The 2015-2016 El Niño event: expected impact on food security and main response scenarios in East and Southern Africa

El Niño is a periodic climate phenomenon defined by anomalously warm sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean which affect local weather worldwide and generally leads to increased drought risk at global level. In 2015, since July a strong El Niño is being observed with increasing intensity in September and October. It is expected to last for the first 3 months of 2016 and could reach a very high level of intensity in this period. To date, it has already affected climate in many parts of Asia and in the Northern parts of East Africa, causing serious rainfall deficits. Although the impact on agriculture is not directly proportional to the intensity of the climatic anomalies, the event is expected to impact East and Southern Africa in different ways. In East Africa, for the bimodal areas, El Niño events in the second half of the year usually lead to wetter than average conditions and are generally beneficial for agriculture. In other areas with a long crop season in the second half of the year, such as parts of Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea, it can cause drier than average conditions followed by rainfall at harvesting time causing drying problems. For both bimodal and single season zones it can lead to flooding in riverine areas and increase the risk of livestock diseases. On the contrary, in Southern Africa, strong El Niño events frequently cause drought and reduce crop production and this effect could be particularly dangerous considering the low crop production of this region in the 2014-2015 season. These risks need to be taken into consideration for response planning in East and Southern Africa and this report lists some main recommeJRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resource

Quantitative methods for integrated food and nutrition security measurements. Lessons to be learned!

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) jointly organized an International Conference on Quantitative Methods for Integrated Food and Nutrition Security Measurements. The conference provided a platform for researchers, academics, professionals and decision-makers to define the state of the art for quantitative measurement of food and nutrition security (F&NS) by identifying the main practical challenges, sharing innovative methods and modelling techniques, and exploring best practices to scale up multi- and cross-sectoral F&NS collaboration and coordination at country, regional and global level. Moreover, in hosting an interdisciplinary forum, the conference offered the opportunity for participants to forge innovative partnerships for the development and promotion of improved methodologies to support evidence-based F&NS policies and decision-makers.JRC.D.5-Food Securit

Quantitative Methods for Integrated Food and Nutrition Security Measurement

Despite the importance of Food and Nutrition Security, great challenges remain to be addressed worldwide to reduce and eradicate hunger and malnutrition. The most recent report on the State of Food Insecurity in the World (2018) stated that, for developing regions taken as a whole, the share of undernourished people in the total population has recently increased in the period 2015-17 to 10.9% compared to its lowest (10.6%) in 2015. Although there has been substantial progress in the last decade, almost 821 million people are still undernourished globally. In part, the inability to tackle the problems relates to the lack of timely and more spatially explicit information to inform decision-making, humanitarian and development initiatives. On the other hand, monitoring progress of policies and actions to combat hunger and malnutrition requires innovative and practical measurements that take into account food and nutrition security (FNS) updated information. The availability of joint measurements for FNS is still low for the great demand of information in this subject. Nonetheless, some efforts have initiated in recent years by researchers and practitioners. Thus, in 2017 the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) jointly organizing an International Conference on Quantitative Methods for Integrated Food and Nutrition Security Measurements. The conference provided a platform for researchers, academics, professionals and decision makers to define the state of the art for quantitative measurement of food and nutrition security (F&NS). The research work and keynotes presented helped identifying the main practical challenges, innovative methods or modeling techniques, and exploring best practices to scale up multi and cross-sectoral F&NS collaboration and coordination at country, regional and global level. Moreover, in hosting an interdisciplinary forum, the conference offered the opportunity for participants to forge innovative partnerships for the development and promotion of improved methodologies to support evidence-based F&NS policies and decision-making. The conference gathered research work mainly from Africa but also from Asia and included 80 participants from Africa, Asia and Europe. This document summarize the presentations, which included keynotes and research projects, included here according to their order in the program of the conference. Research projects presentations are summarized presenting when possible, their main motivation, methods and results, or else their title and authors for those under publication in scientific journals.JRC.D.5-Food Securit

Agroecological practices supporting food production and reducing food insecurity in developing countries: A study on scientific literature in 17 countries

This report represents the initial effort to structure existing knowledge about agroecology as farming and food system in support of the EC Knowledge Centre on Food and Nutrition Security (https://ec.europa.eu/knowledge4policy/global-food-nutrition-security_en). Scientific literature has been screened on a selection of developing countries in which food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture represent a focal sector for EU intervention (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, Lao PDR, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Nicaragua, Niger, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Zimbabwe). In total, 172 documents hae been synthesised, a country brief has been prepared for each investigated country, and some general conclusions have been drawn. Overall, the majority of analysed publications focuses on small scale, extensive farming systems that produce food at subsistence levels and for sale on local markets. This includes smallholder farming producing staple crops (millet, sorghum, yam, etc.) or vegetable gardening for local markets. The agroecological practices that are mostly studied are: agroforestry, intercropping (or mixed cropping), introduction of legumes in rotations, soil and water conservation practices (mulching, return of crop residues, zaï holes etc.), use of animal manure, biocontrol methods to mitigate chemical pesticide use. At least 50% of the analysed papers report a positive contribution of agroecological practices to food security, mostly due to improved yields and/or a better economic situation of producers. The improvement of soil quality is key to improve yields and consequently income and food security; this can be achieved using various practices including the use of residue mulch from tree leaves in agroforestry, as well as crop mixtures or intercropping and longer more diversified crop rotations. Moreover, higher on-farm crop species diversity often results in more diversified diets. Diversified crop systems, including the introduction of agroforestry, improves household nutritional status and has positive links to better health conditions. On the other hand, the lack of access to inputs is an important limitation to the improvement of soil fertility (manure, mineral fertilizer, leaf litter, etc.), which remains a major hindrance for food security. The agroecological cultivation of cash crops, post-harvest practices and crop-livestock integration were overall lacking in the scientific analyses, as well as the assessments of fully agroecological systems compared to individual agroecological practices or groups of practices. The report identifies three factors required for the substantial development of agroecology at the farm level: more financial support from the government, greater scientific knowledge on novel agroecological practices, and a higher market value for agroecological products.JRC.D.5-Food Securit

Progressive Polycomb Assembly on H3K27me3 Compartments Generates Polycomb Bodies with Developmentally Regulated Motion

Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are conserved chromatin factors that maintain silencing of key developmental genes outside of their expression domains. Recent genome-wide analyses showed a Polycomb (PC) distribution with binding to discrete PcG response elements (PREs). Within the cell nucleus, PcG proteins localize in structures called PC bodies that contain PcG-silenced genes, and it has been recently shown that PREs form local and long-range spatial networks. Here, we studied the nuclear distribution of two PcG proteins, PC and Polyhomeotic (PH). Thanks to a combination of immunostaining, immuno-FISH, and live imaging of GFP fusion proteins, we could analyze the formation and the mobility of PC bodies during fly embryogenesis as well as compare their behavior to that of the condensed fraction of euchromatin. Immuno-FISH experiments show that PC bodies mainly correspond to 3D structural counterparts of the linear genomic domains identified in genome-wide studies. During early embryogenesis, PC and PH progressively accumulate within PC bodies, which form nuclear structures localized on distinct euchromatin domains containing histone H3 tri-methylated on K27. Time-lapse analysis indicates that two types of motion influence the displacement of PC bodies and chromatin domains containing H2Av-GFP. First, chromatin domains and PC bodies coordinately undergo long-range motions that may correspond to the movement of whole chromosome territories. Second, each PC body and chromatin domain has its own fast and highly constrained motion. In this motion regime, PC bodies move within volumes slightly larger than those of condensed chromatin domains. Moreover, both types of domains move within volumes much smaller than chromosome territories, strongly restricting their possibility of interaction with other nuclear structures. The fast motion of PC bodies and chromatin domains observed during early embryogenesis strongly decreases in late developmental stages, indicating a possible contribution of chromatin dynamics in the maintenance of stable gene silencing

Targeting of T/Tn Antigens with a Plant Lectin to Kill Human Leukemia Cells by Photochemotherapy

Photochemotherapy is used both for solid tumors and in extracorporeal treatment of various hematologic disorders. Nevertheless, its development in oncology remains limited, because of the low selectivity of photosensitizers (PS) towards human tumor cells. To enhance PS efficiency, we recently covalently linked a porphyrin (TrMPyP) to a plant lectin (Morniga G), known to recognize with high affinity tumor-associated T and Tn antigens. The conjugation allowed a quick uptake of PS by Tn-positive Jurkat leukemia cells and efficient PS-induced phototoxicity. The present study was performed: (i) to evaluate the targeting potential of the conjugate towards tumor and normal cells and its phototoxicity on various leukemia cells, (ii) to investigate the mechanism of conjugate-mediated cell death. The conjugate: (i) strongly increased (×1000) the PS phototoxicity towards leukemic Jurkat T cells through an O-glycan-dependent process; (ii) specifically purged tumor cells from a 1∶1 mixture of Jurkat leukemia (Tn-positive) and healthy (Tn-negative) lymphocytes, preserving the activation potential of healthy lymphocytes; (iii) was effective against various leukemic cell lines with distinct phenotypes, as well as fresh human primary acute and chronic lymphoid leukemia cells; (iv) induced mostly a caspase-independent cell death, which might be an advantage as tumor cells often resist caspase-dependent cell death. Altogether, the present observations suggest that conjugation with plant lectins can allow targeting of photosensitizers towards aberrant glycosylation of tumor cells, e.g. to purge leukemia cells from blood and to preserve the normal leukocytes in extracorporeal photochemotherapy

Neuro-Fuzzy Modeling for Crop Production Estimation

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics of neural networks in forecasting crop (wheat) yield using remote sensing and other data. We use the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). The input to ANFIS are several parameters derived from the crop growth simulation model (CGMS) including soil moisture content, above ground biomass, and storage organs biomass. In addition we use remote sensing information in the form of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). ANFIS has only one output node, the yield. In other words a single number is sought. An additional difficulty in predicting yield is that remote sensing data do not go long back in time. Hence any predicting effort is forced to use a very limited number of past years in order to construct a model to forecast future values. The system is trained by leaving one year out and using all the other data. We then evaluate the deviation of our estimate compared to the yield of the year that is left out. The procedure is applied to all the years and the average forecasting accuracy is given.JRC.G.3-Agricultur

Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Technical Manual Version 2.0

The purpose of this Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Technical Manual Version 2.0 is to provide food security analysts with technical standards and guidelines for conducting IPC analysis. Version 2.0 introduces revised standards based on field application and expert consultation over the past several years. The manual is targeted to technicians/practitioners. The manual is not an overview of the broader fields of food security, nutrition and livelihoods analysis. It is a prerequisite that IPC practitioners have expertise in these and related fields.JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resource

Developing a Simple Operational Multi Step Procedure for Quantitative Yield/Production Estimation

Based on the experience of the Monitoring Agriculture with Remote Sensing (MARS) project in Europe, in 2001 the European Commission decided to enlarge the monitoring activities to other regions of the world. The MARS-FOOD group was established to support the Food Aid and Food Security policies of the European Commission. The methodologies developed for crop monitoring combine remote sensing and meteorological data, which can be used directly in a GIS environment or as input for crop growth simulation models (CGMS and FAO-CSWB). Several techniques are used for extracting crop specific temporal profiles of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and additionally dry matter production maps are calculated according to the Monteith approach. Both remote sensing and agrometeorological indicators are then used together with agricultural statistics for crop yield forecasting. A new method has been recently developed by MARS-FOOD to produce quantitative yield forecasts for regions with generally low data availability by using a multistep procedure. The method starts with a time series analysis of the historical yield to have a first broad prediction range. Similarity analysis is then used to identify the year with the most similar crop growing conditions over a time series. The next step is a regression analysis involving the different meteorological and remote sensing indicators available. Finally, based on the results of the previous 3 steps, the most likely yield value is estimated. The method is still in a test phase, but is already used in a preoperational way in the MARS-FOOD crop monitoring bulletins for the Mediterranean Basin, Russia and Central Asia and Somalia.JRC.G.3-Agricultur

Prognozirovanie Urozhainosti Selskohoziaistvennyh Kultur s Ispolzovaniem Neironnyh Setei (Forecasting Farm Crop Yield by the Use of Neural Networks)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics of neural networks in forecasting crop (wheat) yield using remote sensing and other data. We use the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). The input to ANFIS are several parameters derived from the crop growth simulation model (CGMS) including soil moisture content, above ground biomass, and storage organs biomass. In addition we use remote sensing information in the form of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). ANFIS has only one output node, the yield. In other words a single number is sought. An additional difficulty in predicting yield is that remote sensing data do not go long back in time. Hence any predicting effort is forced to use a very limited number of past years in order to construct a model to forecast future values. The system is trained by leaving one year out and using all the other data. We then evaluate the deviation of our estimate compared to the yield of the year that is left out. The procedure is applied to all the years and the average forecasting accuracy is given.JRC.G.3-Agricultur