Food waste costs North America $162 billion

Waste Management World: Food waste in America amounts to $162 billion and between 31% to 40% of American food supply goes to waste, primarily in homes, stores and restaurants, according to a new study. The findings, from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, were published in a report in the journal PLOS ONE.

Top food wasted, by weight, include fruit and vegetables yet nearly 75% of Americans believe that they waste less food than the national average, according to the findings.

Furthermore, as a result the food waste places a huge drain on the environment when approximately 30% of the fertiliser, 35% of the fresh water and 31% of the cropland in the US was used to grow food that was eventually wasted.

The first nationally representative consumer survey focused on wasted food sheds some light on factors affecting consumers’ waste. The survey, administered to 1,010 American consumers in April 2014, covered awareness, knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to wasted food.

Despite the large environmental impacts related to wasted food, most survey respondents listed environmental concerns last when ranking reasons to reduce food waste, with just 10% calling them “very important.” Instead, respondents said that saving money and setting a positive example for children were the top motivators for wanting to throw out less food....

Wasted food, shot by Assianir, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Researchers connect climate change to food safety

Wageningen UR: Climate change can affect our food safety in a number of ways. In a European study, researchers at Wageningen University and Ghent University (Belgium) state that there is often a relationship between long-term changes in temperature and rainfall and vegetable and fruit contamination. For example, flooding may result in increased concentrations of harmful bacteria that can be quickly broken down again by UV light. Similarly, in one region fungi that produce toxins may increase due to global warming, while they decrease in other regions. The researchers have published their findings in a special issue of the scientific journal Food Research International that they edited.

In the future, in a changing climate, will we be able to continue eating safe vegetables and fruit or will this come under pressure? This is the question asked by the Ghent and Wageningen researchers. They have brought together the latest information and scientific findings on the impact of climate change on food safety in the special issue. The special issue was initiated by researchers and includes several papers from the  Veg-i-Trade project financed by the European Union.

These are the first studies into the relationship between climate change and food safety. The researchers find that there is every reason to expand this research. They believe that more scenario analyses, which have been used for years in climate study in general, should also be included in food safety research. One of the first scenario analyses was included in the Veg-i-Trade study.

Field studies and statistical analyses within the Veg-i-Trade project show that there is in fact often a relationship between vegetable and fruit contamination and climate variables such as temperature and rainfall. A preliminary study into toxic
substances from fungi shows, for example, that an increased risk of contamination of tomatoes may be expected at the end of the 21st century in Poland. In Spain, however, it will be too hot then for this kind of fungi, so the risk of contamination will be lower. Another study shows that in a flooded lettuce field the likelihood of flooding is increased by climate change, resulting in higher concentrations of harmful bacteria. UV light will then cause these concentrations to decrease again rapidly.

One of the conclusions from a study into possible forms of adaptation to climate change is that adaptation to future climate change will have to be very different for different countries, sectors and companies. According to this research the focus here will have to be on increasing the adaptive capacity....

A lettuce field, shot by Daniel Ventura, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

More Filipinos pushed into poverty by Haiyan, high rice prices

Terra Daily via AFP: Super typhoon Haiyan and surging rice prices pushed the number of Filipinos living in poverty to 25.8 percent in the first half of last year despite strong economic growth, official data released Friday showed.

The 1.2 percent rise was compared to the 24.6 percent of people in the Philippines who were considered poor a year earlier, the Philippine Statistics Authority said in a statement. The increase followed Haiyan which struck in November 2013, killing more than 7,350 people and ravaging an area as big as Portugal in the nation of around 100 million people.

The government agency deemed a family of five who lived off 8,778 pesos ($199.3) a month -- roughly $1.33 per person a day -- to be poor.

Nevertheless the Philippines, one of Asia's fastest-growing economies, saw the average income of Filipinos rise by 6.4 percent in the first six months of 2014, Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said in the statement. "The very high prices of food wiped out the gains in per capita income," he added. The areas ravaged by Haiyan saw the most substantial jumps in poverty levels, he said....

Increasingly acidic oceans threaten world's mussel populations

The Guardian (UK) via Press Association: The world’s mussel population could be under threat as climate change causes the oceans to become more acidic, scientists have warned. Mussel shells become more brittle when they are formed in more acidic water, Glasgow University has reported in the Royal Society journal Interface.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes the oceans to become more acidic and reduces the concentration of the minerals mussels need to generate their shells, according to scientists. However, they also found that mussels may have an in-built biological defence mechanism which boosts shell development when water temperatures rise by 2C.

Dr Fitzer said: “What we’ve found in the lab is that increased levels of acidification in their habitats have a negative impact on mussels’ ability to create their shells. “We worked with colleagues in our School of Engineering to examine the toughness of the shells of the mussels in the more acidic water against those in control conditions.

“What we found was that the calcite outer shells of the mussels past a certain threshold of acidity was stiffer and harder, making it more brittle and prone to fracture under pressure, and the aragonite inner shell became softer.

The shellfish industry is worth more than £250m a year to the UK economy with a large part accounted for by mussels and oysters, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs reported in 2012....

A mussel shell from the Netherlands, shot by Emma Versteegh, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

Uganda faces agriculture output drop

Paul Tentena in East African Business Week: Agriculture is repeatedly described as the backbone of Uganda’s economy. But in terms of productivity, it has the lowest output per worker researchers say. According to Edward Bbaale, a researcher with Centre for Basic Research and School of Economics at Makerere University, it  implies that the majority of workers in Uganda are holders of low paying jobs.

This is an issue, which means that there are low prospects of overcoming the problem of poverty by those employed in agriculture. “Even when Uganda records growth in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, youths remain jobless while growth in the services and industrial sectors is generating jobs for them. So, is it necessary for so many Ugandans to engage in agriculture? Especially, at this point in time, when the demographic changes of the population are generating a window of opportunity to raise per capita income and thus reduce poverty?” Bbaale said.

Bbaale, in his research paper entitled ‘Is Uganda’s Growth Profile Jobless?’, points out that more people should be engaged in other productive activities and sectors rather than agriculture if Uganda has to reduce on its poverty levels and create jobs for the young people.  He however, cautions that agriculture still remains important because it is a major employer in Uganda.

...Overall, the promising sectors for poverty reduction through productivity and employment generation in Uganda by order of importance are; services sector, industrial sector and manufacturing. If adults manage to engage in these sectors, the demographic shift will have an important poverty reducing impact.

The services sector was employing over 2 million Ugandans, that is 19% in 2006 and 22% in 2011 of the labor force. It had all its contributions positive; contributed 39% to output per worker and 14% to the growth in employment. Since agriculture generates low income for its workers this puts a policy question on the productivity of jobs held in the agricultural sector....

A handful of millet in Uganda, shot by Pete Lewis/Department for International Development (UK), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

New thinking needed on food aid for refugees in Africa

Kristy Siegfried in IRIN: The World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have launched an urgent appeal to address a funding shortfall that has already resulted in food ration cuts for a third of all African refugees. As of mid-June, nearly 800,000 refugees in 22 African countries have seen their monthly food allocations reduced, most of them by more than half.

WFP is appealing for US$186 million to maintain its food assistance to refugees in Africa through the
end of the year, while UNHCR is asking for $39 million to fund nutritional support and food security activities to refugees in the affected countries. A joint report by WFP and UNHCR released last week warns that failure to prevent continued ration cuts will lead to high levels of malnutrition, particularly among children and the most vulnerable.

Worst hit have been refugees in Chad, Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan where a total of nearly half a million refugees are experiencing ration cuts of 50 to 60 percent.

The funding shortfall is not the result of shrinking budgets for either WFP or UNHCR, but a substantial increase in the need for food assistance generated by an unprecedented number of refugee emergencies in 2014. “The amount of large-scale, simultaneous emergencies has never been so high to the best of my memory,” said Paul Spiegel, UNHCR’s deputy director of programme support and management, speaking to IRIN from Geneva...

Yams at a refugee camp in Chad, shot by Mark Knobil, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Food system that fails poor countries needs urgent reform, says UN expert

Mark Tran in the global development blog at the Guardian (UK): The existing food system has failed and needs urgent reform, according to a UN expert who argues there should be a greater emphasis on local food production and an overhaul of trade policies that have led to overproduction in rich countries while obliging poor countries – which are often dependent on agriculture – to import food.

In his final report , Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, offers a detailed critique of an industrial system of agriculture that has boosted food production over the past 50 years, yet still leaves 842 million – 12% of the world's population – hungry.

"Measured against the requirement that they should contribute to the realisation of the right to food, the food systems we have inherited from the 20th century have failed," he told the UN human rights council. "Of course, significant progress has been achieved in boosting agricultural production. But this has hardly reduced the number of hungry people."

The right to food is defined as the right of every individual to have physical and economic access at all times to sufficient, adequate and culturally acceptable food that is produced and consumed sustainably, preserving access to food for future generations...

In India, a "metate" is used to process grain, shot by Fotokannan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Food prices soar in Cameroon's cities as water runs short

Elias Ntungwe Ngalame in Thomson Reuters Foundation: ... many residents of Yaounde and Douala [in Cameroon] are struggling to cope with a sudden rise in food prices over the past three months, believed to have been triggered by recent climate instability.

The situation is evoking memories of 2008, when a sharp increase in food prices caused riots in the cities of Yaounde and Douala, leaving more than 100 dead according to the government.

The shortage of food has been compounded by prolonged water scarcity that has put many local farmers in peril. Experts say severe drought triggered by a long absence of rain has cut projected yields of crops like cassava, plantain, cocoyam, maize and rice.

“The climate around Yaounde and Douala, the two most populated cities in Cameroon, has been very unstable in the last three years, making it very difficult for farmers to plan for their planting,” said Michael Andong, an agriculture technician with the Ministry of Agriculture in Yaounde.

“Many farmers erroneously plant after signs of unusual early rains in February that disappear sooner … leaving the crops to dry up. This climate abnormality has really affected food crop production, causing scarcity and an increase in prices,” Andong said...

A market in Yaounde, Cameroon

Food, energy and water demand integrated approach

T.V. Padma in SciDev.net: Improvements in food, energy and water sectors need to be tackled together in an integrated manner to address climate change impacts, says Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, chair of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“I hope people will understand the integration of food, energy and water (sectors). Each one of these has to be seen as part of the whole,” Pachauri tells SciDev.Net ahead of the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, being organised by The Energy and Resources Research Institute this week (6—8 February).

Pachauri observed that as populations and incomes continue to grow, the demand on the three sectors was also growing, calling for efficient use of resources in all three areas and attention to the technological and economic issues linked to them.

“I think that what we hope to do is ensure that all these three (sectors) are seen as the integrated elements of a much larger complex. And I think that we would have to make sure that each one of these is seen in terms of how developments are going to take place in the future,” he said. He cited as examples of the inter-linkages among the three areas as the fact that energy was needed to provide water for irrigation and how water was needed to carry out any agriculture.

Lisa Grande, United Nations Development programme (UNDP's) resident representative in India, said in a message that food, energy and water security were the greatest challenges facing India, and the "magnitude of these problems is serious"....

"Abundance" by Rubens

The year that resilience gets real

Roger-Mark De Souza and Meaghan Parker in New Security Beat: ... [W]e must understand the environmental and demographic trends that increase our vulnerability. The areas of the Philippines hit by Haiyan, for example, had high population densities in vulnerable coastal and urban areas and degraded coastal forests and mangroves, leaving more people than ever exposed to the brunt of the typhoon’s storm surge. Similarly, the coastal communities devastated by Sandy were long ago stripped of their protective wetlands and natural contours by development. Three key trends will continue to drive global insecurity in 2014:

Population dynamics: The world is projected to add another 82 million people this year, 24 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where total fertility rates continue to outpace the rest of the world. In parts of the Middle East and Asia, changing age structures and ethno-religious demographic shifts will affect the potential for conflict and thus the ability of communities to respond to shocks, both natural and manmade.

Climate change impacts: We will continue to experience climate change-related shocks, including quick hits – floods, disease outbreaks, and food price increases – and slower-burning ones like drought, food price volatility, and environmental degradation. The impacts of these shocks on the poorest and most vulnerable will increase both in intensity and frequency. This year more attention will be paid to how developed and emerging middle-income countries (Brazil, India, China) can mitigate those impacts by curbing their emissions or by providing meaningful assistance through climate-resilient development programs.

The food-water-energy nexus: Today, one in eight people in the world suffer from chronic hunger, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where one in five are undernourished. About 1.2 billion people live in areas of water scarcity. More than 1.3 billion people don’t have electricity, and about 2.6 billion use wood and other solid fuels for cooking, leading to deforestation and illness from indoor air pollution. In these already stressed communities, more shocks will lead to even poorer health and slower economic growth. But these impacts will not just affect the poorest. An estimated 20 percent of today’s global economic output is based in countries that will face high risks from the impacts of climate change by the year 2025. The interconnected global economy means the effects of complex crises will ripple around the world....

A hand water pump in China, shot by 劉久弘, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Scientists map food security and self-provision of major cities

Seed Daily via SPX: Wealthy capital cities vary greatly in their dependence on the global food market. The Australian capital Canberra produces the majority of its most common food in its regional hinterland, while Tokyo primarily ensures its food security through import. The Copenhagen hinterland produces less than half of the consumption of the most common foods.

For the first time, researchers have mapped the food systems of capital cities, an essential insight for future food security if population growth, climate change and political instability will affect the open market. Several partners in the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) are behind the study.

"The three major cities in our study achieve food security by different degrees of self-provision and national and global market trade. It is important to understand such food flows in order to relate it to the energy challenge and the risk of national political unrest caused by food shortages and its effect on the open food trade," says Professor Dr. John R. Porter from the University of Copenhagen, who is leading author on the study recently published online in the journal Global Food Security.

John R. Porter is also the main lead author of the forthcoming report from the IPCC Working Group 2 on food production systems and food security, which will be released following governments' review, in March 2014.

Higher farmland yields have influenced the cities self-provisioning over the past 40 years, but overall the ability of cities to feed themselves is unlikely to keep pace with increasing population, the research shows....

The Tsukiji market in Tokyo, shot by Arian Zwegers, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Global partnership to tackle food safety

A press release from the World Bank: More than 70 countries, private companies, international organizations, trade associations, academic institutions, and non-governmental groups are meeting in Singapore at the Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP) 2nd Annual Conference to evaluate its first-year achievements and discuss future plans to scale up and shape the world’s response to food safety challenges.

There is an ongoing world food safety problem that threatens every economy and food company, challenging governmental regulatory authorities, sickening millions of people each year, introducing barriers to trade, and hurting corporate bottom lines. As a result, the international community faces the critical task of strengthening food safety capacity in developing and middle income countries in order to safeguard public health, while promoting food security and economic development.

“Safe food should not be a luxury for so many at our global table,” said JuergenVoegele, World Bank Director for Agriculture and Environmental Services.“Everyone involved in the global food chain has an obligation to ensure food safety.  At the same time, meeting international or industry standards creates both challenges and opportunities for poor farmers and agri-businesses competing in these growing markets.Our partners recognize that no single organization acting alone can have the impact we all want.  By building the understanding, knowledge, and motivation to fully address food safety risks, this unique partnership can help to decrease food-borne hazards, reduce poverty, and improve food security.”

Uniquely, the GFSP actions are supported by a World Bank multi-donor trust fund that can accept funding from both public and private contributors. The GFSP’s mission is to create a new paradigm of public-private collaboration for food safety capacity building. It aims to reduce risks to consumers and businesses and increase the benefits to both public health and the economy by strengthening food safety protections and supporting effective and efficient global supply chains....

Campylobacter bacteria are the number-one cause of bacterial food-related gastrointestinal illness in the United States. To learn more about this pathogen, ARS scientists are sequencing multiple Campylobacter genomes. This scanning electron microscope image shows the characteristic spiral, or corkscrew, shape of C. jejuni cells and related structures. Shot by De Wood, Pooley, USDA, Agricultural Research Service, EMU.

2013 Ocean Health Index shows food provision remains an area of great concern

A press release from UC Santa Barbara: In the 2013 Ocean Health Index (OHI) –– an annual assessment of ocean health led by Ben Halpern, a research associate at UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management –– scientists point to food provision as the factor that continues to require serious attention.

The OHI defines a healthy ocean as one that sustainably delivers a range of benefits to people now and in the future based on 10 diverse public goals. The 2013 score of 65 out of 100 demonstrates the ongoing need for more effective management of this precious resource.

"I'm encouraged because people, organizations and governments are paying attention to the Ocean Health Index and what they can learn from it," Halpern said. "Not only has the OHI been adopted as an indicator to gauge how well countries are meeting their biodiversity conservation targets, but it is beginning to inform the United Nations World Ocean Assessment and was named by the World Economic Forum as one of two endorsed tools for helping achieve sustainable oceans."

Goal scores out of a possible 100 for categories that make up the OHI ranged from a low of 31 for natural products to a high of 95 for artisanal fishing opportunities. Other categories include food provision (33), carbon storage (74), coastal protection (69), coastal livelihoods and economies (82), tourism and recreation (39), sense of place (60), clean waters (78) and biodiversity (85).

With a score of only 33 out of 100, food production from wild harvest and mariculture (cultivation of marine organisms in the open ocean) was the second-lowest-scoring goal and one of the most important resources from the sea for people around the world. A score of 100 is given for wild-caught fisheries if the biomass of landed stocks at sea is within ±5 percent of a buffered amount below the biomass that can deliver maximum sustainable yield. For mariculture, the number of tonnes of product per coastal inhabitant living within 31 miles of the coast is calculated for each country, and all countries above the 95th percentile receive scores of 100. Countries that have never had mariculture are not scored...

Map from the UC Santa Barbara website. The higher the number, the healthier the ocean

Wasted food is world's third-biggest carbon emitter after China and US

ABC News (Australia): The food the world wastes accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than any country except for China and the United States, according to a United Nations report. It says every year about a third of all food for human consumption, around 1.3 billion tonnes, is wasted, along with all the energy, water and chemicals needed to produce it and dispose of it.

Almost 30 per cent of the world's farmland, and a volume of water equivalent to the annual discharge of Europe's River Volga, are in effect being used in vain. In its Food Wastage Footprint report, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated the carbon footprint of wasted food was equivalent to 3.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

If it were a country, it would be the world's third biggest emitter after China and the US, suggesting that more efficient food use could contribute substantially to global efforts to cut greenhouse gases to limit global warming.

In the industrialised world, much of the waste comes from consumers buying too much and throwing away what they do not eat. In developing countries, it is mainly the result of inefficient farming and a lack of proper storage facilities....

A dumpster full of bagels, shot by Sachi Yoshitsugu, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

New generation of genetically engineered crops found to drastically increase use of toxic pesticides

The Center for Food Safety in Eco Watch: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has quietly approved the first of a new generation of genetically engineered (GE) crops resistant to more toxic herbicides. The first crop to pass the low regulatory bar was a Bayer soybean variety genetically engineered to withstand direct application of the herbicide isoxaflutole (IFT), which according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a “probable human carcinogen.”

Center for Food Safety (CFS) projects at least a four-fold rise in national use of this toxic herbicide thanks to these new GE soybeans, and a host of related human health and environmental harms. Additional scientific detail about this and other new GE crops can be found here.

“Bayer’s new GE soybeans represent the next wave in agricultural biotechnology—crops that dramatically increase farmers’ use of and dependence on toxic herbicides,” said Bill Freese, science policy analyst at Center for Food Safety.

Dubbed FG72, these GE soybeans were developed by Bayer CropScience, the second-largest agrichemicals firm in the world.

The EPA has designated IFT as a “probable human carcinogen” based on animal tests in which it triggered liver and thyroid tumors in rats. IFT and its major breakdown product persist in surface waters, and despite its limited use, at present is frequently detected in tests. It is also toxic to aquatic organisms, wild plants and important crops (e.g. vegetables.). IFT is so toxic that three states—Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota—rejected the Bayer-EPA label for this herbicide as insufficiently protective of human health, the environment and neighboring crops....

The structure of isoxaflutole

Egypt in turmoil faces looming food crisis

Terra Daily via UPI: Egypt faces severe food shortages in the months ahead and its military rulers are pinning their hopes on a bumper wheat crop to see the country through.

There are fears that even if the home-grown harvest is up to expectations and produces the 9.5 million metric tons officials predict, that won't be enough to feed the country's 84 million people.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the upcoming crop will total 8.7 million tones, 10 percent lower than the Egyptians forecast, and warned several "knowledgeable interlocutors" expect the crop to produce only 6 million to 7 million metric tons.

Bassem Ouda, the minister of supplies in the government of President Mohamed Morsi -- who was ousted by the army July 3 -- admitted last week the state has less than two months' supply of imported wheat in stock, or about 500,000 metric tons.

The government has 3 million metric tons of Egyptian wheat from the spring harvest, which could last until October at current rates of consumption. But because of growing financial problems and difficulties accessing foreign currency as the political crisis deepens, Egypt's access to foreign wheat is dwindling.

That means bread shortages, and with about 40 percent of the population living below the poverty line -- subsisting on heavily subsidized bread that sells at the equivalent of 1 U.S. cent a loaf -- that could trigger widespread social unrest....

Pompeii’s Pillar in Alexandria, Egypt, built in 297 CE, in honor of Emperor Diocletian. He brought wheat to the country during a time of famine. The pillar is set on a stone base 25 feet square and 15 feet high. Alexandria, Egypt. Shot by Dennis Jarvis, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Bioenergy and food security need linked policy, says UN

Rachel Mundy in SciDev.net: Biofuels' impact on global food security can be lessened by linked food and energy policies, says a panel of independent experts that is also calling for more research and development. Biofuels, and bioenergy more generally, are plant-derived agricultural sources of transport fuel, or of energy for electricity generation, cooking and heating.

'First generation' biofuels rely on food crops, and their markets can help or hinder in terms of whether people have access to sufficient food — for example by increasing job opportunities and income, or by increasing food prices and land losses. To assess these impacts, the UN Committee on World Food Security asked the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on Food Security and Nutrition to draft a report, which was launched last week (26 June).

The report, 'Biofuels and Food Security', calls for coordinated food, biofuel and bioenergy policies that prevent biofuels from compromising international food security. "It is artificial to divide food and energy policies," says Vincent Gitz, HLPE coordinator.

For example, sugar cane can be used for food or for ethanol fuel. Similarly, molasses can become food or can produce heat and energy for rural homes without access to grid electricity. The report argues that national biofuel policies should sit within a broader combined food security and energy security strategy that uses ratified certification schemes to ensure sustainable production....

Corn stover tar from pyrolysis by microwave heating. This shot is by Alf Inge Myhre Tunheim

OECD-FAO expect slower global agricultural production growth

A press release from the OECD: Global agricultural production is expected to grow 1.5% a year on average over the coming decade, compared with annual growth of 2.1% between 2003 and 2012, according to a new report published by the OECD and FAO today.

Limited expansion of agricultural land, rising production costs, growing resource constraints and increasing environmental pressures are the main factors behind the trend. But the report argues that farm commodity supply should keep pace with global demand.

The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2013-2022 expects prices to remain above historical averages over the medium term for both crop and livestock products due to a combination of slower production growth and stronger demand, including for biofuels,

The report says agriculture has been turned into an increasingly market-driven sector, as opposed to policy-driven as it was in the past, thus offering developing countries important investment opportunities and economic benefits, given their growing food demand, potential for production expansion and comparative advantages in many global markets.

However, production shortfalls, price volatility and trade disruption remain a threat to global food security. The OECD/FAO Outlook warns: “As long as food stocks in major producing and consuming countries remain low, the risk of price volatility is amplified. A wide-spread drought such as the one experienced in 2012, on top of low food stocks, could raise world prices by 15-40 percent.”

China, with one-fifth of the world’s population, high income growth and a rapidly expanding agri-food sector, will have a major influence on world markets, and is the special focus of the report. China is projected to remain self-sufficient in the main food crops, although output is anticipated to slow in the next decade due to land, water and rural labour constraints....

View from Bukowica hill, Nowotaniec, farmland, parish and main market, Lipiec. Poland, shot by Marek Silarski, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Investigators link poultry contamination on farm and at processing plant

Seed Daily via SPX: Researchers at the University of Georgia, Athens, have identified a strong link between the prevalence and load of certain food-borne pathogens on poultry farms, and later downstream at the processing plant. They report their findings in a manuscript published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

"This study suggests that reducing foodborne pathogen loads on broiler chicken farms would help to reduce pathogen loads at processing, and may ultimately help to reduce the risk of foodborne illness," says Roy Berghaus, an author on the study.

"This is important because most of our efforts towards reducing foodborne pathogens are currently focused on what happens during processing. Processing interventions are effective but they can only do so much."

Salmonella and Campylobacter bacteria cause an estimated 1.9 million food-borne illnesses in the US annually, and poultry is a major source of both. Earlier studies have linked pathogen prevalence on the farm and at processing, but none has measured the strength of the associations between pathogen loads, according to the report.

In the current study, Salmonella and Campylobacter detected at the processing plant were found in farm samples 96 and 71 percent of the time, respectively....

Cultures of salmonella and e. coli, shot by Cyb-cd, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Reducing waste of food: A key element in feeding billions more people

Seed Daily via SPX: Families can be key players in a revolution needed to feed the world, and could save money by helping to cut food losses now occurring from field to fork to trash bin, an expert said. He described that often-invisible waste in food - 4 out of every 10 pounds produced in the United States alone - and the challenges of feeding a global population of 9 billion in a keynote talk at the 245th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

"We will need another 'Green Revolution' to feed the world by 2050," said John Floros, Ph.D., referring to the development of high-yield, disease-resistant breeds of grain and other agricultural innovations that took root in the 1960s. "That will mean scientific innovations, such as new strains of the big three grains - rice, wheat and corn - adapted for a changing climate and other conditions. It also will require action to reduce a terrible waste of food that gets too little attention."

Floros cited estimates that in many developing countries up to half of the food harvested from farmers' fields is lost before reaching consumers. He is dean of the College of Agriculture at Kansas State University. That waste can occur due to spoilage from improper storage of grain during transportation or from pests. Rats and mice alone eat or spoil 20 percent of the world's food supply due to contamination with their urine and feces.

"A different kind of waste occurs in the United States and some other developed countries," Floros said. "Developed countries have much more efficient systems for preserving, storing, transporting and protecting food from spoilage and pests. But as a nation - households, supermarkets, restaurants, other food-service providers - we throw away about 4 out of every 10 pounds of food produced each year."...

Banquet food going to waste, shot by Celiafung, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license