- FAO slideshow on Egyptian rabbits.
- Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development calls for papers on urban agriculture. Will some look at the intersection with art?
- And IAALD re-launches its journal.
- “…students receiving online encouragement from the national soccer star reported going to bed at night looking forward to receiving their iron supplements the following morning.” Great, of course. But why not iron-rich foods?
- Speaking of which, there’s a new FAO publication on “Foods counting for the Nutritional Indicators Biodiversity.” No, I don’t quite understand it myself. Something to do with what foods count towards CBD biodiversity targets. Well, it’s the International Year of Biodiversity, after all.
- Indeed it is. And Nature makes the most of it. See what I did there? No agriculture though, natch.
- Extension gets a forum?
- Biotech can be useful in organic farming? Say it ain’t so!
- More evidence of shifting baselines in people’s perceptions of biodiversity. How quickly they forget.
- Will they forget what forests look like?
- The Vavilov Institute potato collection needs a thorough going over. Taxonomically, that is.
- Making salt in mangrove ponds in Fiji. Nice video. Not agrobiodiversity, but it’s my blog and I like seeing Fiji on it.
- CGIAR abandons agrobiodiversity? Say it ain’t so. Anyone?
- Speaking of megaprogrammes, there’s going to be one on agricultural adaptation to climate change, right?
- “So, how does huitlacoche taste? Does it matter?? LOOK AT IT! I guess it would be fair to say it doesn’t taste as truly horrible as it looks. The flavor is elusive and difficult to describe, but I’ll try: ‘Kinda yucky.'” Don’t believe him! And read the rest.
Carnival Time: Science for the People No. 27
Yes indeedy, the latest edition of Scientia Pro Publica — science for the people — the blog that celebrates good science blogging is up at Melliferax. As usual, there’s a load of interesting stuff there, though not much of it is specifically agricultural. We should note, however, that Melliferax is herself a bee-keeper, and where would we be without bees? That said, two pieces caught my eye. In Always eat fruits before a meal?? the science behind false claims, Akshat Rati dissects the ludicrosity of an email that is apparently doing the rounds but that has so far had the good sense to leave me alone. And in Evolution: watching speciation occur Christie Wilcox gives not one but two examples of evolution in action, one from a neglected and absolutely delicious and beautiful crop, salsify, and one from a crop pest, the apple maggot fly.
Livestock biodiversity and conservation gets a global view
Animal Genetics has a Special Issue on “A Global View of Livestock Biodiversity and Conservation,” coordinated by Paolo Ajmone-Marsan and Licia Colli. It includes a review of genetic diversity in farm animals, and an assessment of what climate change means for the characterization, breeding and conservation of livestock. It’s all because of a 3-year EU project called GLOBALDIV.
It is formed by a core group of partners who participated in past EU or continental scale projects on Farm Animal Genetic Resources characterization and conservation. It also involves a much larger number of experts that are actively contributing to the success of the initiative. The project aims at improving the conservation, characterisation, collection and utilisation of genetic resources in agriculture in EU and beyond, complementing and promoting work undertaken in the Member States at the Community level and facilitating co-ordination of international undertakings on genetic resources in agriculture.
As one of the more info-savvy CG Centres, ILRI will no doubt have comments and analysis online very soon.
I got the news via Twitter.
Quibbling while the world burns
The Soil Association has an ax to grid, sure. But it seems also to have a point — sort of. In a report out a couple of days ago it notes that people have been saying that people have said that food production needs to double by 2050, because of population increase, westernization of consumption patterns and climate change. It then goes on to suggest that people have not said that at all, and that other people should stop saying they had.
Research into the doubling figure shows it doesn’t actually exist in the stated source — and that it is based on a number of incorrect assumptions. The scientific basis for the claims are based on a report which on close inspection actually says production would need to increase by around 70%, not 100%. As the Government states this is a significant difference. The closest the report comes to the doubling claim is projecting that meat consumption in developing countries, except China, could double. The scientific paper that the 50% by 2030 claim is based on appears to have been withdrawn by the authors.
So, first, is this a straw man? It seems not. People really have been quoting the doubling-by-2050 figure.
Second, is it true that the key document usually cited as the source, FAO’s 2006 publication World Agriculture: Towards 2030/2050, does not make the doubling claim? Well, you can check for yourself, but I did some rapid searching and found no such claim. The only reference to a doubling or 100% increase by 2050 came in the context of meat consumption in developing countries (minus China) on page 5.
Some of this growth potential will materialize as effective demand and their per capita consumption could double by 2050, i.e. faster than in the past. It is unlikely that other major developing countries will replicate the role played by China in the past in boosting the world meat sector.
The Soil Association report says that the “only specific statements [in the FAO document] about large percentage increases in demand are focused on the developing world (where the increases in population will be) and concerned only with meat and cereal production, not all food.” In particular:
The largest projected increases in food demand are for cereals and for meat and dairy products. For cereals, there is a projected increase of 1 billion tonnes annually over the 2 billion tonnes of 2005, a 50% increase in cereals by 2050.
Which seems an accurate enough precis of the statement on page 5 of the FAO document:
…an increase of world production by another 1.1 billion tonnes annually will be required by 2050 over the 1.9 billion tonnes of 1999/01 (or 1 billion tonnes over the 2 billion of 2005).
But. FAO also says that “the absolute increases involved should not be underestimated” and “[a]chieving it should not be taken for granted, as land and water resources are now more stretched than in the past and the potential for continued growth of yield is more limited.”
So, sure, a 50% increase in cereal production in developing countries is not the same as a doubling of food production globally, and we should not use figures for which the evidence is thin at best. But it still represents a significant challenge, in particular to breeders. I hope the Soil Association is going to help the world meet it, and not just snipe from the sidelines.
Would you like some broccoli with that sesame (street)?
Annals of Important Research: An Economist blog post alerts me to a study that has apparently roiled the blogosphere, and that I slept through. Elmo 1 can make broccoli attractive to children. 2 Bottom line:
[I]n the control group (no characters on either food) 78 percent of children participating in the study chose a chocolate bar over broccoli, whereas 22 percent chose the broccoli. However, when an Elmo sticker was placed on the broccoli and an unknown character was placed on the chocolate bar, 50 percent chose the chocolate bar and 50 percent chose the broccoli. 3
Then you dig (or rather, you read someone who dug) and discover that the fight wasn’t broccoli vs chocolate, it was photo of broccoli vs photo of chocolate. But then that’s OK, because on the basis of 104 kids looking at photos of foods, the Sesame Street Foundation scored a big grant to see how a larger number of kids would relate to actual food items. As the Man Who Dug reports:
Hmmm. And what happened to this study? Beats me. If it ever got completed, I can’t find it. That might be because I don’t know how to search for it properly, or it might be because it produced null results and therefore got tossed in the same dustbin as all the other null results that make for boring reading and never find a home. If anybody knows anything about it, let us know in comments.
Commenters did indeed supply some extra information, including this study, which showed that 10 low-income African American children were more likely to choose and eat a healthy food after playing an “advergame” in which the goal was to get their computer to character to eat healthier foods and beverages.
Every little helps.
Ya don’t suppose parental example might have something to do with the foods children choose, do ya?
The data suggest that children begin to assimilate and mimic their parents’ food choices at a very young age, even before they are able to fully appreciate the implications of these choices.