Why we need to tackle plant health in the fight
for food security Dr Joan Kelley Executive Director, Global Operations, CABI
Rapid food price rises have highlighted serious concerns about food security globally and have had a huge impact on achieving Millennium Development Goal 1 (Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger).
In addition, we believe that a lack of food security will put at risk the achievement of the other MDGs. For example, good governance will be undermined by food shortages: price rises have already triggered riots and civil disturbance in several countries. Improvements in maternal and child health will be much more difficult to achieve in populations who do not have access to sufficient quantities of food with adequate nutritional quality. Effectiveness of vaccines and anti-AIDS drugs is much reduced in such groups and they are at greater risk of chronic health problems as well as opportunistic infections. Low incomes for poor rural farmers will mean that they are unable to afford the treatment or medicines needed for themselves and their families. Children are unable to concentrate and benefit from education if they do not have a nutritionally balanced diet.
Feeding a predicted world population of 9.5 billion in 2050 when there are an estimated 1 billion still going hungry today will be a challenge requiring the application of the best scientific techniques as well as the development of new approaches.
Improved productivity is vital to reducing rural poverty and increasing food security. Scientists throughout the world are working on developing new crop varieties, improving land use, and enhancing soil fertility and water management. This work is important, but there is also a way that we can feed millions more people right now, without the need for extra land, water, fertilisers, or chemicals – and that’s by making sure that we lose less of what we already grow.
Currently, it is estimated that one third to one half of all food produced is lost from ‘field to fork’. This is due to pre- and post-harvest losses as well as waste in the retail sector and at the consumer’s table. Quantitative data on crop losses is very limited, but estimates of 30 to 40 per cent are common in scientific literature. A large proportion of this is due to pests and diseases. And with
|38| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
climate change, trade flows, and population movement all increasing, the rate at which these plant health problems arise and spread is also multiplying. For example, the wheat rust Ug 99, which was discovered in Uganda in 1998 and reported in 1999, is now established in the Eastern Africa highlands and spreading. In Kenya, wheat losses due to Ug99 are over 70 per cent of total production in some areas. Production losses have led to higher prices in local markets with a resulting impact on low income families and an increase in food insecurity. Imagine what will happen as it spreads into the high-yielding production systems of South Asia and beyond.
Another example of a disease that has had a significant impact is Coffee Wilt disease, which attacks coffee species in Central and Eastern Africa. Whilst coffee is not a staple food crop, its production has indirect implications for food security through decreasing income security. Coffee Wilt disease kills coffee bushes so that, very soon after its detection, farmers experience a complete loss of income from coffee. A 77 per cent loss in yield of robusta coffee at the national level in Uganda was reported in 2009.
Image courtesy of tellgraf SXC
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152