The agriculture-nutrition-income nexus in Tonga

Increasing reliance on imported foods, limited access to affordable nutritious local foods, and exposure to climate change and natural disasters are negatively impacting the health, well-being and livelihoods of Tongans. More than 50% of agricultural land is fallow. Oceanic and coastal fisheries resources are being depleted. The private sector is reluctant to increase investments in food processing facilities. 99% of the population is at high or moderate risk of developing noncommunicable diseases (NCDs); obesity, cardio-vascular disease, diabetes and hypertension are prevalent. Limited coordination exists among the various agencies implementing policies and programmes that address the agriculture, food and nutrition challenges. Key recommendations are give in this Technical Brief to meet the above challenges

Burden of disease calculation, cost of illness analysis and demand for death: a theoretical review

The works of Murray and co-workers on calculating Burden of Disease (BoD), and even the analysis of Cost of Illness (CoI), to fully understand the priority areas for public health intervention, have sparked controversies in health economics. This paper joins in these controversies. It brings together the methodologies for BoD calculation; Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY), which is Years of Life Lost (YLL) + Years of LifeLived in Disability (YLD), as well as analyzes the CoI; Direct Health Care Cost (DHC), Direct Non Health Cost (DNHC), Indirect Non Health Care Cost (INHC), Indirect Health Care Cost (IHC). Added to the criticisms found in literature, the paper posits reasons why BoD calculation and CoI analysis may even prove to be more difficult with diseases of the tropic regions in developing countries. There are data unavailable and unlike the diseases of the temperate regions, which are less prevalent and thus easy to quarantine, diseases of the tropic regions are usually of high prevalence, making quarantine impossible and making the exercise very expensive. The paper introduces the demand for death for Activities of Daily Living (ADL) measured disability as being pioneered by Igberaese and co-workers, as a way of eliminating the BoD and CoI once and for all. It makes DALY only equal to YLL, as YLD approaches zero. DALY will simply be the number of years of life lost due to mortality. It has removed the entire burden that he and the relatives, including that of his caregiver would have suffered if he had not died, but continued to live in the state of ADL disability. Demand for death also enlarges IHC, which is the future savings on health care cost as a result of premature death. DHC approaches zero, DNHC also approaches zero while INHC remains constant. This is also a great gain, as the individual‘s relatives and the society can channel such resources and energy to other uses that would benefit the household and the economy.Keywords: Burden of disease calculation, Cost of illness, Demand for death, Disability adjustment lif

Fertilizer and fungicides: Effects on wild blueberry growth, insect attack, and leaf spot disease incidence

The goal of our three-year field study (two replicated two year trials) was to evaluate the influence of fertility and disease management practices commonly implemented by Maine wild blueberry growers during the prune year. Our treatments reflected grower practices. We tested applications of chlorothalonil (formulated as Bravo®), pyraclostrobin and boscalid (formulated as Pristine®), pyraclostrobin and boscalid with diammonium phosphate fertilizer (formulated as DAP®), and a non-treated control. Measured responses included sap-feeding hemipteran insects, fungal leaf spot pathogens, premature flowering, stem growth characteristics, flower bud cluster production, leaf retention, foliar nutrients, and yield. Among plant growth measures that represent potential yield, only stem length responded consistently over both trials. Plots treated with Pristine + DAP had significantly greater stem length compared to the other three treatments. Plots treated with Pristine only were not different than Bravo treated plots, but stems were significantly longer than the non-treated control. The fungicide, Pristine, and the fertilizer, DAP applied in the prune year enhanced leaf spot disease in both years; however, the combination of Pristine and DAP did not consistently effect yields. We found a significant and diverse community of sap-feeding hemipteran incidence in the 2016 trial, but not in the 2015 trial. Only in the 2016 trial did the Pristine and DAP treatment enhance sap-feeding bugs. Multivariate analysis of variance provided evidence that leaf spot pathogens and sap feeding insect pests responded positively to nitrogen concentration in foliage. We also found that fungicides do not compensate for the enhanced disease levels brought about by fertilizer application