International agricultural research to reduce food risks: case studies on aflatoxins

Despite massive expansion of human and livestock populations, fuelled by agricultural innovations, nearly one billion people are hungry and 2 billion are sickened each year from the food they eat. Agricultural and food systems are intimately connected to health outcomes, but health policy and programs often stop at the clinic door. A consensus is growing that the disconnection between agriculture, health and nutrition is at least partly responsible for the disease burden associated with food and farming. Mycotoxins produced by fungi are one of the most serious food safety problems affecting staple crops (especially maize and groundnuts). Aflatoxins, the best studied of these mycotoxins, cause around 90,000 cases of liver cancer each year and are strongly associated with stunting and immune suppression in children. Mycotoxins also cause major economic disruptions through their impacts on trade and livestock production. In this paper we use the case of fungal toxins to explore how agricultural research can produce innovations, understand incentives and enable institutions to improve, simultaneously, food safety, food accessibility for poor consumers and access to markets for smallholder farmers, thus making the case for research investors to support research into agricultural approaches for enhancing food safety in value chains. We first discuss the evolution of food safety research within the CGIAR. Then we show how taking an epidemiological and economic perspective on aflatoxin research connects health and nutrition outcomes. Finally, we present three case studies illustrating the traditional strengths of CGIAR research: breeding better varieties and developing new technologies

The Church of England and the 1870 Elementary Education Act

Set against the background of mid-nineteenth century concerns about an erosion in the denomination’s standing and influence, this article highlights the differing responses to the matter from parties within the Church of England, which determined their degree of sympathy with proposals for an education act. Specifically, we point out that the debate over schooling between co-religionists centred upon rival understandings of religious education: ‘denominational’ and ‘undenominational’. We examine the claims of some contemporary High Church leaders and later commentators, that acceding to elements of the 1870 Act, specifically the ‘conscience’ and ‘Cowper-Temple’ clauses, represented a pyrrhic victory and that in doing so the Church appeared to resile from its place in society. However, we argue that, though the Church could no longer be described as ‘England’s educator’, it retained considerable influence within the evolving school system and in policymaking. Moreover, we point out that ‘denominational’ religious education continued to be championed, having diffusive influence, well into the twentieth century. Finally, just as understanding nineteenth-century ecclesiastical history and religious culture is crucial to understanding this moment in the educational past, we argue that a thoroughgoing religious historical literacy is essential to understanding educational policy development regardless of the period under scrutiny