B4FA Month in Review – May 2019

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B4FA Month in Review – May 2019

June 7th, 2019

WE HAVE CHANGED …Due to severely restricted funds, we have changed what we do regularly. Our newsletter is now be published MONTHLY – and this is the third.

We hope you value what we do. We have raised just enough fund to continue until the end of 2019. Nonetheless, we still need to raise funds for the future and we also want to forge partnerships with African organisations and individuals so that, through active cooperation, we can together both continue and widen our activities. Can you help, or do you know of someone who might? Or have you any comments and criticisms about what we are doing, and how we could improve? Please contact Professor Christopher Leaver, CBE, FRS, FRSE or Bart Ullstein as soon as possible. We really want to hear from you.

We are still tweeting (@B4FA) daily, posting on Facebook (Biosciences for farming in Africa) and updating our website (www.b4fa.org) regularly.

MAY HEADLINES

This past month, we have covered more than 400 stories on biosciences and farming in Africa on Twitter (@B4FA). Rather than inundating you, our readers of this Month in Review, we have selected just a few topics on which to concentrate.

We headline the warning from the world’s leading scientists that the planet’s life-support systems are approaching a danger zone for humanity in the most comprehensive study of life on Earth ever undertaken. The 1,800-page study by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) shows that people living today, as well as wildlife and future generations, are at risk unless urgent action is taken to reverse the loss of plants, insects and other creatures on which humanity depends for food, pollination, clean water and a stable climate. According to the report, compiled over three years by the UN’s leading research body on nature, up to a million species are at risk of annihilation, many within decades.

In a subsequent article in Afrik21, Maria Helena Semedo, Deputy Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), raises an alert on the risks to agriculture and food security caused by biodiversity loss. Since Africa is particularly threatened, she is calling for new models as regards biodiversity management, from a sustainable development perspective.

An article in Natureargues that current threats to agriculture, climate and health are entwined, but policies treat each in isolation and are misaligned. National strategies for mitigating climate change pay scant attention to biodiversity and food security, while some policies include steps to reduce emissions from livestock and fertilizers, for example, they offer no way of improving diets. What is needed, the article argues, are strategies for managing land use and food systems together. These would consider links between agriculture, water, pollution, biodiversity, diets and greenhouse- gas emissions. Each sector and country can tailor solutions, but global coordination, learning and knowledge sharing is also be necessary to ensure that the net result is sustainable and resilient, and in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

But in an article in Reaction, Matt Ridley takes a different view, arguing that the threat to biodiversity is not new, not necessarily accelerating, mostly not caused by economic growth or prosperity, nor by climate change, and will not be reversed by retreating into organic self-sufficiency. Rather, he argues, “land sparing” is the right approach – intensive farming plusland set aside, rather than inefficient farming with some nature in the fields.

The BBC reports on an ingenious use of genetic modification: a fungus – genetically enhanced to produce spider toxin which can rapidly kill huge numbers of the mosquitoes that spread malaria.Trials, which took place in Burkina Faso, showed that mosquito populations collapsed by 99 per cent within 45 days. The researchers from the University of Maryland in the US and the IRSS Research Institute in Burkina Faso say their aim is not to make the insects extinct but to help stop the spread of malaria, which happens when female mosquitoes drink blood. Each year, there are about 219 million cases of malaria worldwide, and the disease kills more than 400,000 people.

This month, Sciencemagazine reports that African swine fever continues to expand its global reach, with outbreaks reported in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, Hong Kong, South Africa and possibly North Korea. The highly contagious and often fatal disease of domestic pigs and wild boar appeared in China last summer and continuing infections are occurring throughout the country. As a result, according to Bloomberg, global meat production is likely to fall for the first time in two decades.

With no vaccine or treatment available, Nature reportsthat more than a million pigs, out of a national herd of around 440 million, have so far been culled in China to try to contain the outbreaks. This not only affects the world meat supply, but could jeopardize the worldwide availability of the blood-thinner heparin, used in the treatment of heart disease in humans. “We know almost nothing about this virus,” admits George Gao, vice-president of the National Natural Science Foundation of China in Beijing. The Chinese government, however, is prioritising research on the virus, setting aside about US$ 15 million for projects. The work will help to fill the many gaps in scientists’ understanding of the virus, including its detailed structure and how it transmits to hosts and evades their immune systems says Gao.

And to add to China’s problems, Bloomberg reports that China has warned its 300 million farmers to prepare for infestations of a crop-eating pest that’s devastated harvests in Africa. The voracious fall armyworm is likely to spread through China’s northern corn-growing areas after being detected in 13 provinces as of early May according to a statement from the country’s agricultural ministry. The harvest, it said, must be secured by “snatching food from the worms’ mouths”.

We welcome questions, comments and story links to ullsteinb@gmail.com. Please also visit B4FA.org for further reading and useful resources – and follow us on Twitter or Facebook to keep up with daily news and join the conversation.