Credit Infusion as a Small Farmer Development Strategy -The Ibiruba Pilot Project in Southern Brazil

Small farmer development programs have often followed a strategy of simply acting as a "broker" between credit institutions and borrowers. This approach stems from an assumption that institutions and farmers would both "profit" from getting together. The bare bones of the strategy is simply the demonstration of this mutually beneficial relationship. The present study reports on a pilot project that followed this strategy in bringing together private banking institutions and small farmers in Southern Brazil

Endothelium-Dependent Delivery of Insulin to Muscle Interstitium

Insulin contributes to skeletal muscle glucose uptake by increasing blood flow and recruiting perfused capillaries. In this issue of Cell Metabolism, Kubota et al. (2011) show that deletion of IRS-2 in endothelial cells in mice causes impaired transcapillary insulin transport, decreased insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in muscle, and mild glucose intolerance