CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

To bee or not to bee

 

Image Credit: Myriams-Fotos via Pixabay (CC0)

This Sunday the UK celebrated World Bee Day (May 20^th); the first year of the now to be annual UN awareness event aimed at increasing our sensitivity to the global importance and increasing struggle of pollinators. Whilst the event hopes to increase understanding of pollinators generally, including butterflies, moths, birds and bats, the focus is strongly on wild and managed bees for their economic importance. And justly so; bees visit over 70 crops in the UK alone and are worth billions worldwide in the pollination service they provide. However, it would be difficult to miss the worryingly-frequent headlines warning of bee decline both in the UK and globally as a result of human activities.

‘Walkshops’ and ‘Talkshops’ on Sri Lanka’s Holy Mountain

By Ian McIntosh

Back in the 1980s, in the midst of Sri Lanka’s civil war, an initiative by the NGO Save the Children Norway, sought to promote ethnic and religious harmony through what they called ‘walkshops’ and ‘talkshops’ on the holy mountain, Adam’s Peak.

Up until the 1960s, Adam’s Peak - also known as Sri Pada (the sacred footprint) - was the greatest interfaith pilgrimage site on earth, attracting Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Christians and others in vast numbers. Prior to the civil war, members of these faith groups would climb together and worship by the imprint in the rock that they recognize as the mark of Buddha, Shiva, Adam (after he was expelled from paradise), and the apostle to the world, St Thomas. The indigenous god of the mountain, Saman, was also venerated. Except for perhaps Jerusalem, there is no other site with such widespread religious significance.

 

Sri Pada. Photo credit to the author.

 

It must be Halal, right?

The world Halal food market is valued at $700 billion. Pakistan only contributes $28 million, less than 0.5%, to this market despite having the second largest Islamic population in the world.

In Pakistan, although roughly 97% of the population follows Islam, there is not a single Halal certified food chain in the country.

A recent journal article published by CABI scientists, Dr Mazhar and Dr Bajwa, along with Dr Collins from the University of Queensland discusses some remarkable findings on the state of the Halal food chain in Pakistan.

A Halal food chain is one where all the input supplies, materials, production, processing, logistics, handling and trade in a food product, from the point of origin until the food reaches consumers, follow the permissible guidelines of Islamic law.

Only around 20% of food available in Pakistan’s major supermarkets has been Halal certified.

The reasons behind this include; very low consumer awareness of Halal certification, an increasingly complicated global food system and a lack of government legislation.

Studies have found that consumers rarely demand Halal certification for the food they buy. While a few certifying agencies are accredited by the government, most are not, instead following international guidelines which don’t necessarily cater to the local customs of Halal food preparation.

It’s not just the meat industry that needs to comply with Halal standards. Particularly in processed foods involving dairy, confectionery, and bakery products the use of enzymes, gelatine and emulsifiers is common. Suppliers and processors need to ensure that such additives are derived from Halal sources.

^{Photo credit Lars Curfs}

There is good economic reason for Pakistan to improve its certification standards. The wealthy and demanding Halal markets of Middle East and Gulf countries nearby provide a potentially lucrative new export opportunity.

Learning from other countries could help Pakistan capitalise on the regions insatiable demand for Halal.

Malaysia has the most developed Halal food industry in the Islamic world. Any food product eaten by consumers can only be certified Halal if all the operations in that supply chain follow strict guidelines. Additionally, consumer awareness programs have been launched and actively conducted to increase the demand of Halal certified food products.

The authors suggest that such changes for Pakistan are difficult or impossible to accomplish without external assistance. Typically businesses and governments rely on specialist providers in this arena. One example currently operating in Pakistan is The Food Safety Network; an online sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) distance learning course of which CABI is an implementing partner. Aspects of the course focusing on plant pest surveillance, plant pest identification systems, and plant pest inspections help bolster agricultural exports from Pakistan.

Other interventions could include shopper awareness programs, as in Malaysia, to increase understanding of Halal certified food products as well as the standardisation of slaughtering methods to meet international Halal specifications.

There is a clear need and opportunity for Pakistan to develop its domestic Halal food chains. By doing so, it may satisfy its own consumer demands and explore markets in the region to capture a greater share of the world market for Halal food.

 

Article based on Halal Food Chains - Concepts and Opportunities in Pakistan

International Day for Biological Diversity 2018

Image credit: Convention on Biological Diversity IDB2018 Accessed: 18/05/2018 (https://www.cbd.int/idb/2018/)

This year the 22^nd of May will be a celebration of the progress made since the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity 25 years ago. The International day for Biological Diversity was designed to overlap with the UNs post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals and the date chose to commemorate the adoption of the Convention of Biodiversity in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit. Previous themes promoted over the years have included: biodiversity and sustainable tourism, water and biodiversity, invasive alien species and biodiversity and climate change.

A conversation on 'Communicating Evidence for Sustainable Development'

Last month two CABI employees, Solveig Danielsen and Paul Day, attended a conference at Wageningen University on Communicating Evidence for Sustainable Development. Sol works in the Monitoring and Evaluation team (M&E) and Paul is a communicator. The conference led to a lively conversation which we captured here.

How can we ensure safety in Events Management, Religious Festivals, and Tourism?

By Maximiliano Korstanje

One of the aspects that motivated me to write a book which focuses on Event Management Security as the main object of study was the need to understand what we, the experts in terrorism and political violence, can do in order for tourist destinations to be protected.

Although some sociologists have claimed that religion is in decline, in many parts of the world the demand for religious tourism has notably increased. Even in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America, every year thousands of pilgrims visit their sacred-destination, making religious tourism one of the largest segments of the tourism industry.

Phytosanitary Risk Management Programme - transforming livelihoods in Pakistan

Meet Rozina Babar, she is one of thousands of smallholder farmers in Pakistan whose livelihoods are threatened by agricultural pests and diseases that can devastate crops and ultimately have a severe impact on food security and profitability.

However, thanks to the CABI-led Phytosanitary Risk Management Programme – funded by USAID-USDA and working with partners including the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council – Rozina has seen increases in her income from Rs. 30,000 ($260) to Rs. 70,000 ($605).

The fruit and vegetable farmer from Rahimabad, a small village in the district Gilgit in the province of Gilgit Baltistan, has been trained by CABI to implement biological control methods to tackle the fruit fly pest which has been threatening her crops.

Showcasing smart agriculture in comic exhibition

Comics have long played a role in entertaining young people, and even adults, going right back to the Golden Age of Comic books in the 1930s. One only has to think of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel and many more.

But you would be forgiven for being surprised at knowing that comics can also have a very important role to play in educating teenagers and young adults about the value science and technology holds in helping farmers grow more and lose less.

Now, an exhibition of the comic book Shujaaz (which means ‘hero’) – presented by Karamel at Collage Arts, is revealing how animation and narrative knits together to tell the story of how smart agriculture, as well as issues including unemployment, corruption, youth, cost of living and infrastructure, can be raised with Kenyan and Tanzanian 15-24 year olds.

Tourism creates 8% of global carbon emissions - can they be curbed?

The global carbon footprint of the travel and tourism industry has long been a concern, with aviation in particular being a major source of greenhouse gases, and the major component of the estimated carbon cost of tourism. But a new analysis published in Nature Climate Change says that the carbon footprint of the industry is much higher than previously estimated. Gossling and Peeters (2015) estimated that in 2010, the global tourism system caused about 1.12 Gt CO_2, or about 2.5–3% of global CO2-equivalent (CO2e) emissions. But the latest analysis by Lenzen et al. (2018) claims that in 2013 tourism’s global carbon footprint was 4.5 GtCO2e, four times more than previously estimated, accounting for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The new assessment is bigger because it includes emissions not only from travel, but also the full life-cycle of carbon in tourists' food, hotels and shopping. 

Cotton harvest picture special

 

The power of the image paints a picture that speaks a thousand words and that is certainly the case with these fantastic images taken by photographer Asim Hafeez.

Asim was commissioned by CABI to document the process of harvesting cotton in Pakistan – the country’s largest industrial sector – where more than 500,000 farmers rely on the crop for their livelihoods.

CABI is helping the country’s cotton industry reduce losses of around $350m a year by training thousands of farmers and workers about better production, transport and storage practices as part of the Better Cotton Initiative.

These photographs tell the story of how cotton farmers at five districts (Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Umer Kot, Tando Allah Yar and Matiari, of Sindh, Pakistan are learning to grow more and lose less of what they sow, thereby maintaining their livelihoods through increased profitability.