British scientists say they have developed a new type of wheat which could increase productivity by 30%.
The Cambridge-based National Institute of Agricultural Botany has
combined an ancient ancestor of wheat with a modern variety to produce a
new strain.
In early trials, the resulting crop seemed bigger and stronger than the current modern wheat varieties. ...
... One in five of all the calories consumed round the world come from wheat.
But despite steady improvement in the late 20th century, the
last 15 years have seen little growth in the average wheat harvest from
each acre in Britain. ...
... Around 10,000 years ago wheat evolved from goat grass and other primitive grains.
The scientists used cross-pollination and seed embryo
transfer technology to transfer some of the resilience of the ancient
ancestor of wheat into modern British varieties.
The process required no genetic modification of the crops. ...
A water purification system that uses nanotechnology to remove
bacteria, viruses and other contaminants may be able to deliver clean
drinking water to rural communities for less than $3 a year per family,
according to a new study.
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai,
India, developed a purification device that filters water through a
specially crafted mixture of nanoparticles to remove harmful contaminants. Their study was published today (May 6) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The device, which is currently being tested in communities in India,
could offer an affordable way to provide small families with at least 10
liters (2.6 gallons) of safe drinking water
per day, said study co-author Thalappil Pradeep, a professor in the
department of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. ...
1. The United States had its financial bubble. Europe is having one too. Is China next? If it is, it could reshape the global economy and radically reshape Chinese government. Here is an interesting piece about China's real estate bubble.
... I like the idea of a breaking the Industrial Revolution into stages,
but I would define them in more fundamental terms. The first Industrial
Revolution was the harnessing of large-scale man-made power, which began
with the steam engine. The internal combustion engine, electric power,
and other sources of energy are just further refinements of this basic
idea. The second Industrial Revolution would be the development of
interchangeable parts and the assembly line, which made possible
inexpensive mass production with relatively unskilled labor. The Third
Industrial Revolution would not be computers, the Internet, or mobile
phones, because up to now these have not been industrial tools;
they have been used for moving information, not for making things.
Instead, the rise of computers and the Internet is just a warm-up for
the real Third Industrial Revolution, which is the full integration of information technology with industrial production.
The effect of the Third Industrial Revolution will be to collapse the
distance between the design of a product and its physical manufacture,
in much the same way that the Internet has eliminated the distance
between the origination of a new idea and its communication to an
audience. ...
... Eventually all of the creative ferment of the industrial revolution pays
off in a big “whoosh,” but it takes many decades, depending on where
you draw the starting line of course. A look at the early 19th century
is sobering, or should be, for anyone doing fiscal budgeting today. But
it is also optimistic in terms of the larger picture facing humanity
over the longer run.
5. What are the contours of income inequality in the United States? This 40 minute video by Emmanuel Saez offers some important insights.
6. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is a little too sensationalist for my taste but this vid offers interesting food for thought about nanotechnology and the future sports. We will even be able to have meaningful sports competition?
The recovered wealth - most of it from higher stock prices - has been
flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is
mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.
This is a promotional piece by an Australian company called Vertical Farm Systems. This technology is still in its infancy and there are detractors, but this promtional video is a great summary of how one commerical firm sees the promise of vertical farming.
This
post is part of the Roadmap To The Future Series. Roadmap To The Future
explores innovative industry trends and breakthroughs in science,
entertainment, and technology. This series is sponsored by Verizon.
Mold is the bane of any bread-lover's existence.
The fear of green fuzzy splotches making baked goods unfit to eat within days of purchase may soon be relieved.
MicroZap, a company
based in Texas, has developed a method to keep bread mold-free for 60
days. That's about six times longer than the shelf-life of regular
packaged bread.
"We probably could have gone farther, we just didn't try it," CEO Don Stull told Business Insider.
Either way, a longer lifespan helps cut down on food waste, while encouraging manufacturers to get rid of preservatives. ...
It will be interesting to see if this takes hold. Years ago
they developed irradiated meat which, as long as it was kept sealed, you store
in your cupboard without refrigeration. The concept is so counterintuitive that
to this day it hasn't been commercialized (that I know of.)
... To better understand
the impact of technology on jobs, The Associated Press analyzed
employment data from 20 countries; and interviewed economists,
technology experts, robot manufacturers, software developers, CEOs and
workers who are competing with smarter machines.
The
AP found that almost all the jobs disappearing are in industries that
pay middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. Jobs that form
the backbone of the middle class in developed countries in Europe, North
America and Asia.
In the United States, half
of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession paid
middle-class wages, and the numbers are even more grim in the 17
European countries that use the euro as their currency. A total of 7.6
million midpay jobs disappeared in those countries from January 2008
through last June.
Those jobs are being replaced in many cases by machines and software that can do the same work better and cheaper.
"Everything
that humans can do a machine can do," says Moshe Vardi, a computer
scientist at Rice University in Houston. "Things are happening that look
like science fiction." ...
... So machines are
getting smarter and people are more comfortable using them. Those
factors, combined with the financial pressures of the Great Recession,
have led companies and government agencies to cut jobs the past five
years, yet continue to operate just as well.
How is that happening?
-Reduced
aid from Indiana's state government and other budget problems forced
the Gary, Ind., public school system last year to cut its annual
transportation budget in half, to $5 million. The school district
responded by using sophisticated software to draw up new, more efficient
bus routes. And it cut 80 of 160 drivers. ...
... -In South Korea, Standard Chartered is
expanding "smart banking" branches that employ a staff of three,
compared with an average of about eight in traditional branches. ...
... -The
British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto announced plans last year to
invest $518 million in the world's first long-haul, heavy-duty
driverless train system at its Pilbara iron ore mines in Western
Australia. The automated trains are expected to start running next year.
The trains are part of what Rio Tinto calls its "Mine of the Future"
program, which includes 150 driverless trucks and automated drills.
Like
many technologically savvy startups, Dirk Vander Kooij's
furniture-making company in the Netherlands needs only a skeleton crew -
four people ...
... -Google's driverless car and the Pentagon's
drone aircraft are raising the specter of highways and skies filled with
cars and planes that can get around by themselves. ...
... "Trying to keep it from happening would have
been like the Teamsters in the early 1900s trying to stop the
combustion engine," Lavin says. "You can't stand in the way of
technology."
The upside of emerging technology is that most will make goods and services
less expensive. That improves our living standard. The downside is that much of
the work we used to do in order to earn the wages to buy goods and services is
rapidly changing. As the last sentence of the article notes, this is not the
first time we have been in these circumstances. Years ago I read that in 1885,
approximately 80% of everything we consumed in the U.S. was produced at home.
By 1915, 80% was produced outside the home. It created massive economic
dislocations. Each time these disruptions occur it has been hard for the people
living at that time to foresee what the new economic order would look like.
It is critical that Christian thinkers wrestle with the challenges of technological
innovation. Creative destruction (the market dynamic where jobs and industries
are destroyed in the wake of creating new ones) has always been a difficult one
for ethics. It is painful but the social cost of other alternatives is also
quite high. Anti-technological calls to abandon consumerism or, conversely,
just saying that “the market will sort it all out,” are not legitimate
responses. I think topics like this should be at the center of our theological
reflection about human labor and the economy.
Last week I linked an article reporting that rich
countries are trashing up to half of all food. Our distribution channels
are good but we tend to waste a lot of food through our consumption habits.
Emerging nations are wasting food too, but for different reasons. Distribution
channels are so bad that great quantities of food are wasted in transit. Furthermore,
because the distribution channels are so bad, and food must pass through so
many middle-men, it is often more expensive than it would otherwise need to be.
Business Insider now reports:
Last fall, following a relaxation in
India’s foreign-investment rules, [Wal-Mart] said it was planning to open its
first stores in the country in the next two years, tapping into a prized $490
billion retail sector. But to cash in, Wal-Mart and other foreign
retailers will have to solve a fundamental problem: how to move goods into
stores efficiently in a country that offers big retailers little in the way of
modern logistics and is plagued by dilapidated infrastructure.
The hurdles are particularly daunting in
the food sector, which makes up more than half of the revenues at the
Bentonville, Ark.- based company.
Watch this video by the Wall Street Journal as the document the
route of food from field to table. Here the age old cry of the various agents
in present decrepit system opposing streamlined distribution for fear of losing
their positions. The reality is that if distribution improves, then food will
become cheaper, people will have more disposable income, people will eat
better, people will become more productive, and all this will in turn lead to
the formation of new businesses and jobs. I'm not saying the change will be
painless and that some will not suffer in the process but I suspect the
trade-off for the masses in terms of improved quality of life is huge.
... People in developed countries throw away 30 to 50 percent
of the food they purchase, according to a new report by the Institution
of Mechanical Engineers. In total, the researchers estimated, 1.2 to 2
billion tons of food is thrown out every year without reaching a human
stomach.
A major reason we're tossing our food is that stores push us to buy too much of it,
the report found. Additionally, supermarkets often reject shipments of
vegetables and fruits that don't meet their marketing standards. As a
result, 30 to 50 percent of food produced on the planet is discarded as useless, even if some of it is perfectly edible.
My understanding is that there is also food waste in
developing nations, though for different reasons. Poor infrastructure and
technology lead to spoilage and waste as the food moves from the field to the
dinner plate. A combination of more productive agricultural methods and just
modest reductions in waste would make food more plentiful without using one
more acre of land.
"... Is this a catastrophe of the sort that took place a generation ago,
when mass famines in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s killed hundreds of
thousands of people at a time? No. This time around, the cause is much
simpler, and the solution much more readily at hand. We’re experiencing a
basic crisis of undersupply: After three decades of worldwide food
surpluses, starting in 2008, the world’s farms have not produced enough
food to meet demand.
People no longer doubt, as they did 40 years
ago, that the world is capable of producing enough food for all of
humanity, even if our numbers grow to nine billion. We know it can, and
we know how to make it happen. Farms in Africa and the Indian
subcontinent – where the land is fertile and the growing season long –
should be producing much more food than their European counterparts.
Instead, India produces half as much per hectare, and Africa hardly
anything. They could easily feed the world.
This isn’t hard to
solve, and farmers know what’s needed: better transport and market
infrastructure, new seeds engineered for their climates and needs, an
end to subsidies and trade barriers, a shift from survival-based to
commercial farming practices. And these things are being done (in part
because farming is suddenly profitable), albeit too slowly. This decade
may well be remembered as the unfortunate gap between the first Green
Revolution (which ended mass famines and widespread Asian starvation in
the 1970s) and the second (which is poised to make even bigger changes
in Africa and Asia). Until supply catches up to demand, we have a
crisis.
What stands in the way, this time as last time, is
misunderstanding. Aid organizations in the West and governments in the
developing world, motivated by myths of village tranquillity, pay people
to stay rural rather than to consolidate their holdings and modernize
their farming. Too many people believe, falsely, that a shift to
commercial agriculture means a shift to big or exploitative farms,
rather than more income for small farmers. We allow superstitions about
engineered crops to become progress-blocking policies. We let
meaningless middle-class fetishes for “organic” or “local” foods pollute
the debate, when what’s needed is more protein, now. ..."
(Like the Kruse Kronicle at Facebook if you want links to daily posts to appear in your Facebook feed.)
1. Pray for Egypt Today!
More than 50 million Egyptians are voting today on a constitution that would be a giant step backward for Egypt and much of the Middle East, marginalizing women and religious minorities. A nation that has historically been a voice of moderation, the largest Muslim nation in the region, will likely move toward becoming an Islamist state. Remember to pray for Egypt. (See the Economist'sThe Founding Brothers)
2. Our prayers are with families of the victims at the Sandy Hook elementary school. Grace and peace to the entire community.
Traffic deaths in the USA continued their historic decline last year,
falling to the lowest level since 1949, the government announced
Monday.
A total of 32,367 motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians died in 2011,
a 1.9% decrease from 2010. Last year’s toll represents a 26% decline
from 2005, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
said. ...
... The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as
well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The
state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white
students.
“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have
any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health
commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in
the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011....
....The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells. ...
... The research is still in its early stages, and many questions remain.
The researchers are not entirely sure why the treatment works, or why it
sometimes fails. One patient had a remission after being treated only
twice, and even then the reaction was so delayed that it took the
researchers by surprise. For the patients who had no response
whatsoever, the team suspects a flawed batch of T-cells. The child who
had a temporary remission apparently relapsed because not all of her
leukemic cells had the marker that was targeted by the altered T-cells. ...
....In 2011, 1.4 million chlamydia infections were reported to the CDC.
The rate of cases per 100,000 people increased 8%, to 457.6 in 2011 from
423.6 in 2010.
The CDC reported 321,849 gonorrhea infections. The
rate increased 4% to 104.2 cases per 100,000 in 2011 from 100.2 in
2010. Like chlamydia, gonorrhea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease,
a major cause of infertility in women.
Last year, 13,970 primary and secondary syphilis cases were reported. The rate of 4.5 cases per 100,000 was unchanged from 2010. ...
7. You may be bilingual but can you write in two languages, one with each hand, at the same time?!
10. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones speculates on why liberals have more exaggerated perceptions of political differences. We Are More Alike Than We Think
11. A surprising "right to work" bill was signed into law in Michigan, of all places. That has spurred a lot of debate about unions and the right to work. Michael Kinsley wrote a thoughtful piece opposing RTW, The Liberal Case Against Right-to-Work Laws. David Henderson has piece in support of RTW, The Economics of "Right to Work".
12. Slate has a piece about The Great Schism in the Environmental Movement.
Keith Kloor opines on the division between mondernist environmentalists
(or eco-pragmatists) and conservation traditionalists.
...
Modernist greens don't dispute the ecological tumult associated with the
Anthropocene. But this is the world as it is, they say, so we might as
well reconcile the needs of people with the needs of nature. To this
end, Kareiva advises conservationists to craft "a new vision of a planet
in which nature—forests, wetlands, diverse species, and other ancient
ecosystems—exists amid a wide variety of modern, human landscapes."
This
shift in thinking is already under way. For example, ecologists
increasingly appreciate (and study) the diversity of species and
importance of ecosystem services in cities, giving rise to the
discipline of urban ecology. That was unthinkable at the dawn of the
modern environmental movement 50 years ago, when greens loathed cities
as the antithesis of wilderness. ...
13. One of the creepiest Twilight Zone episodes I remember from my
childhood was when this woman ends up trapped in a department store at
night. The mannequins begin calling to her. She discovers she is actually a mannequin who
has over stayed her time out in the world and it is time for the next
mannequin to spend some time outside the store. This story confirms my worst nightmares: In Some Stores, the Mannequins Are Watching You
15. One of the biggest concerns about fracking technology is the enormous amount of water it uses. A company has figured out how to recycle water so that far less water is used in the fracking process. Solving fracking's biggest problem
... 3D printing represents the latest version of what industry experts call
"additive manufacturing" — a way to turn practically any computer
designs into real objects by building them up layer-by-layer using
plastics, metals or other materials. The technology could end up
affecting every major industry — aerospace, defense, medicine, transportation, food, fashion — and have an even bigger impact on U.S. manufacturing than the robot revolution. ...
20. Michael Cheshire has a great piece in Leadership Journal on "What I learned about grace and redemption through my friendship with a Christian pariah." Going To Hell with Ted Haggard
".... A while back I was having a business lunch at a sports bar in the
Denver area with a close atheist friend. He's a great guy and a very
deep thinker. During lunch, he pointed at the large TV screen on the
wall. It was set to a channel recapping Ted's fall. He pointed his
finger at the HD and said, "That is the reason I will not become a
Christian. Many of the things you say make sense, Mike, but that's what
keeps me away."
It was well after the story had died down, so I had to study the screen
to see what my friend was talking about. I assumed he was referring to
Ted's hypocrisy. "Hey man, not all of us do things like that," I
responded. He laughed and said, "Michael, you just proved my point. See,
that guy said sorry a long time ago. Even his wife and kids stayed and
forgave him, but all you Christians still seem to hate him. You guys
can't forgive him and let him back into your good graces. Every time you
talk to me about God, you explain that he will take me as I am. You say
he forgives all my failures and will restore my hope, and as long as I
stay outside the church, you say God wants to forgive me. But that guy
failed while he was one of you, and most of you are still vicious to
him." Then he uttered words that left me reeling: "You Christians eat
your own. Always have. Always will."
He was running late for a meeting and had to take off. I, however, could
barely move. I studied the TV and read the caption as a well-known
religious leader kept shoveling dirt on a man who had admitted he was
unclean. And at that moment, my heart started to change. I began to
distance myself from my previously harsh statements and tried to
understand what Ted and his family must have been through. When I
brought up the topic to other men and women I love and respect, the very
mention of Haggard's name made our conversations toxic. Their reactions
were visceral."
21. Leonardo Bonucci got a yellow card for faking collision during a
soccer game. It should have been a red card. No one deserves to be a professional soccer player with acting skills
this bad!
This is a good piece about the growing challenges of fresh water supplies around the world. After detialing at length the challenges the article concludes:
... But the picture may not be as bad as it seems. While the projections about the growing global water crisis drastically underestimate how bad things really are, says Upmanu Lall, director of the Water Center at Columbia University, they also underestimate the scale of waste and the water efficiency improvements that could make adaptation easier.
"Things could actually be worse than what these guys are putting out," says Professor Lall. "They are too optimistic about the current situation compared to what it actually is. And they're too pessimistic about the situation for the future ... I do see a way to get there."
That's what he's learned from much of his work on water issues in India, which he calls "a basket case for water." He adds: "You could actually eliminate water stress in India if you were just a little bit smarter about which places you were procuring which crops from."
Science, he says, is part of the solution: Agricultural efficiency can be drastically improved with a better mix of what is grown where, accounting for geography, water constraints, and income; governments will have a role to play in setting economic signals to promote conservation and the right mix of crops, and regulation to ensure access in urban and rural areas; cheap soil-moisture sensors could improve agricultural water efficiency by 10 to 15 percent by reducing waste in irrigation systems; recycled waste water could save in the billions of dollars that the US spends purifying water up to drinking quality even though only 10 percent is used for drinking and cooking; flood-control systems can be repurposed to store water.
But most important, says Lall, "the economics of it has to be sorted out." Water allocations for personal consumption and ecological preservation should be protected, he said, but about 75 percent of water consumed globally should be subject to more competitive pricing. In a sense, he argues, water should be treated like oil, allowing developers a guaranteed allocation as an incentive to develop it. About a quarter of water supplies should be protected to ensure people have water for drinking and to preserve ecology, he says. But everyone – from the home-owner watering the lawn to big industry and agriculture – should pay more for water.
Instability, conflict, and economic stagnation may be the prod societies need before they adapt, says Lall.
He deems the US system for allocating water rights as "not too bad." Where those rights were not tradable, he says, "things are a mess."
Some states – Arizona, California, Idaho, and Texas – have water banks that facilitate leases between rights-holders and users. But since these water banks don't incorporate forecasting, they fail to make deals until a drought begins. What the US needs, says Lall, is a national water policy that incorporates forecasts, trading mechanisms, options, and the coordinated use of both surface and ground-water resources.
While the tools and strategies exist to cope with the impending pressures of a warmer and more populous planet, Lall says, "the question is, will we do it right?"
I think another possibility as that as water prices rise, desalinization technologies beceome more attractive. A high percentage of the world population lives withing 100 miles of an ocean. The technology is not capable of addressing our present challenges but as technology advances and water costs rise, I suspect this will become part of the solution as well.
3. "British people - and many others across the world - have been brought up on the idea of three square meals a day as a normal eating pattern, but it wasn't always that way." Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them?
7. "It's a common grumble that politicians' lifestyles are far removed from those of their electorate. Not so in Uruguay. Meet the president - who lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay." Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president
8. You may have heard that there was a presidential election last week. Here is a map showing how the counties voted, with red being the most intensely Republican and blue being the most Democrat. (Source: The Real Reason Cities Lean Democratic)
9. Speaking of the election, there has been a lot written about how the GOP will need to change if they want to win national elections. As a right-leaning guy, I thought this article in Slate, The New Grand Old Party, and this one by Bobby Jindal, How Republicans can win future elections, were among the best.
13. Nanotechnology just keeps getting more amazing. "The latest invention from Stanford University’s Department of Electrical
Engineering sounds like something a superhero would have. A
self-repairing plastic-metal material has been developed by a team of
professors, researchers and graduate students." New Self-Repairing Material Invented at Stanford
15. Speaking of 3D-Printing, how big a deal is it? "Chris Anderson has exited one of the top jobs in publishing -
Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine - to pursue the life of an
entrepreneur, making a big bet that 3D printers represent a massive new
phase of the industrial revolution." Chris Anderson: Why I left Wired - 3D Printing Will Be Bigger Than The Web
"A
flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a
place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time,
then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and
artistic expression. Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications,
social media, or viral emails." [Wikipedia accessed 11.12.12]
How do you define a church?"
Tiny nanoparticles are a huge part of our lives, for better or for worse.
“Everything, when miniaturized to the sub-100-nanometer scale, has new
properties, regardless of what it is,” says Chad Mirkin, professor of
chemistry (and materials science, engineering, medicine, biomedical
engineering and chemical and biological engineering) at Northwestern
University. This is what makes nanoparticles the materials of the
future. They have strange chemical and physical properties compared to
their larger-particle kin. The thing that matters about nanoparticles is
their scale.
Nanoscale materials are used in everything from sunscreen to
chemical catalysts to antibacterial agents--from the mundane to the
lifesaving. “I spilled wine at a Christmas party once, and I was
terrified. Red wine on a white carpet. And it wipes right up,” Mirkin
recalled. “The reason is the nano-particulate used to coat the carpet
keeps that material from absorbing into the carpet and staining the
carpet.”
On a more sophisticated side, researchers are developing nanoscale
assays used to screen for cancer, infection and even genes. Gold
nanoparticles that have been doped with DNA can be used to detect
bacteria in a person’s bloodstream, determining whether a patient has
infection and what kind. Or they can be used to detect changes in a
person’s immune system that reflect the presence of cancer. Nano-flares
can measure the genetic content of cells, and light up--or flare--when
they detect a specific cell of a doctor’s choosing, maybe cancer, stem
cells or even the reaction to a small molecule used in a new drug. ...
View the slideshow. Here are the seven examples:
Nanoparticle-Filled Ink Conducts Electricity Cancer Detectors Nano-Absorption Fighting Cancer At The Source Gene Therapy and Drug Delivery Protective Coating For Your Skin Nanomaterials In The Food Supply
The New Rice for Africa variety has become part of the debate over
whether a Green Revolution is the best approach to ensure food security
in Africa. ...
JAMBUR, The Gambia—The dissemination of the high-yielding New Rice
for Africa (NERICA) seeds has sparked contention that is a microcosm for
a central debate in global agricultural development: does Africa need
its own Green Revolution, an effort that 50 years ago saw dramatic
productivity increases through the use of new crop technologies in Asia
and Latin America?
NERICA, developed by 2004 World Food Prize winner Dr. Monty Jones,
is being promoted by the Africa Rice Center mainly in West African
countries where rice is a staple food. It is a cross between an Asian
variety, responsible for the high yield, and an African variety, which
ensures its local adaptability.
West African governments have touted NERICA as a hallmark of a new
Green Revolution and as a path to boosting rice self-sufficiency,
especially after the 2008 food price spike exposed the dangers of import
dependence. On the other side, advocates of “food sovereignty”—centered
on farmers’ control over food systems—have voiced strong opposition.
The advocacy organization GRAIN has labeled NERICA a “trap for small farmers”
who will become vulnerable to expensive chemical fertilizers and seeds,
a situation widely cited by critics of the 1960s Green Revolution.
What I’ve found in Jambur, which in 2002 became the first Gambian
village to access the new crop, is a much more nuanced picture, one that
in fact incorporates elements of each side of the debate. This suggests
what a tactical misstep it would be for food sovereignty loyalists to
completely remove themselves from engaging with a new variety just
because it has become embedded in the discourse of a new Green
Revolution. ...
Many have been inspired by Star Trek to become scientists, and some are starting to make its gadgetry a reality.
Destination Star Trek London has kicked off at the ExCeL exhibition centre,
and I'm willing to bet that among those heading down for a weekend of
pointy-eared fun, there'll be a high proportion of scientists and
engineers.
Many have been inspired by Star Trek to take up a career in science, technology or engineering.
I think the franchise deserves more respect as a science popularisation
medium – how many other prime-time TV shows would allow their
characters to toss out phrases like "I performed a Fourier analysis on
the harmonics, Captain"?
Since its inception in 1966, Star Trek
has familiarised us with the lingo and applications of science. At
least, that was the case for me. I felt pretty disenfranchised from
science at school: it wasn't until I discovered science fiction that I
realised I could understand "difficult" technical concepts.
Since
the show began, many of us have become more tech-savvy than we could
possibly have imagined at school. More than that, we're now seeing
emergent technology here on Earth that was once little more than a Star
Trek scriptwriter's dream. To get you in the mood for this weekend's
festivities, here's a roundup of some of the best Star Trek-inspired
technology.
Replicators - ... Three-dimensional printers have been on the open market commercially for most of the 21st century. ...
Transporters - Earlier this year, Nature reported that photons had been teleported 89 miles, between La Palma and Tenerife. OK, it wasn't exactly transportation ...
Bioneural circuitry - ... And in February of this year, the Scripps Research Institute published details of a DNA-based biological computer based on an original design by Alan Turing. ...
Nanites - ... They've constructed a set of nanorobots, with inbuilt chemical sensors, that can silence genes within cancerous cells. ...
Androids - Japanese scientists have created some remarkably human-looking androids,
though they wouldn't beat Data in a game of three-dimensional chess. ...
Of course, we all ready have personal communication devices. But as someone recently pointed out, while we all have communication devices, we don't see people in Star Trek constantly looking down at them and running into things. ;-) Warp drive would be pretty cool. Any other Trekkie devices that you want to see?
"Science is full of surprises. Chemist Paul Edmiston's search for a new
way to detect explosives at airports, instead, led to the creation of
what's now called "Osorb," swellable, organically-modified silica, or
glass, capable of absorbing oil and other contaminants from water. Osorb
has become the principal product of a company in Wooster called
ABSMaterials, where Edmiston is now chief scientist. With support from
the National Science Foundation (NSF), Edmiston and his colleagues at
ABSMaterials are developing water remediation technologies for cities
and industries -- everything from storm water to agricultural runoff.
Municipal water systems and companies in several U.S. states and
Canadian provinces are using Osorb. ABSMaterials is creating formulas to
address various contaminants, including hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals,
pesticides, herbicides, chlorinated solvents and endocrine disruptors."
Advocates of 'vertical farming' say growing crops in urban high-rises will eventually be both greener and cheaper.
Want to see where your food might come from in the future? Look up.
The seeds of an agricultural revolution are taking root in cities
around the world—a movement that boosters say will change the way that
urbanites get their produce and solve some of the world's biggest
environmental problems along the way.
It's called vertical farming, and it's based on one simple principle:
Instead of trucking food from farms into cities, grow it as close to
home as possible—in urban greenhouses that stretch upward instead of
sprawling outward.
The idea is flowering in many forms. There's the 12-story triangular
building going up in Sweden, where plants will travel on tracks from the
top floor to the bottom to take advantage of sunlight and make
harvesting easier. Then there's the onetime meatpacking plant in Chicago
where vegetables are grown on floating rafts, nourished by waste from
nearby fish tanks. And the farms dotted across the U.S. that hang their
crops in the air, spraying the roots with nutrients, so they don't have
to bring in soil or water tanks for the plants.
However vertical farming is implemented, advocates say the immediate
benefits will be easy to see. There won't be as many delivery trucks
guzzling fuel and belching out exhaust, and city dwellers will get
easier access to fresh, healthy food.
Looking further, proponents say vertical farming could bring even bigger
and more sweeping changes. Farming indoors could reduce the use of
pesticides and herbicides, which pollute the environment in agricultural
runoff. Preserving or reclaiming more natural ecosystems like forests
could help slow climate change. And the more food we produce indoors,
the less susceptible we are to environmental crises that disrupt crops
and send prices skyrocketing, like the drought that devastated this
year's U.S. corn crop. ...
Generally, technologies are judged on their net benefits, not on
the claim that they are harmless: The good effects of, say, the
automobile and aspirin outweigh their dangers. ...
He goes on to explain that despite sensationalist stories about the negative impact of GM foods, the scientific peer-reviewed scientific data doesn't support it. The substantial benefits get short shrift:
... So to redress the balance [of negative coverage], I thought I'd look up the estimated
benefits of genetically modified crops. After 15 years of GM
planting, there's ample opportunity-with 17 million farmers on
almost 400 million acres in 29 countries on six continents-to count
the gains from genetic modification of crop plants. A recent comprehensive report by Graham Brookes and
Peter Barfoot for a British firm, PG Economics, gives some rough
numbers. (The study was funded by Monsanto, which
has major operations in biotech, but the authors say the research
was independent of the company and published in two peer-reviewed
journals.)
The most obvious benefit is yield increase. In 2010, the report
estimates, the world's corn crop was 31 million tons larger and the
soybean crop 14 million tons larger than it would have been without
the use of biotech crops. The direct effect on farm incomes was an
increase of $14 billion, more than half of which went to farmers in
developing countries (especially those growing insect-resistant
cotton). ...
He goes on to note benefits like less fuel usage, better health and safety for workers, shorter growing cycles, better quality of food, and nearly 1 billion less pounds of pesticide being used. Furthermore, because of several factors, there is less carbon-diosice emission. His final paragraph is the kicker.
There is a rich irony here. The rapidly growing use of shale gas
in the U.S. has also driven down carbon-dioxide emissions by
replacing coal in the generation of electricity. U.S. carbon
emissions are falling so fast they are now back to levels last seen
in the 1990s. So the two technologies most reliably and stridently
opposed by the environmental movement-genetic modification and
fracking-have been the two technologies that most reliably cut
carbon emissions.
And to that final paragraph I might add the observation that many of those
who are the most adamant about catastrophic anthropogenic climate change being
unassailable science are most resistant to science that points the great
benefits and relatively small downsides of things like GM crops and fourth
generation nuclear power.
New Zealand researchers have genetically engineered a cow to produce milk free of the protein that causes allergies in children.
The milk could also prove to be healthier than normal milk as it
contains higher levels of the protein casein, which would result in
higher calcium levels and improved cheese yields from the milk.
The development targets the 2 per cent to 3 per cent of infants in
the developed world who are allergic to cows' milk proteins - used in
the production of baby formulas - in the first year of life.
The researchers add that the success of their approach suggests it may also be used to alter other traits in livestock. ...
Global grain production is expected to reach a record high of 2.4
billion tons in 2012, an increase of 1 percent from 2011 levels,
according to new research conducted by the Nourishing the Planet project for our Vital Signs Online service. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO), the production of grain for animal feed is growing the fastest—a
2.1 percent increase from 2011. Grain for direct human consumption grew
1.1 percent from 2011. ...
... Further highlights from the report:
The FAO expects global maize production to increase 4.1 percent from 2011, reaching an estimated 916 million tons in 2012.
Global rice production achieved an all-time high of 480 million tons in 2011, a 2.6 percent increase from 2010.
World wheat production is projected to drop to 675.1 million tons in
2012, down 3.6 percent from 2011, with the largest declines in feed and
biofuel utilization.
Since 1961, grain production has increased 269 percent and grain
yield has increased 157 percent, while the grain harvest area has
increased only 25 percent. This is due largely to the Green Revolution
and the introduction of high-yielding grain varieties.
To purchase your own copy of State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, please click HERE.
GrowHaus
— co-founded by Adam Brock who works in partnership with JD and
Tawnya Sawyer of Colorado Aquaponics — uses an aquaponic growing
system.
The basic components of the system are a greenhouse
containing tubs of well-fed fish and a water-circulation system that
runs under the plants or beds of produce. Fish waste is treated within
the system and converted to nutrients, which feed the plants. The plants
absorb the nutrients and purify the water, which is then recirculated
GrowHaus
is using the method — which uses an estimated 10 percent of the water
used by traditional agriculture — to produce chard, kale, mustard greens
and basil, which are distributed within the Elyria-Swansea
neighborhood where it is located.
Though the project initially
started as a way for the neighborhood to get cheap, healthy food, it is
drawing broad interest as a model for urban- and water-saving
agriculture. ...
Climate scientists will tell you droughts and other extreme weather
events is the new normal. One way or another, farming needs to adapt to a
new reality. A possible solution is vertical farming. Imagine taking a
bunch of greenhouses, stacking them one on top of each other, and
plunking it down in a city. Once dismissed as an expensive and
unrealistic idea, vertical farms are now cropping up around the world,
but huge challenges still face the young industry. Day 6 producer
Dominic Girard looks into this growing food trend. Click "Read More" for
all kinds of info related to this story.
Go to the site to listen to the radio piece. Here is a short video about vertical farming.
Managing irrigation pumps and water systems is a difficult and costly
task for many farmers in developing countries. The amount of time and
energy farmers spend watering their crops often compromises time that
could otherwise be used for family and community obligations. It also
compromises their safety at night, when they are most vulnerable to
animal predators. A new innovation from the India based company, Ossian Agro Automation, called Nano Ganesh
seeks to transform the way farmers manage their water systems by giving
them the freedom to turn pumps on and off, from any location, with
their mobile phone. ...
... In 2008 Ostwal altered the technology so that it could function over
an unlimited range granting farmers the flexibility to start and stop
the flow of water from anywhere there is a mobile connection.
Nano Ganesh also allows farmers to check the availability of
electricity to the pump and verify the on and off status of its
operation. Both of these features offer cost-saving benefits to farmers
who otherwise may not be able to shut their pumps off before their
fields have become overly saturated. This is important for two reasons.
One is that over-watering can lead to soil erosion
and nutrient depletion. The second reason is that the inability to
remotely shut-off water pumps leads to unintentional water and
electricity waste. With the help of Nano Ganesh farmers will be able to
conserve water and electricity more effectively. This will minimize the
environmental and financial costs of farming. In fact, the product description
suggests that farmers can recover the cost of the technology in just 11
days from the water and electricity savings it will produce. ...
By filling a tall order through its hydroponic farming method, Alegria
Fresh is delivering what it says is healthier and tastier produce on a
modest lot in Laguna Canyon.
LAGUNA BEACH – In a quarter-acre lot tucked into Laguna Canyon, Erik
Cutter is feeding his neighbors food he says is fresher, healthier and
safer than anything else available in Southern California.
Alegria Fresh is the first hydroponic, vertical farm on the West
Coast, and Cutter is hoping to become a model for high-yield,
resource-efficient growing. The farm – 150 7-foot-tall towers that hold
more than 8,000 plants – produces everything from arugula to zucchini,
and in only 1,200 square feet. Each plant grows in reusable coconut
fiber instead of soil, and each pot is linked to an automatic watering
system. The result is about 90 percent less water used and 10 times more
food yielded than a conventional farm. ...
... The towers allow a farm to pop up in virtually any size space, and the
hydroponics help ensure quality. With no soil, soil-borne diseases and
toxins are out of the picture. Plants are fed automatically with a
nutrient-rich solution that can be adjusted to improve health and
sweetness. ...
... The power of food, however, diminishes greatly in the time it takes to
travel from farm to table, he said. Alegria Fresh aims to get its
produce into customers' hands within two hours of harvest. After
harvesting, drivers on a produce route deliver vegetable bouquets to
subscribers' homes, starting at $20 each week. Each bouquet can be made
into about five salads. ...
“Water right now is a strain on this
planet more than carbon,” Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) Chief Executive Officer
Andrew Liveris said in an interview this month in London. “We mismanage
water terribly. It's going to be a big issue.”
But one method is growing as a way to tackle the issue.
According to Global Water Intelligence, desalination is set to become
a $17 billion industry by 2016. Just this year, it jumped to $8.9
billion from $5 billion last year. And as even more water is demanded
for energy processes like fracking, it will nearly double in four years.
Desalination equipment turns ocean water into fresh water. The process, according to Bloomberg,
dates back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but it was not to become
an industry until post-World War II. The first plant in the U.S. was
located in Freeport, Texas and built by Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) in
1961.
The process of reverse osmosis, using a membrane to remove salt, was
used in the 1990s. Though it still costs ten times as much as
traditional water sources, the cost was reduced by half since its
conception to $1 per cubic meter.
The majority of the world's desalination plants are currently in the
Middle East. There are 30 plants in China and eight in India, though
both nations have more planned for the near future.
While traditional distillation remains the most common technique,
reverse osmosis still has about 45% of the distillation market. But a
new process in the works called forward osmosis cuts down on the amount
of heat and energy necessary for the process, and it could reduce the
cost by 30% according to Modern Water Plc (LON: MWG), a company that
uses the process. ...
Instead of using reverse osmosis, which requires high-pressure pumps to force water through semi-permeable membranes, the Siemens engineers turned to electrochemical desalination.
As a result of an R&D initiative that commenced in October 2008, a
demonstration plant was built in Singapore to treat seawater to drinking
water quality. The results show that the new process reduces desalting
energy by over 50 percent compared to best available technology. The
next step for Siemens is to set up a full-scale system in cooperation
with Singapore's national water agency PUB by 2013.
However, to desalinate it for potable use is an extremely
energy-intensive process. "Our new technology marks a revolution in
seawater desalination," said Ruediger Knauf, Vice President of Siemens
Water Technologies' Global R&D.
"The results of our pilot facility show that the new process not only
functions in the laboratory but also on a larger scale in the field.
Because of its high energy efficiency and thus good CO2 footprint,
electrochemical seawater desalination can play a major role in regions
suffering from freshwater shortages." ...
... The costs of traditional infrastructure are especially pronounced in cities and regions with combined sewer systems that collect both sewage and stormwater. During heavy rainfall, these systems are often overwhelmed, pouring sewage-laden water into drinking water sources and greatly increasing water treatment costs.
Technologies like permeable pavements and rain gardens can capture, naturally treat and filter stormwater back into the ground, preventing overflows and reducing reliance on treatment centers. Chicago's existing green infrastructure, including its green alleys, diverted about 70 million gallons of stormwater from treatment facilities in 2009, according to the report.
These projects can create significant costs savings. New York City plans to build green infrastructure to cut down discharges into its combined sewer system – a project expected to save about $1.5 billion in treatment and infrastructure costs over 20 years. Replacing streets in Seattle with permeable pavement and other green infrastructure has cut paving costs nearly in half.
And by allowing natural processes to take over the work we've been building infrastructure to handle, operations and maintenance costs also fall. The report concedes that some maintenance on green infrastructure will still be required, but that it is significantly less than what's required by traditional infrastructure.
The report notes that water and waste water systems are responsible for a significant amount of energy use, representing about 3 percent of U.S. energy consumption annually. Green roofs can also reduce energy use by keeping buildings cooler in summer and cutting down the need for air conditioning, reducing indoor energy consumption by nearly 10 percent annually.
And though the upfront costs of projects like these can be high, this report shows that taking even a slightly long-term view of their benefits can greatly reduce government infrastructure costs overall.
BANGKOK, Oct 27, 2010 (IPS) - Asia’s search for ways to feed over one billion new mouths in the next 40 years is prompting experts to call for renewed faith in its wide network of irrigation systems in order to ensure adequate food production.
This push by agriculture and water experts comes at a time when concern about the region’s irrigation systems have steadily entered discussions about the impact of climate change on food security.
Rain-fed agriculture is more vulnerable to erratic weather patterns, so that the use of irrigation systems is viewed as being more dependable to farmers across the rice bowls of South Asia, South-east Asia and East Asia.
"Irrigated agriculture is a more secure platform," says Thierry Facon, senior water management officer at the Asia-Pacific office of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). "Rain-fed agriculture is less productive."
This distinction has become more stark against the backdrop of uncertain weather patterns arising from climate change. "Farmers are reluctant to invest in good seeds and fertiliser in rain-fed areas because of climate change uncertainties," Facon explained to IPS. "It is in this area that you find most of the rural poor and vulnerable populations." ...
(Reuters) - Rice farmers could boost their yields by 50 percent with a new method that uses less water Oxfam America said on Wednesday as climate change and drought threaten the staple crop.
Growing rice -- considered the major calorie source for about half the world's population -- is water-intensive, accounting for as much as one-third of the planet's annual freshwater use, said Oxfam, a development group.
Rice farmers normally rely on flooding their fields to keep seeds covered in water throughout the growing season.
But the new method, known as the System of Rice Intensification, or SRI, involves planting seedlings farther apart, keeping fields moist instead of flooding them, transplanting seedlings to fields earlier and weeding manually, Oxfam said in a report.
Farmers using SRI in parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and India have been able to produce as much as 50 percent more rice with less water, and often with less labor, said the report, written with U.S.-based nonprofit Africare and the Worldwide Fund for Nature. ...
... MARTIN FISHER, co-founder, KickStart International: It is cheap. It is
extremely robust. It won't break down. It's very lightweight. You can carry
it to the field. You can take the whole thing apart with your hands, put it
back together, because a farmer doesn't even have a screwdriver in rural Africa.
SPENCER MICHELS: Even cheaper is a hip pump that KickStart also sells.
Fisher, a mechanical engineer by training and a former Fulbright Scholar, co-
founded KickStart 10 years ago, after discovering that large-scale rural water
projects and programs to give farm equipment to poor Africans, projects he
worked on, failed after a few years.
MARTIN FISHER: It's not very cheap, because you have to set up a whole
distribution network to give things away. It completely kills local initiative.
It kills the local private sector. And people don't really appreciate things
that they get given. They don't use them fully.
SPENCER MICHELS: Instead KickStart sells its pumps to very poor
farmers, with the promise that they can make money with it.
MARTIN FISHER: Their number-one need is a way to make more money. And, so, if you're going to sell them a tool or piece of equipment, it has to be a moneymaking device. If we buy something, we're going to make sure we use that thing, and especially when you're very poor.
SPENCER MICHELS: When Fisher began to sell, rather than give away, pumps, he was flying in the face of most social theory. He was treated as a heretic by some in the aid community. But he understood that quite well.
MARTIN FISHER: I went over to Africa as a socialist and came -- after about five or six years of hitting my head against the wall, became a small-C capitalist. And the thing is that it actually worked. ...
ROME, Mar 31, 2010 (IPS) - While agricultural research has made massive strides over the years in helping the world produce more food from the same amount of land, around one in six people, the 1.02 billion hungry, have not noticed.
The populations of wealthier countries have abundant cheap food thanks to researchers' efforts and, no doubt, many more people in the developing world would be undernourished if states such as India, Mexico and the Philippines had not imported modern farming practices and technologies. These advances have not done enough, though, to help the rural poor, who account for three-quarters of the world's hungry, to feed themselves or escape from poverty.
"Poor people don't have a voice and rural people don't have a voice, urban tends to dominate and yet all of our food comes from rural areas," said Noel Magor of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), one of the participants at this week's Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) in Montpellier, France.
"Often it is considered that technology will magically make its way through to poor households and that doesn't happen. Poorer households actually get ignored by the system and so they fall by the wayside."
Research failings are only part of the reason why so many people have empty stomachs in a world of adequate aggregate food supplies, along with a series of social, gender, justice, dissemination and economic issues and long- running underinvestment in agriculture as a whole.
Nevertheless, a part of the problem they are and the obvious solution, is to turn agricultural research 'bottom-up', based on the real needs of smallholder farmers, rather than trying to make solutions developed for other demands work for them. ...
Let's not join one of the armed camps deeply suspicious of one another shouting past each other.
One of the more pleasing developments of the last decade has been the long-overdue beginning of a national conversation about food -- not just the arcane techniques used to prepare it and the luxurious restaurants in which it is served, but, much more important, how it is grown and produced.
The only problem is that so far it hasn't been much of a conversation. Instead, what we have are two armed camps deeply suspicious of one another shouting past each other (sound familiar?).
On the one side, the hard-line aggies seem convinced that a bunch of know-nothing urbanites want to send them back to Stone Age farming techniques. On the other side, there's a tendency by agricultural reformers to lump together all farms (or at least those that aren't purely organic, hemp-clad mom-and-pop operations) as thoughtless ravagers of the environment.
Well, at least we're thinking about it, so I suppose that's a start. But the issues we're facing are not going to go away, and they are too important to be left to the ideologues. What I'd like to see happen in the next decade is a more constructive give-and-take, the start of a true conversation.
With that goal in mind, I'd like to propose a few ground rules that might help move us into the next phase -- fundamental principles that both sides should be able to agree on.
* Agriculture is a business. Farming without a financial motive is gardening. I use that line a lot when I'm giving talks, and it always gets a laugh. But it's deadly serious. Not only do farmers have expenses to meet just like any other business, but they also need to be rewarded when they do good work. Any plan that places further demands on farmers without an offsetting profit incentive is doomed to fail.
* What's past is past. Over the last 50 years, American farmers performed an agricultural miracle, all but eliminating hunger as a serious health issue in this country. But that battle has been won, and though those gains must be maintained, the demands of today -- developing a system that delivers flavor as well as quantity and does it in an environmentally friendly way -- are different. ...
Artificial satellites are helping farmers boost crop yields.
FOR farmers, working out the optimal amount of seed, fertiliser, pesticide and water to scatter on a field can make, or break, the subsequent harvest. Regular laboratory analyses of soil and plant samples from various parts of the field can help—but such expertise is costly, and often unavailable. A new and cheaper method of doing this analysis, though, is now on offer. Precise prescriptions for growing crops can be obtained quickly, and less expensively, by measuring electromagnetic radiation reflected from farmland. The data are collected by orbiting satellites.
The spectrum of this radiation—which can be in the form of either natural sunlight or artificial radar—can reveal, with surprising precision, the properties of the soil, the quantity of crop being grown, and the levels in those crops of chlorophyll, various minerals, moisture and other indicators of their quality. If recent and forecast weather data are added to the mix, detailed maps can be produced indicating exactly how, where and when crops should be grown. The service usually costs less than $15 per hectare for a handful of readings a year, and can increase yields by as much as 10%.
Such precision farming using satellite-based intelligence is in its infancy. ...
Organic foods are exploding in popularity. But fears of biotechnology—and a widespread mistrust of science—won’t help efforts to create a truly sustainable agriculture.
When delegates from 192 nations arrive in Copenhagen in December for the UN COP15 summit, they will confront a 181-page draft negotiation text, 2,000 bracketed passages still in dispute, and just 11 days in which to come to some sort of consensus. To power them through these discussions, Denmark has promised a smorgasbord of ecologically minded fare: All water will be tap (not bottled), tea and coffee will be fair trade, and the food menu will be no less than 65 percent organic.
Though undoubtedly well-intentioned, this last provision is troubling, but not because anyone really cares about the provenance of Ban Ki-Moon’s turnip greens. Rather, it suggests a willful and dangerous ignorance about the tenuous state of global agriculture, and the prospects for feeding 9 billion people while also addressing biodiversity loss, water shortage, and, yes, climate change. Organic foods are enjoying skyrocketing popularity in the US and Europe, as are their ill-defined sidekicks, “natural,” “whole,” and “real” foods. Yet popular notions that these foods—and the agriculture that begets them—are at once better for people and for the planet turn out to be largely devoid of experimental support. Worse still, “organophilia” tends to go hand-in-hand with technophobic skepticism towards the very sorts of scientific approaches most likely to supercharge an ailing food system while leaving our planet intact. ...
... World prices of food generally declined during the 20th century when world population and world GDP per capita grew enormously. The reason for these diverse trends is that productivity in the production of food expanded at a more rapid rate than did the demand for food. The advances in production were due to the use of new and more effective fertilizers, better farm machines, and many applications of scientific knowledge to improving the productivity of agriculture. Developed countries spent considerable resources on subsidies to farmers to help keep their prices up, not down. Even though it may not be possible to predict the exact nature of future agricultural innovations, one can reasonably expect similar growth in world farm output during the next several decades, especially if food prices rise by a significant amount.
Rapid growth in future world GDP is likely to greatly raise the prices of oil and other fossil fuels, unless concerns about global warming induce major steps to reduce the demand for these fuels. Rapid growth in world output is also likely to sharply raise the demand for cereals, meat, and other foods in developing countries. However, I have tried to show why food is different from fossil fuels and minerals, like copper, in that the supply of food is not limited by natural bounds on overall quantity. Rather, the efforts and ingenuity of farmers and researchers are able to greatly increase world food supply to meet even very large increases in the world demand for food.
Bar codes that let shoppers trace their food back to the field.
DESPITE its preoccupation with hygiene, America’s dirty secret is that it is one of the most dangerous places in the developed world to eat. Every year 76m Americans become ill because they have consumed contaminated food—a staggering 26,000 cases per 100,000 population. In Britain, where people consume far fewer hamburgers, generally eat out less often and buy nowhere near as many ready-meals, there are 3,400 cases of food poisoning per 100,000 population annually. France is safer still, with only 1,200 annual instances per 100,000 people.
Most cases of food poisoning are mild, with victims recovering in a day or two. Sometimes, however, foodborne illnesses kill or cause permanent health problems. In the United States around 5,000 people die and a further 325,000 wind up in hospital each year as a result of food poisoning. The annual cost to the country, in medical treatment and lost productivity, is more than $35 billion. ...
... Tracking down the source of a foodborne infection is notoriously difficult. The vast majority of incidents are transitory in nature—a leaky toilet, a wandering animal, a momentary lapse of hygiene in the field or factory. But mounting concern about this lack of traceability has prompted the food industry itself, as well as the American government, to take action.
In October 2007 producers in the United States and Canada joined forces to launch a plan called the Produce Traceability Initiative. This uses bar-codes to track fruit and vegetables through the distribution system. Although participation in this particular plan is voluntary, it may soon become compulsory to provide traceability of some sort.
That is because lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sweeping new powers to oversee food production. A bill introduced in the House of Representatives by John Dingell, a Democratic congressmen from Michigan, was passed in July, though it has yet to be taken up by the Senate. But with the White House, the food industry and the FDA behind it, the bill could be law before the end of the year. If it is, then companies selling food in America will have to adopt a tracking system that can identify the farmer, the field, the picker, the packer, the shipper, the wholesaler and the shop—all within two business days of a case of food poisoning being reported. ...
Norman Borlaug, the man known as the father of the Green Revolution in agriculture, has died in the US state of Texas aged 95.
Prof Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for agricultural innovation and the development of high-yield crops.
The Green Revolution helped world food production more than double between 1960 and 1990 with Asia, Africa and Latin America in particular benefiting.
The Nobel Institute said he had helped save hundreds of millions of lives.
Prof Borlaug died late on Saturday evening at his home in Dallas from complications with cancer, said a spokesperson for Texas A&M University, where he had worked. ...
In terms of lives saved and improved, Borlaug is possibly the must unsung hero of the Twentieth Century.
Industrial biotech: A “third wave” of biotechnology is arriving. Will it be able to avoid a poor reception from the general public this time around?
FOR a long time the public has perceived biotechnology to mean dangerous meddling with the genes in food crops. But biotechnology is of course about much more than transgenic food: it also encompasses the use of microbes to make pharmaceuticals, for example. The many benefits of the first wave of biotech products, in medicine, have unfortunately been overshadowed by the supposed risks of biotech’s second wave, in agriculture. Might its third wave—so-called industrial biotech, also known as “white biotech” or “green chemistry”—resolve biotech’s image problem? ...
Technology and development: The humble cooking stove is being overhauled around the world with the help of “user focused” design
IF USER demand were the sole driver of innovation, the biomass cooking stove would be one of the most sophisticated devices in the world. Depending on which development agency you ask, between two-and-a-half and three billion people—nearly half the world’s population—use a stove every day, in conjunction with solid fuel such as wood, dung or coal. Yet in many parts of the world the stove has barely progressed beyond the Stone Age.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that toxic emissions from cooking stoves are responsible for causing 1.6m premature deaths a year, half of them among children under five years old. In China 83m people will die from lung cancer and respiratory disease over the next 25 years, according to a recent report from Harvard University. Research from the University of California, Berkeley, on stoves in India, Guatemala and Mexico has found links between indoor air-pollution from stoves and increased incidence of pneumonia, cataracts and tuberculosis.
After an initial wave of stove design that sought to reduce deforestation through improved efficiency, scientists and engineers have turned their attention to stoves that minimise the levels of noxious emissions to which stove users—mainly women and children—are exposed. Crucially, they have also recognised the need to take account of the way in which stoves are actually used.
One of the principal problems the designer of a stove must solve is to optimise the thermodynamics. Typical stoves—including the basic “three-stone fires” still used in many parts of the world—draw in too much air during the combustion process, which cools the fuel and means more of it is needed. Even with more advanced designs, poorly insulated combustion chambers can add to the cooling effect and thus to the inefficiency. The challenge, explains Bryan Wilson of Envirofit, an organisation developing stoves for India (pictured above), is to optimise a stove’s air-fuel ratio and minimise heat transfer to improve combustion efficiency.
Envirofit’s latest stoves, introduced this year in a project sponsored by the Shell Foundation, use a carburettor design, with chimneys that draw air in through precisely calibrated inlets. Another model, the “Oorja”, developed by BP and the Indian Institute of Science, has an integrated battery-powered fan to direct air to wood pellets in the combustion chamber, improving efficiency. ...
KUNMING, China (AP) -- Zeng Yawen's outdoor laboratory in the terraced hills of southern China is a trove of genetic potential - rice that thrives in unusually cool temperatures, high altitudes or in dry soil; rice rich in calcium, vitamins or iron.
"See these plants? They can tolerate the cold," Zeng says as he walks through a checkerboard of test fields sown with different rice varieties on the outskirts of Kunming, capital of southwestern China's Yunnan province.
"We can extract the cold-tolerant gene from this plant and use it in a genetically manipulated variety to improve its cold tolerance," Zeng says.
In a mountainous place like Yunnan, and in many other parts of the developing world, such advantages can tip the balance between hunger and a decent living. And China is now ready to tip that scale in favor of genetically modified crops. ...
Planaltino, Brazil - As a young soil scientist, Edson Lobato looked out at the vast savanna of central Brazil and imagined fields of soy, corn, and cotton where most saw an inhospitable mass of red earth and tangled trees.
His friends and family urged him to take his agronomy degree elsewhere, somewhere it would make a difference. But he joined Brazil's agricultural and livestock research agency (Embrapa) and relocated to the country's heartland, called the cerrado, where there was, at the time, little besides wooded plains, termites, and deer.
Embrapa then set out to prove that those soils could produce like the most efficient cropland of Idaho. The agency poured millions into research. It sent teams of scientists like Mr. Lobato to the American Midwest to glean as much know-how as possible.
Today his vision has helped turn Brazil into the world's largest exporter of soybeans, beef, chicken, orange juice, ethanol, and sugar.
The significance for the globe is huge. Two years ago, Mr. Lobato and two others received the World Food Prize for "one of the great achievements of agricultural science in the 20th century." As Asian diets and quality of life improve, putting pressure on available land and contributing to a spike in food prices earlier this year, Brazil could be one of the answers to the global food crisis.
Yet today it is emerging as more than just a supplier. Its scientists are now bringing the technologies of tropical agriculture to other parts of Latin America, and to Africa and Asia. In 2006, Embrapa opened its first foreign office in the West African nation of Ghana to lead the effort. Lobato assessed soils in Mozambique this year. And in May, Embrapa dispatched its first team to Venezuela to help boost food production. ...
WASH MELKASA, Ethiopia - Hussein Ibrahim walks solemnly past tidy rows of bright green cabbages, vines bursting with tomatoes and trees weighed down with plump avocados.
This modern, thriving farm - a rarity in drought-ravaged Ethiopia - filled Hussein with envy. Like so many other farmers across the Horn of Africa, he has no hope for his own crops this year.
"We are behind all the other people in the world," said Hussein, who tends his land in southern Ethiopia the way his ancestors did hundreds of years ago - with rain, if it comes, and oxen, as long as they're healthy.
To break out of endless cycles of drought, poverty and hunger, experts say, Africa desperately needs to modernize its age-old farming techniques. But the vast sums in foreign aid to Africa go toward feeding the hungry, and very little is left for improving farming so that Africans will cease to depend on handouts.
The situation is not impossible. A decade ago, a "green revolution" helped millions of farmers in Asia and Latin America emerge from poverty with basic innovations such as fertilizer, improved irrigation and hybrid seeds.
But Africa's farms, which employ more than half the labor force, remain one-fourth as productive as their counterparts around the world....
NORTH CANTON, Ohio — A simple change to the design of the gallon milk jug, adopted by Wal-Mart and Costco, seems made for the times. The jugs are cheaper to ship and better for the environment, the milk is fresher when it arrives in stores, and it costs less.
What’s not to like? Plenty, as it turns out.
The jugs have no real spout, and their unorthodox shape makes consumers feel like novices at the simple task of pouring a glass of milk.
“I hate it,” said Lisa DeHoff, a cafe owner shopping in a Sam’s Club here.
“It spills everywhere,” said Amy Wise, a homemaker.
“It’s very hard for kids to pour,” said Lee Morris, who was shopping for her grandchildren.
But retailers are undeterred by the prospect of upended bowls of Cheerios. The new jugs have many advantages from their point of view, and Sam’s Club intends to roll them out broadly, making them more prevalent. ...
...The company estimates this kind of shipping has cut labor by half and water use by 60 to 70 percent. More gallons fit on a truck and in Sam’s Club coolers, and no empty crates need to be picked up, reducing trips to each Sam’s Club store to two a week, from five — a big fuel savings. Also, Sam’s Club can now store 224 gallons of milk in its coolers, in the same space that used to hold 80. ...
The Millennium Villages Project is pricey. But it may hold answers to tackling the global food crisis.
Sauri, Kenya - The dry months of April, May, and June were once equated with hunger for Agre Ranyondo and his neighbors in this community of 55,000 people.
Mr. Ranyondo, a farmer, waited for the rains to come before he could plant corn on his six-acre plot. Often the 10 bags of corn he harvested through two planting seasons weren't enough to feed his family of eight.
But the cycle of hunger was broken last year.
The change began in 2005, when Ranyondo met with agricultural extension workers dispatched by the Millennium Villages Project (MVP), an international organization conceived by economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute. He was given seeds better suited to the region, fertilizers, and was taught how to use them.
By 2007, Ranyondo had quintupled his annual output to 50 bags of corn, 20 of which he sold for cash and the other 30 he used to feed his family.
"We used to starve for these months, but now we are through starving," Ranyondo says. "The technical know-how in our farming is much improved."
Sauri is one of 80 Millennium Villages in 10 countries in Africa, where proven technologies, funded by donors, governments, and the community itself, are deployed to lift villagers in "hunger hot spots" out of poverty.
The project is not cheap. Each village operates on a budget of $110 per person per year over five years. The total cost: at least $1.5 million, a higher expenditure of aid than most development projects.
But increasingly these villages look to be oases of food security in Africa within the larger context of the global food crisis, which is hitting developing countries hard. Increasingly, the strategy for dealing with this crisis is to help small-scale farmers. ...
...Rejecting old customs as well as the modern reliance on genetic engineering, Dr. Uphoff, 67, an emeritus professor of government and international agriculture with a trim white beard and a tidy office, advocates a management revolt.
Harvests typically double, he says, if farmers plant early, give seedlings more room to grow and stop flooding fields. That cuts water and seed costs while promoting root and leaf growth.
The method, called the System of Rice Intensification, or S.R.I., emphasizes the quality of individual plants over the quantity. It applies a less-is-more ethic to rice cultivation.
In a decade, it has gone from obscure theory to global trend — and encountered fierce resistance from established rice scientists. Yet a million rice farmers have adopted the system, Dr. Uphoff says. The rural army, he predicts, will swell to 10 million farmers in the next few years, increasing rice harvests, filling empty bellies and saving untold lives. ...
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