Dietary calcium and zinc deficiency risks are decreasing but remain prevalent

Globally, more than 800 million people are undernourished while >2 billion people have one or more chronic micronutrient deficiencies (MNDs). More than 6% of global mortality and morbidity burdens are associated with undernourishment and MNDs. Here we show that, in 2011, 3.5 and 1.1 billion people were at risk of calcium (Ca) and zinc (Zn) deficiency respectively due to inadequate dietary supply. The global mean dietary supply of Ca and Zn in 2011 was 684 ± 211 and 16 ± 3 mg capita−1 d−1 (±SD) respectively. Between 1992 and 2011, global risk of deficiency of Ca and Zn decreased from 76 to 51%, and 22 to 16%, respectively. Approximately 90% of those at risk of Ca and Zn deficiency in 2011 were in Africa and Asia. To our knowledge, these are the first global estimates of dietary Ca deficiency risks based on food supply. We conclude that continuing to reduce Ca and Zn deficiency risks through dietary diversification and food and agricultural interventions including fortification, crop breeding and use of micronutrient fertilisers will remain a significant challenge

Economic and Environmental Impacts of Harmful Non-Indigenous Species in Southeast Asia

10.1371/journal.pone.0071255PLoS ONE88-POLN

Distant agricultural landscapes

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625-014-0278-0This paper examines the relationship between the development of the dominant industrial food system and its associated global economic drivers and the environmental sustainability of agricultural landscapes. It makes the case that the growth of the global industrial food system has encouraged increasingly complex forms of “distance” that separate food both geographically and mentally from the landscapes on which it was produced. This separation between food and its originating landscape poses challenges for the ability of more localized agricultural sustainability initiatives to address some of the broader problems in the global food system. In particular, distance enables certain powerful actors to externalize ecological and social costs, which in turn makes it difficult to link specific global actors to particular biophysical and social impacts felt on local agricultural landscapes. Feedback mechanisms that normally would provide pressure for improved agricultural sustainability are weak because there is a lack of clarity regarding responsibility for outcomes. The paper provides a brief illustration of these dynamics with a closer look at increased financialization in the food system. It shows that new forms of distancing are encouraged by the growing significance of financial markets in global agrifood value chains. This dynamic has a substantial impact on food system outcomes and ultimately complicates efforts to scale up small-scale local agricultural models that are more sustainable.The Trudeau Foundation || Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

Global trends in milk quality: implications for the Irish dairy industry

The quality of Irish agricultural product will become increasingly important with the ongoing liberalisation of international trade. This paper presents a review of the global and Irish dairy industries; considers the impact of milk quality on farm profitability, food processing and human health, examines global trends in quality; and explores several models that are successfully being used to tackle milk quality concerns. There is a growing global demand for dairy products, fuelled in part by growing consumer wealth in developing countries. Global dairy trade represents only 6.2% of global production and demand currently outstrips supply. Although the Irish dairy industry is small by global standards, approximately 85% of annual production is exported annually. It is also the world's largest producer of powdered infant formula. Milk quality has an impact on human health, milk processing and on-farm profitability. Somatic cell count (SCC) is a key measure of milk quality, with a SCC not exceeding 400,000 cells/ml (the EU milk quality standard) generally accepted as the international export standard. There have been ongoing improvements in milk quality among both established and emerging international suppliers. A number of countries have developed successful industry-led models to tackle milk quality concerns. Based on international experiences, it is likely that problems with effective translation of knowledge to practice, rather than incomplete knowledge per se, are the more important constraints to national progress towards improved milk quality

Crop Yield Gaps: Their Importance, Magnitudes, and Causes

Future trajectories of food prices, food security, and cropland expansion are closely linked to future average crop yields in the major agricultural regions of the world. Because the maximum possible yields achieved in farmers’ fields might level off or even decline in many regions over the next few decades, reducing the gap between average and potential yields is critical. In most major irrigated wheat, rice, and maize systems, yields appear to be at or near 80% of yield potential, with no evidence for yields having exceeded this threshold to date. A fundamental constraint in these systems appears to be uncertainty in growing season weather, thus tools to address this uncertainty would likely reduce gaps. Otherwise, short-term prospects for yield gains in irrigated agriculture appear grim without increased yield potential. Average yields in rain-fed systems are commonly 50% or less of yield potential, suggesting ample room for improvement, though estimation of yield gaps for rain-fed regions is subject to more errors than for irrigated regions. Several priorities for future research are identified