Promoting improved nutrition practices for women
Ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March, Charlotte Jordan looks at how CABI is helping to promote improved nutrition practices among women in 12 developing countries. One in three people in developing countries suffer from ‘hidden hunger’ or micronutrient deficiency. It’s a major cause of illness, poor growth, reduced productivity and impaired cognitive development.…
Why is Aedes so good at being a vector?
Seeing the Zika virus epidemic in South America it is hard to believe that just 50 years ago the Aedes mosquitoes that spread it and several other tropical diseases were nearly eliminated in that region. Ever since then it seems we have been going backwards in mosquito control. Aedes aegypti seems to be adapted to…
Author of the month blog: The Animal Trade, Clive Phillips
About four years ago, I started to get concerned that the full impact of expansion and intensification of the animal production industries worldwide was not understood, by those in power, by scientists and definitely not by the public. The relatively rapid introduction of intensive farming systems over the last fifty years, and their widespread adoption…
With its finger on the pulse …
2016 is the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Year of Pulses The Africa Soil Health Consortium (ASHC), a CABI managed project, is working to support partners to improve their communications to farmers and improve soil fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. Since the outset, this has involved working with projects that encourage smallholder farming families to…
Tree–crop interactions: agroforestry in a changing climate
Twenty years after the first edition of the standard book on tree–crop interactions, edited by Peter Huxley and Chin Ong, we now have a second edition. The second edition has explicit attention to climate change, with chapters on microclimate effects and consequences for the various terms of the water balance. The primary strength of the…
EU dairy industry outlook following the abolition of milk quotas
By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK. Milk is the EU's number one agricultural product in terms of value, accounting for approximately 15% of agricultural output with approximately 148 million tonnes of cow milk produced in 2014. The dairy sector is also of significant economic and social importance in the EU, with over 650,000…
Four new bee species described in Australia – many more remain unidentified
By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK. Bee specialists from South Australia have described four new native bees. Three of these bee species have been described as having narrow faces and very long mouths, allowing them to feed on slender flowers found on the emu bush, a hardy native of the Australian desert environment,…
How effective are current measures for protecting horses from African Horse Sickness?
By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK. African horse sickness is a serious and often fatal disease of horses, mules and donkeys caused by African horse sickness virus (AHSV), of the genus Orbivirus in the family Reoviridae. It can also affect zebras, camels and dogs, but not humans. Zebras and donkeys rarely develop serious…
Veterinary visits to become mandatory in European farming
By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK The European Agriculture Council has formally approved a draft law on animal diseases that are transmissible among animals and potentially to humans (zoonoses). The provisions in the law on farm animal health visits stipulate that professional animal owners are to receive regular animal health visits from a…
Five more bird species that can spread Lyme disease identified in USA
By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK. Lyme disease or Lyme borreliosis is the most prevalent arthropod-borne disease of animals and humans in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere1. Risk of infection in humans is primarily associated with occupation (e.g. forestry work) or outdoor recreational activities. Recent surveys show that the overall prevalence…