Connecting with food systems: Research, knowledge and eco-environment approaches
Today’s world faces immense challenges in food production, making availability, quality, nutrition and affordability the main agenda in many developing countries, writes Dr Babar E Bajwa, Regional Director, CABI Central West Asia. Agricultural research has moved on from the task of ensuring availability of food towards attaining a successful food system that is perceived as…
World Soil Day 2017 – “Caring for the Planet from the Ground”
[Image credit: FAO] “Caring for the Planet from the Ground” is the theme of this year’s World Soil Day (#worldsoilday). World Soil Day (WSD) is an annual campaign aimed at raising awareness of the critical importance of healthy soils and advocating for the sustainable management of global soil resources. In June 2013, the…
How soil health is integral to One Health
One of a series of blogs written by CABI editors for One Health (#OneHealth) Day on November 3rd 2016 "It is difficult to rate the importance of the different soil functions, since all are vital to our well-being to some extent. However, the function of supporting food and agriculture worldwide is fundamental for the preservation and advancement of…
Animal Genetic Research Increasingly Focuses on Medical and Pharmaceutical Markets rather than on Food Production
According to a recent report by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), patenting activity in the field of animal genetics is focusing on medical and pharmaceutical markets, rather than animal products for human nutrition. A vast amount of scientific literature on animal genetic resources, transgenic animals and patents in this field is available in the CAB Direct database. The literature, which originates from more than 150 countries and is published in over 50 languages, is translated and indexed by CABI’s specialists for easy searching. The CAB Direct database currently contains more than 23,000 references with abstracts on animal genetic resources.
2014: the International Year of Family Farming
Did you know that there are 1.5 billion people worldwide who are estimated to be involved in family farming? The United Nations has declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) to recognize the importance of family farming in reducing poverty and improving global food security. So what is family farming?
A new Food Tank for 2013
At the start of this new year (as at the start of many previous years), I am making the resolutions of improving my diet and getting fitter with the aim of ending 2013 healthier than my current state! From this personal level, I was interested to read about the launch of Food Tank: The Food…
Biodiversity – The more the merrier!
May 22nd is the International Day for Biological Diversity 2008. This year’s theme is ‘Biodiversity in Agriculture‘. According to the Convention on Biodiversity who are co-promoting the day’s festivities along with such luminaries of food and nutrition as the FAO, modern food production is responsible for both increasing and decreasing biodiversity. One of the things…