Agroecosystem management for improved human health : applying principles of integrated pest management to people

Also published in: New Directions in Animal Production Systems. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Animal Science, July 5-8, 1998, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Edited by R.Blair, R. Rajamahendran, L.S. Stephens, M.Y. YangDuring the past century, both the agricultural and health sciences have become compartmentalized making great technical advances in relatively specialized technologies that generated significant increases in food production and reductions in human diseases. Although the primary purpose of agriculture is to maintain human health and human health depends upon agriculture, there have been few efforts to integrate the two. At a time when both realms of study are questioning the sustainability of their respective achievements, the concept is emerging that effective agroecosystem management may provide a cost-effective approach to improving human health. This hypothesis builds on an enhanced understanding of how the state and condition of agroecosystems links to human health. Experience gained by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) reveals a number of essential methodological elements required to support research intended to test this hypothesis. It suggests that the principles of integrated pest management that have been successful developed and applied in agriculture may be applicable to improving human health in the context of agroecosystems

Economic importance and environmental challenges of the Awash River Basin to Ethiopia

Presented during the USCID water management conference held on October 13-16, 2004 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The theme of the conference was "Water rights and related water supply issues."Includes bibliographical references.Ethiopia's agriculture currently depends on rainfall with limited use of water resources. Highly variable rainfall, frequent floods and droughts, and limited storage capacity continue to constrain the ability of the country to produce reliable food supplies in a country that is relatively rich in water and land resources. The Awash Valley has been the major focus of medium and large scale irrigated agriculture developments since the 1950s, and presently has over 70 percent of Ethiopia's non-traditional irrigation. In addition, there are traditional and non-traditional small-scale irrigation systems within the valley, and major dams to improve the management of water for agriculture and produce hydropower have been constructed. Furthermore, this economic activity has produced major secondary benefits to the valley area. With the continuing decline of the productivity of the rain-fed agricultural lands and the anticipated doubling of food demands over the next two decades, improved water management in agriculture, including irrigation is of paramount importance. Numerous authors, policy makers and other observers have stressed the very high-unrealized potential for intensification of agriculture through irrigation in Ethiopia. Yet, apart from the Awash Valley, limited development has occurred in irrigation development. Like much of the highlands of Ethiopia, mixed livestock cropping system predominate in the upper basin, whereas pastoralism was traditionally and currently practiced in the middle and lower reaches. The major irrigated agriculture and water resources have occurred in the middle valley and, more recently, towards the lower reaches. Other issues associated with the water management in the middle and lower basin is soil salinization, water contamination and increased waterborne diseases, and poor design leading to water loss through leakage and evaporation. Expanding irrigation threatens wetlands, and conflicts over access to water constrain smallholder farmers and pastoralists, which depend on livestock herds for their existence. Because communities lack skills and institutions to manage common property resources, water resources, basin/watershed and irrigation management infrastructure quickly fall into a state of disrepair. In the lower valley, desertification is a serious threat.Proceedings sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Central Utah Project Completion Act Office and the U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage

Assessing Livestock Water Productivity in Mixed Farming Systems of Gumara Watershed, Ethiopia

A monitoring study was carried out in Gumara watershed, upper Blue Nile basin, with the objective of evaluating livestock water productivity (LWP) using a life cycle assessment method. Sixty two smallholder farmers were selected for the study implemented between November 2006 and February 2008. Data on crop and livestock production were collected to allow assessment of livestock water productivity. Study sites were situated in three different rainfed mixed crop/livestock farming systems; barley/potato based system (BPS), tef/finger-millet based system (TMS), and rice/noug based system (RNS). LWP was found to be significantly lower (p < 0.01) in RNS (0.057 USD m−3 water) than in TMS (0.066 USD m−3 water) or in BPS (0.066 USD m−3 water). Notably, water requirement per kg live weight of cattle increased towards the lower altitude area (in RNS) mainly because of increased evapo-transpiration. As a result, 20% more water was required per kg live weight of cattle in the low ground RNS compared to BPS situated in the upstream parts of the study area. Cattle herd management that involved early offtake increased LWP by 28% over the practice of late offtake. Crop water productivity expressed in monetary units (0.39 USD m−3 water) was higher than LWP (0.063 USD m−3 water) across the mixed farming systems of Gumara watershed. Strategies for improving LWP, from its present low level, could include keeping only the more productive animals, increasing pasture productivity and linking production to marketing. These strategies would also ease the imbalance between the existing high livestock population and the declining carrying capacity of natural pasture.Peer Reviewe

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Symposium 1 (held jointly with IDRC) “Agroecosystem Management for Improved Human Health : Implications for International Development”

In ARCHIV - 10841

Trends in variability and extremes of rainfall and temperature in the cattle corridor of Uganda

A study was conducted to determine trends of variability and extremes in rainfall and temperature in order to inform stakeholder’s decisions in planning for appropriate adaptation strategies to climate change. Daily rainfall and temperature data sets from 1961 to 2013 were used. Data were subjected to trend analysis using non-parametric Mann-Kendall tests while rainfall and temperature extremes were derived using RClimdex software. Coefficient of variation (CV) in annual rainfall was 25.3, 12.9 and 16.3 % for Mbarara, Masindi and Soroti respectively. Mean daily maximum temperatures were 26.7, 29.6 and 30.8 oC for Mbarara, Masindi and Soroti respectively. Annual total wet days were increasing but not significant (P&gt;0.05). Consecutive wet days (CWD) were increasing only in Mbarara while consecutive dry days, CDDs revealed weak declining trends in Mbarara and stronger significant increasing trends in Soroti (P&lt;0.05). The number of hot days (TX90p) and warm nights (TN90p) was significantly increasing (P&lt; 0.05) in Mbarara and Masindi. The number of warmest nights (TNx) and hottest days (TXx) was also significantly increasing (P&lt;0.05). Mean diurnal temperature range, DTR showed significant decreasing trends in Mbarara and Masindi (P&lt;0.05) while in Soroti it was significantly increasing. The observed increasing temperatures, coupled with declining CWDs and increasing CDDs will most likely result into increased heat stress to livestock, drying of most surface water sources and changes in pasture species composition thus causing a decline in livestock productivity.Key words: Climate change and cattle corridor, hot days, trends, wet day

Ecosystem disruption and human health : summary report of a consultation hosted by IDRC and UNEP

This special summary report/ supplement focuses specifically on agroecosystems. It draws on the experience and results of several research projects supported by the IDRC. Subjects include pesticides, water pollution, environmental degradation issues such as erosion, and human health and ecohealth approaches as they apply to agricultural ecosystems/agroecology. Agroecosystems and their interactions with human health are intricate and rarely amenable to simple linear analysis. The consultation was hosted by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as part of the Canadian Conference on International Health (1999)