Miracle Crop: India's Quest to End World Hunger

longknife · Jun 16, 2014

By Philip Bethge

Over one third of humanity is undernourished. Now a group of scientists are experimenting with specially-bred crops, and hoping to launch a new Green Revolution -- but controversy is brewing.

When are we going to hear the ignorant claims that Monsanto is behind this?

Read more @ http://www.spiegel.de/international...let-to-end-world-hunger-a-973504.html#ref=rss

waltky · Jun 21, 2016

Global warming killin' crops...

New crop varieties 'can't keep up with global warming'
Tue, 21 Jun 2016 - Temperatures around the world are rising faster than scientists can develop varieties that can cope with a warmer world, according to a new study.

Crops yields around the world could fall within a decade unless action is taken to speed up the introduction of new varieties. A study says temperatures are rising faster than the development of crop varieties that can cope with a warmer world. In Africa, researchers found that it can take 10-30 years before farmers can grow a new breed of maize. By the time these new crops are planted, they face a warmer environment than they were developed in. The scientists behind the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, looked closely at the impact of temperature rises on crop duration - that's the length of time between planting and harvesting. They found that in a warmer world durations will be shorter meaning these varieties will have less time to accumulate biomass and yields could be affected.

Out of date

In their paper, the researchers write that crop duration will become significantly shorter as early as 2018 in some regions but by 2031, the majority of maize-growing areas of Africa will be affected. "The actual changes in yield may be different but this effect is there, the impact of this change in duration will occur unless breeding changes," said lead author Prof Andy Challinor from the University of Leeds. "The durations will be shorter than what they were bred for - by the time they are in the field they are, in terms of temperature, out of date." New varieties of maize need between 10-30 years of development before they are ready to be grown by farmers.

The scientists say the lag is down to a combination of factors including the limited number of crops you can grow in a season, the need for government approved testing and there are also a number of problems of access to markets that can increase the time it takes before the farmers have the new seeds to plant. Increasing the speed of development is important but according to Prof Challinor, so is making smarter assumptions about future conditions. "We can use the climate models to tell us what the temperatures are going to be," he told BBC News, "We can then put those temperature elevations into the greenhouses and then we can breed the crops at those temperatures. People are beginning to do this, but this paper provides the hard evidence of the necessity of it."

Researchers are also working on the impact of heat stress on crops at sites in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ethiopia. Data from these trials is being used to identify species that could cope with warmer conditions. But would the use of genetic modification (GM) help speed up this type of work? "GM does some things faster, so you would get a new variety of crop faster," said Prof Challinor. "But it doesn't get you out of the testing requirement in fact the testing may in fact be greater and it doesn't help it all with farmers accessing seeds and markets - the problem will remain even for a magic GM crop."

Better techniques and more money for research are the keys according to others in this field, familiar with the study. "Investment in agricultural research to develop and disseminate new seed technologies is one of the best investments we can make for climate adaptation," said Dr Andy Jarvis, from the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, "Climate funds could be used to help the world's farmers stay several steps ahead of climate change, with major benefits for global food security." The researchers believe that the study also has implications beyond Africa, especially in the maize growing regions of the tropics.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36579125
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Hoosier8 · Jun 21, 2016

waltky said: ↑

Global warming killin' crops...

New crop varieties 'can't keep up with global warming'
Tue, 21 Jun 2016 - Temperatures around the world are rising faster than scientists can develop varieties that can cope with a warmer world, according to a new study.
Click to expand...

Typical, not based on observation but computer models.

waltky · Mar 15, 2017

Progress against hunger has slowed in the last five years...

UN Pushes 'Smart Crops' as Rice Alternative to Tackle Hunger in Asia
March 14, 2017 — Asia needs to make extra efforts to defeat hunger after progress has slowed in the last five years, including promoting so-called "smart crops" as an alternative to rice, the head of the U.N. food agency in the region said.

Kundhavi Kadiresan, representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Asia, said the region needs to focus on reaching the most marginalized people, such as the very poor or those living in mountainous areas. The Asia-Pacific region halved the number of hungry people from 1990 to 2015 but the rate of progress slowed in many countries - such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Cambodia - in the last five years, according to a December FAO report. "The last mile is always difficult.. so extra efforts, extra resources and more targeted interventions are needed," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on the sidelines of a business forum on food security in Jakarta on Tuesday.

She said government and businesses needed to develop policies to help make food more affordable, while changing Asians' diets that rely heavily on rice. "We have focused so much on rice that we haven't really looked at some of those crops like millets, sorghum and beans," she said. A campaign is underway to promote these alternatives as "smart crops" to make them more attractive, Kadiresan said. "We are calling them smart crops to get people not to think about them as poor people's food but smart people's food," she said, adding that they are not only nutritious but also more adaptable to climate change.

A worker carries a bale of dry millet at a field on the outskirts of the western Indian city of Ahmedabad

Soaring rice prices, slowing economic expansion and poorer growth in agricultural productivity have been blamed for the slowdown in efforts to tackle hunger. More than 60 percent of the world's hungry are in Asia-Pacific, while nearly one out of three children in the region suffers from stunting, according to the FAO. Achieving zero hunger by 2030 is one of the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals adopted by member states in 2015.

http://www.voanews.com/a/un-pushes-...rnative-to-tackle-hunger-in-asia/3766484.html
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waltky · Mar 23, 2017

More than 20 million people facing starvation...

Africa has worst hunger crisis in 70 years amid budget cuts
Mar 23,`17 -- Africa faces the world's largest humanitarian crisis since 1945, with more than 20 million people facing starvation, a cut in funding to humanitarian agencies working in famine-affected areas will cause untold suffering, a spokesman for the World Food Program said in Johannesburg Thursday, responding to questions about U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to cut $10 billion in foreign aid.

"Any cuts at this time are extremely significant, not just for us but for any U.N. agencies and any aid organization," said David Orr, WFP's Africa spokesman, at a media briefing in Johannesburg. "With the magnitude of needs at the moment is it vital that we continue with a high level of assistance."

The current hunger crisis is in three African countries, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria, as well as nearby Yemen. The U.S. is WFP's largest donor and was one of the organization's founders. Last year it contributed more than $2 billion, representing about 24 percent of WFP's total budget, Orr said.

U.N. operations in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria will require more than $5.6 billion this year, he said. At least $4.4 billion is needed by the end of March to avert a catastrophe, he said, but so far the U.N. has only received $90 million. "The more dramatic cuts in any aid budgets, the more the number of debts, the more suffering there is going to be," Orr said.

"We have a situation where famine has been declared in two counties in Unity state in South Sudan. That means there are already people dying in those places. This has been caused by a combination of factors including conflict, which prevents access. Humanitarian intervention is very difficult. Huge numbers of people are displaced," Orr said. "Now famine is threatening in other parts of South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-23-12-06-07
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waltky · May 31, 2017

Using information technology to fight hunger...

Could Big Data Help End Hunger in Africa?
May 30, 2017 — Computer algorithms power much of modern life from our Facebook feeds to international stock exchanges. Could they help end malnutrition and hunger in Africa? The International Center for Tropical Agriculture thinks so.

The International Center for Tropical Agriculture has spent the past four years developing the Nutrition Early Warning System, or NEWS. The goal is to catch the subtle signs of a hunger crisis brewing in Africa as much as a year in advance. CIAT says the system uses machine learning. As more information is fed into the system, the algorithms will get better at identifying patterns and trends. The system will get smarter. Information Technology expert Andy Jarvis leads the project. "The cutting edge side of this is really about bringing in streams of information from multiple sources and making sense of it. ... But it is a huge volume of information and what it does, the novelty then, is making sense of that using things like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and condensing it into simple messages," he said. Other nutrition surveillance systems exist, like FEWSnet, the Famine Early Warning System Network which was created in the mid-1980s.

But CIAT says NEWS will be able to draw insights from a massive amount of diverse data enabling it to identify hunger risks faster than traditional methods. "What is different about NEWS is that it pays attention to malnutrition, not just drought or famine, but the nutrition outcome that really matters, malnutrition especially in women and children. For the first time, we are saying these are the options way ahead of time. That gives policy makers an opportunity to really do what they intend to do which is make the lives of women and children better in Africa,” said Dr. Mercy Lung’aho, a CIAT nutrition expert. While food emergencies like famine and drought grab headlines, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture says chronic malnutrition affects one in four people in Africa, taking a serious toll on economic growth and leaving them especially vulnerable in times of crisis.

Senior policy officer Olufunso Somorin is with the Africa Development Bank. “In 2030, 13 years from now, Africa is going to have 200 million children below the age of five. Now once a child is stunted or misses a level of nourishment at that age, it affects that child psychologically, economically, socially. So a stunted child in the future is actually a stunted economy. So linking issues of nutrition at individual level to Africa’s development and transformation on a broader scale is important," said Somorin. CIAT says African governments will be able to access NEWS via “nutrition dashboards” where they can get risk assessments, alerts, and recommendations. The system is expected to become operational in four African countries, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Nigeria, by year's end.

http://www.voanews.com/a/could-big-data-help-solve-hunger-in-africa/3877562.html
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