Tag: Developing country issues

Saving coffee from a serious plant disease

Written by Steve Savage

Coffee farmer, from USAID

Some of the world’s best coffee comes from the tropical highlands of Central and South America.  Recently these regions have experienced heavier rainfall.  This is probably due to climate change, but in any case it fosters severe epidemics of the Coffee Leaf Rust pathogen, Hemileia vastatrix.   This disease has a long history of disrupting coffee production around the world.  One reason the English drink tea is that the Ceylonese and Javan coffee plantations which once supplied them were devastated by this same fungus in the late 1800s.  Coffee production was moved to the Americas (among other places) and it wasn’t until the 1970s that the rust pathogen made its way to the New World.  For the next several decades it remained a manageable disease in those areas, but in recent seasons, the disease has been severely affecting yields. Continue reading “Saving coffee from a serious plant disease” →

Shades of Green Talk Wrapup

Evan 'N' Frank
Even Kane, my host in Chicago, was very hospitable!

On Sunday, I gave a talk for the Ethical Humanist Society in Skokie, IL, on the outskirts of Chicago. Back in November, the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago asked me if I would be willing to talk about the benefits and risks of genetically engineered crops. The title of my presentation was Shades of Green, and I daresay it went well, especially considering that I have never given a talk of this kind before, and now I’m inspired to do more. I’m going to discuss a little of hat I talked about, what I thought worked, and what I thought needed to be improved.
First, I would like to thank the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago for this chance to speak at their first meeting of 2013. They are a community that provides a social environment for those who wish to live their lives in an ethical manner, and their members come from all walks of life. They covered my travel, and provided a little something for my troubles. And I was certainly made to feel welcome by my host, Evan Kane, who fed me some delicious barbecue on Saturday night, and took me in as his guest so I could rest up for the talk. He didn’t have to build a fire in his fireplace, but he did anyway! His friends Matt and Mariana engaged us some lively discussions of social definitions that I will never forget! Thank you.
Barbecue!
I had barbecue the night before the talk. Delicious!

Now on to the talk. Continue reading “Shades of Green Talk Wrapup” →

Evidence Stacking Up Against Biotechnology Critics

Editors Note: republished with permission from www.technologyandpolicy.org.
By Calestous Juma
Critics of agricultural biotechnology have long maintained that the technology is unsuitable for small-scale farmers and harmful to the environment. But according to newly-released adoption rates, evidence is pointing in the opposite direction.
In its latest report, Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) shows that biotechnology crops now cover 160 million hectares worldwide. Of the 16.7 million people who grew transgenic crops in 2011, 15 million or 90% were small resource-poor farmers in developing countries.
Early critics of biotechnology contended that biotechnology crops would only benefit large-scale farmers in industries countries. But emerging evidence shows that nearly half of biotechnology crops were grown in developing countries. The adoption rate of biotechnology crops was 11% in developing countries against 5% in industrialized countries. Continue reading “Evidence Stacking Up Against Biotechnology Critics” →

The real success story of GM cotton and edible cotton oil in India 2002-2011

A wonderful colorful and readable booklet about the success of Bt cotton in India has been made available from the ISAAA website for India.
A sample table from this booklet tells the story of the massive expansion of cotton output over the last 10 years.

Indian cotton production statistics this last decade

Continue reading “The real success story of GM cotton and edible cotton oil in India 2002-2011” →

Deadly Choices — Junk science costs lives

Most of the time scientists can rely on publications that go through the careful critical review by other scientists. But sometimes papers get rushed through to publication, and there can be hasty, even harmful decisions made by journal editors.
On the hopefully rare occasions were seriously flawed scientific studies have been got through the critical review process, the wheels of scientific due process can turn very slowly, and it can take years for errors in the formal scientific record to be corrected. Meanwhile shoddy published science can get misused and even do considerable harm.
When this happens, there is a need to openly criticise the scientific process.
Perhaps the most damning mistake to occur in due scientific process is the fraudulent science that appeared in the Lancet medical journal in 1998, which described some features of bowel inflammation in autistic children. The lead author of this paper was Andrew Wakefield. It took 12 years for this fraudulent paper to be retracted by the Lancet journal.
Polite scientific discussion didn’t have much impact on the Lancet – it took tough British journalism by Brian Deer to achieve action. Meanwhile infants were dying of preventable diseases.
Continue reading “Deadly Choices — Junk science costs lives” →

First they banned irradiation of foods, then GMOs, now they are starting on nanotechnology — all life-saving technologies.

Nanotechnology Now – Press Release: “Nanostructured water treatment products to be worth $2.2 billion in 2015”

Warnings from nutritional hell, with apologies to El Bosco
We live in a world where whole organisations make comfortable incomes by demonising technology. These self-styled “technology critics” early successes included active blocking of the use of irradiation to make food safe or years. This largely unused technology is based on using electrons or radioactively generated gamma rays to kill germs.
Eleven years ago the German government vetoed the use of such radiation based technology to make food safe to eat in the EU. Odd that they should do this given that it’s a widely used and successful tool to avoid deadly infections during modern surgical operations. It could have prevented the ghastly current E. coli sproutbreak in Germany that has killed 44 and has condemned near 900 people to coping with the vile aftermath of HUS — which include kidney transplants or a lifetime of being hooked to dialysis machines. [It could also have prevented a second outbreak of sprout promoted lethal disease from the same E. coli strain now taking place in France.]
Continue reading “First they banned irradiation of foods, then GMOs, now they are starting on nanotechnology — all life-saving technologies.” →

Bill Gates speaks out about helping small farmers gain access to reliable markets

Chicago Council on Global Affairs Speech May 24, 2011, Prepared Remarks by Bill Gates, Co-chair and Trustee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Thank you, Representative Granger, for that kind introduction. Everyone here is grateful for your long-standing leadership on global health and development issues, and we look forward to helping you as you continue leading the charge in the future.
And thanks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs for inviting me here to speak today.
I’d like to start by telling you about Odetta Mukanyiko.
Odetta is a single mother with two children. She lives on the eastern side of Rwanda, farming a half hectare of land, feeding her family with her harvest, and selling the rest to local traders. She’s been working the same tiny plot of land for 20 years, making less than a dollar a day.

Here is a picture of Odetta working on her farm.

Continue reading “Bill Gates speaks out about helping small farmers gain access to reliable markets” →

Biotech cotton seeds hit problems in India

Farmers sore over low supply of Bt cotton seeds

BS Reporter / Chennai/ Mysore May 03, 2011, 0:28 IST
Over 10,000 farmers from villages around Mysore had gathered on the busy Jaganmohan Palace Road and the Ramavilasa Road to get their ‘quota’ of the much-vaunted Bt cotton seeds. Packets of the seed was being sold to farmers who had been waiting to buy two packets each, today.
The build-up of the crowd of farmers affected the movement of traffic on the two main roads and the police, drawn from reserve and other forces were posted to ensure no untoward incidents occurred because of the huge crowd of possibly disgruntled farmers. The roads were blocked and traffic diverted on to the other roads.

Continue reading “Biotech cotton seeds hit problems in India” →

Bill and Melinda Gates are giving a boost to BioCassava Plus too

from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation webpage on BioCassava Plus


BioCassava Plus

The Need

Cassava is central to the diets of more than 250 million people in Africa. Though rich in calories, it offers limited nutritional value. As a result, many people who rely on cassava as their main source of calories are deficient in a range of nutrients, including vitamin A, iron, and protein. Enriching cassava with these three vital nutrients can improve the health of millions of children and adults.

The Project

The foundation is supporting the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and partners to develop cassava varieties with higher levels of beta carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A, as well as iron, and protein. This grant builds on previous foundation support, and funds research to develop varieties appropriate for small farmers in Nigeria and Kenya, where cassava is widely consumed and nutrient deficiencies are prevalent. Among pre-school aged children who rely on cassava in Nigeria, 83 percent are vitamin A deficient and 43 percent are iron deficient; in Kenya, 41 percent are vitamin A deficient and 78 percent are iron deficient.

The Partners

Experts at nine public institutions are contributing to the BioCassava Plus project. Major partners include:

Golden Rice’s true colours shine through at the Gates Foundation

From the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation webpage: a page with truly hopeful sparkle


Golden Rice

The Need
Rice is the staple food crop for more than half of the world’s population, and is especially important in Asia. While it is ample in calories, it lacks vitamin A, which plays an important role in maintaining good health. Because millions of people in the developing world don’t have access to a variety of nutritious foods, millions are at risk of vitamin A deficiency. Enriching rice with vitamin A is one potential solution that can help end this chronic health condition.

The Project

The foundation is supporting the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and partners to develop Golden Rice, a type of rice that contains beta carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A. This grant builds on previous foundation funding, and supports a range of activities to develop Golden Rice varieties that are suited for the Philippines and Bangladesh. It is hoped that Golden Rice will help improve the health of millions of children and adults across the Philippines and Bangladesh.

The Partners