died from hunger and hunger-related diseases, the government revealed that the IMF had given inappropriate advice about maize reserves. A Reuters story reported that the Malawian President Bakili Muluzi "rebuked" the IMF, "blaming it for a biting food crisis and a reform agenda he said had failed to improve the lives of his people." He went on to claim that "the IMF asked his government to sell maize from strategic reserves to enable the state food agency to meet obligations on a commercial loan.” The result was shortage of food for the people.
Despite these circumstances, most countries still look to the United States, as a world power, for solutions. The United States generously responded to the 2002 crisis by shipping tons of genetically modified maize to Malawi and most of Southern Africa. What was supposed to be a kind gesture, however, sparked a debate on genetic engineering. What seemed certain was that the United States wished to promote genetically modified products to Africa, a thing that worried countries like Malawi.
Considering that genetically modified (GM) products have higher yields than produce from normal hybrid seeds, one may ask why developing countries are worried. A farmer in Malawi does not buy seed; he saves seed from the previous harvest. With GM products such as those advertised by multinational biotechnology corporation Monsanto, he cannot save seed; he will have to buy them each year at higher prices. This farmer is also likely to face marketing problems since certain countries will not accept GM products. The EU just lifted the 6-year ban on sale of GM products within the member states earlier this year. But GM as a solution to food security problems among poor countries remains bleak.
Poor countries' options for dealing with food crises on their own are narrowing. It is becoming clear that developed countries are increasingly fostering dependency, whether by influencing national policies that fail to benefit citizens or by controlling microeconomic processes through the heavy influence of multinational corporations. This reliance is only increasing with the farmers switching to GM products from the developed world.
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Hydroponic gardening's reputation is growing

Hydroponic gardening isn't just for potheads anymore.
Growing produce without soil and in limited space is increasingly popular among both backyard gardeners and commercial farmers. Unpredictable weather — such as this year's four Florida hurricanes, which sent tomato prices soaring — and soil contamination and erosion have turned growers' attention to a technology that dates to pre-Christian Rome. Well established in the Netherlands and Canada, where cloudy skies and long winters abbreviate the growing season, hydroponic farming involves dissolving such nutrients as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium in water, and delivering it directly to a plant's roots.
The roots grow in aerated water, humid air or a moist medium such as rock wool or vermiculite pebbles. High-powered lights and heat are also needed, and plants often grow larger and faster than they do with traditional farming. It's especially successful with such tender crops as tomatoes, lettuce and strawberries.
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The Shame of Famine Is in Not Ending It

This is a unique moment in history, when God has given us the means to dramatically reduce hunger and poverty.
The pangs of hunger can be so painful and physiologically destructive, especially for children. Yet hunger also produces a more intangible pang — that of stigma and shame. Ironically, stigma is not just confined to individuals standing on the long, shaming lines at community soup kitchens. Nation states also feel a certain element of stigma in not being able to address the basic Maslovian need of proper nutrition for their populations.
Perhaps this is a lesser phenomenon in the developing world, where almost half the planet survives on less than $1 a day. But in the developed/post-modern world, the stigma of food insecurity raises fundamental questions of equity and distribution.
We are taught that those who die from the sword are more fortunate than those who die from famine (Lamentations 4:9). Not only is this a “cruel death,” where the body feeds upon itself, but along the way it is associated with humiliation suffered by those who cannot provide basic support for themselves (ramify this also to nations). The prophet Ezekiel calls this herpat ra’av, “the shame of famine” (Ezekiel 36:30).
Truth be told: There are local heroes who labor every day in the field. Yet, like the Greek myth of Sisyphus, their efforts alone will not solve the problem. What we need are more advocates to change the dialogue and summon the political will to end hunger.
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China's green food enjoys rosy market

BEIJING, (Xinhua) -- Statistics show that by the first half of this year, China had 1,929 companies using "green food" labels, producing 25 million tons of green food annually. The rapid growth of China's national economy and per capita income have triggered changes in market demand, and more people care about their nutrition and health and prefer green food for its production that does not involve pollutants and faces strict quality control. To promote the development of the sector, China has formulated a series of laws and regulations and established a nationwide network to monitor the environment of the production bases, production process and quality, packaging, storage and transportation of products.
Many major agricultural producers in the country consider the green food industry their backbone. Heilongjiang is one of them. In a blueprint worked out recently, the northeastern province listed the building of a green food base one of its six major bases and planned to adopt preferential policies in taxation, financing and land use in this respect. Markets are the best driving force for the development of the industry. Ever-increasing prices and the welcome from consumers have ignited the enthusiasm for green food firms.
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Organic Food in the USA Grows in Popularity

Over the past 10 years, the supply and the demand for organic foods have steadily increased. And — as with all markets — as more organic products move off the shelves, more producers and retailers take note and become interested in making the products more available. In 2001, organic foods constituted almost $5 billion in food sales. A MarketResearch.com estimate projects this year, sales will increase to $13.4 billion, with 51 percent of sales from health and natural food stores and 49 percent from conventional stores.
According to some trade estimates, the sale of organic products has increased by 20 percent each year since 1990, but such goods still make up just 2 percent of the foods that are sold. “The more it becomes available and the more people hear about it, the more companies figure, ‘Here's a new market that I can get into,' ” Holly Givens, communications director for the Organic Trade Association, said. “And as people learn more about diets and health issues, and how foods are processed, the more people learn how organic fits in with their desires to have a healthy lifestyle.”
Between 1997 and 2001, the amount of acreage for certified organic pastures and croplands increased by a million to 2.34 million acres, with pastures for milk, chicken and beef production making up the fastest-growing categories.
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Understanding the Halal process on food

So what is Halal food and why should it be certified as such? To Muslims, as a matter of religious obligation, these are foods that are permissible for them to eat. Meaning, the food (especially meat) was prepared according to Islamic practice and does not contain any by-products, raw materials, or ingredients that are considered as Haram (prohibited). In short, Halal food must be clean food.
The Concept. "From farm to plate"- that in essence is the whole concept of Halal quality assurance on food as a way to promote hygiene and good health. It begins with the animal chosen for slaughtering according to Islamic rites. The animal, cattle to be specific, should be healthy and alive and free from any sign of wounds, disease, or any form of disfigurement when brought to the slaughterhouse. Some certifiers would go as far as finding out what feeds were given to the cattle prior to slaughtering, or if there were Haram (prohibited) ingredients or mixes used.
The abattoir itself must be accredited as Halal by authorities to ensure that no contamination takes place since in many slaughterhouses, both cattle and swine are slaughtered using the same equipment, utensils, and dressing area. In this situation, the specific area for Halal slaughtering should not only be devoid of najis (filth) but should likewise be totally isolated from non-Halal carcasses, and with equipment and utensils for its exclusive use.
Stunning is used to render the animal unconscious prior to slaughtering. As a rule, stunning must neither cause death or permanent injury. A stunned animal with broken skull would be classified as non-Halal and would be separated from Halal carcasses. Stunning is done to avoid wild movement of the animal when slaughtering takes place and make the process less painful to the animal.
Again, and as a rule, the slaughtering of the cattle should be fully separated from those that are considered Haram such as pigs, dogs, etc. The act of Halal slaughtering begins with the positioning of the animal in the direction of Mecca, Saudi Arabia followed by an incision in the neck at a point below the glottis (Adam's apple). The phrase "Bismillah" (in the name of Allah) is compulsory and must be immediately recited and invoked during the act. The slaughtering must sever the trachea, the esophagus, and the carotid arteries and jugular veins in one stroke to bring about an immediate and massive hemorrhage (for this purpose, a very sharp stainless knife is recommended).
Dressing and cleaning. Dressing and cleaning of the carcass must only commence after ascertaining that the animal is completely dead. Internals, throwaway parts, and shavings have to be disposed of immediately and properly.
By current standards, preparing the meat of the animal for processing into end products such as hotdog, corned beef, beef loaf, and other ready-to-cook foods should follow the standard practices in hygienic and sanitary preparation. For one, it should be thoroughly ascertained that the ingredients used in the preparation or processing does not contain any components, either in large or small quantity, that are non-Halal (e.g. lard, alcohol, non-Halal gelatin, etc).
The production crew should at all times observe proper hygiene and use or wear prescribed production attire, food-grade gloves, and hair net (for women). The entire production area and immediate surroundings must always be kept tidy and completely sanitized. Finally, during processing, the products must be fully segregated or isolated from other foods, ingredients, and utensils, which are deemed non-Halal.
All Halal products that are stored, transported, and displayed either for sale or subsequent consumption must be kept segregated from non-Halal products to prevent them from being mixed or contaminated. Any contact with Haram products, in its strictest sense, would automatically render the Halal products as non-Halal.
Packaging and labeling. Packaging materials to be used in finished products must be Halal in nature and must not be contaminated by anything that are considered najis (unclean), and that the materials were not manufactured with the use of equipment that was contaminated with things that are najis.
For processed and prepared foods, truth in Halal labeling is a must as prescribed in the Codex Alimentarius (food code) general guidelines on Halal labeling.
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