CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

We're moving!

We’re moving!

After almost 12 years, the CABI blog is migrating to a new platform and a new URL: https://blog.cabi.org/ Our new blog will be built on WordPress, which means it’ll look better and load faster on mobile devices and feature better social media integration. The commenting system is also more robust, and the CABI blog is now better integrated with CABI’s other blogs (on Plantwise and Invasives).

 

If you currently subscribe to the blog via RSS or email you will no longer receive updates. To keep receiving alerts whenever we post a new article, please visit https://blog.cabi.org/ and re-subscribe. Don’t worry about losing your favourite article from the last 12 years – all of our archives have been migrated as well.

 

We look forward to sharing stories about our online resources, publishing products and our work in international development in our new home!

CABI board member Akhter Mateen explains how CABI is delivering on SDG1: No Poverty

 

One in five people in developing regions still live on less than $1.25 a day and many of these are the 500 million smallholder farmers around the world.

But CABI is working hard to help small-scale farmers lift themselves out of poverty. We collaborate with people and organizations working across the supply chain that brings food from 'field to fork', helping farmers receive a fairer share of the value they create.

Taking the power back

How apple growers are regaining control of the supply chain from retailers

Apples are one of the world’s most popular fruits. In 2013 world production reached almost 82 million tonnes and the export value broke US$8 billion (FAO STAT, 2017). The fruit comes in all shapes, sizes, flavours and colours; yet what we see in the supermarkets is a mere snapshot of the diversity that exists. The apple market is predominately controlled by retailers who demand strict uniformity in both colour and size of apples from growers, who are encouraged to produce commercial varieties on a large scale, which are then sold on to consumers at low cost.

Access to market key to adopting improved legume technologies

Some of the farmers that participated in the a meeting with CABI/AFAP team in December 2016 in Chalangwa village, Chunya district, Mbeya region. Second from left is the District Agricultural Officer Mr. Augustine Ndelwa. Photo: Abigael Mchana, CABI

By Monica Kansiime, Seed systems scientist, CABI

In the southern highlands of Tanzania, people’s livelihoods are dependent on what farmers can grow for food and sale. Legumes, such as common beans, soybean and groundnut, are good protein sources and play a key role in nutritional security and household incomes. But yields lately have been in decline. This is mainly due to a lack fertilizer and quality seeds, both of which can increase productivity, as many of the farmers are wedded to traditional production practices.

Author of the Month: Big Data’s Big Potential in Developing Economies, Nir Kshetri

Big data’s role in addressing the root causes of poverty

There clearly are some signs of big data-led political, economic and social transformations taking place in developing countries. Early evidence has shown the huge potential benefits that can be realized by implementing big data in diverse fields that are critical to the future of these countries. The book Big Data’s Big Potential in Developing Economies: Impact on Agriculture, Health and Environmental Security (CAB International, 2016) delves into some of the key social and economic sectors that are being transformed by the use of big data.

Excessive use of antimicrobials in intensive livestock farming as One Health issue

One of a series of blogs written by CABI editors for One Health Day November 3rd 2016

Most antibiotics in livestock farming are used in aquaculture, but significant amounts are also used in terrestrial livestock species, particularly in poultry and pigs.

Most antibiotics in intensive livestock farming are used for non-therapeutic purposes

Approximately 70% of antibiotics are used for non- therapeutic purposes, i.e. many antibiotics are used in sub- therapeutic doses and over prolonged periods, which leads to the development of genes that confer antimicrobial resistance to animal pathogens. These genes can subsequently be transferred to human pathogens and it is estimated that 75% of recently emerging diseases in humans are of animal origin.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) problems are further exacerbated by the fact that antibiotic resistance genes were found in bacteria long before antibiotics were ever used on super-pathogens in farm animals.

AMR is a worldwide problem, which clearly affects both animal and human health, and hence it is truly One Health issue.

 

How crop diversity could help secure our future food supply

Diversity within maize. Image source: Sam Fentress, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1293212

16 October is World Food Day (#WFD2016); this year’s theme is ‘Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too.’ Jennifer Cunniff, plant scientist in CABI’s editorial team looks at how harnessing crop diversity is vital for us to meet the challenge.

Of the wide variety of edible plant species growing on our planet it’s amazing how few of them we actually include in our diet. Around 30 000 edible plant species are known, yet only 30 of these feed the world, and we are heavily reliant on a handful of cereals - rice, bread wheat, maize, millets and sorghum - provide 60% of the energy intake of the world population (FAO). This narrowing of our food base largely started with the advent of farming – before then, there is plentiful archaeological evidence that shows we were foraging across a much wider breadth of plant species (e.g. Weiss et al. 2004; Fairbairn et al. 2006). Once we formed settled societies we began to focus on crops that offered the best level of return and were best adapted to the cultivated environments we created. Furthermore, even though multiple accessions¹ of our widely grown cereal species exist (naturally and through breeding) only a few dozen are grown on a wide scale. This strategy has consequences – genetic variability for adaptation to future climate change is lost.

¹ A single collected variety or cultivar. It could be a wild variety, a landrace or a bred cultivar.

 

Guaranteeing credit to coffee farmers in Ethiopia and Rwanda

At a time when the coffee sector is faced with many challenges, ranging from low productivity, high production costs, to the threat of climate change, it is crucial to remember those most affected. Approximately 25 million small scale coffee farmers and their families produce 70% of the world’s coffee and it is they who bear the brunt of these problems. - Robério Oliveira Silva, Executive Director International Coffee Organization.

1 October is International Coffee Day, a global celebration of coffee’s journey from farms to local shops around the world. It is a great opportunity to honour the men and women who grow and harvest the coffee we love. The 77 Member States of the International Coffee Organization and several coffee associations around the world will come together to celebrate the second annual International Coffee Day. We take a look at how CABI is helping coffee farmers improve their livelihoods.