The downside of eating local

   Australian Farm Institute Executive Director Mick Keogh says the international local food movement brings the potential for a retreat from globalised agricultural markets.

   Unwittingly the local food movement also has the potential to dramatically increase agriculture’s impact on the environment, he says.

   A ‘locavore’ is defined as a person who seeks to only consume food that is grown less than 160 km away. More generally, the 2008 U.S. Farm Bill, defines local food as produced and consumed within a state, or that is consumed less than 640 km from where it is produced.

   “Irrespective of the validity of the reasons advanced for preferring local food, the movement seems to encompass a strong desire to retreat from the globalised, internationally traded food supply system,” Keogh says.

   One often-claimed attribute of local food systems that is not supported by available research is the claim that local food systems are better for the environment.

   “A UK consumer opting for the local UK dairy product would unwittingly be selecting a product that has double the energy and environmental footprint of the competing New Zealand product, despite the New Zealand product having been transported almost 18,000 kilometres,” Keogh says.

    A comparison for lamb production, he says, shows the New Zealand lamb shipped to the UK had an emission “footprint” of 688 kilograms of CO2-e per tonne of lamb compared to the UK product with an emission footprint of 2,850 kg of CO2-e.

   Keogh says a further aspect of the local food movement that is seemingly at odds with many perceptions is the implications of a ‘local food’ model for the potential of global agriculture to provide sufficient food for a larger future population.

   “It is also easy to overlook the fact that the benefits of specialisation (growing specific crops in areas where they are agronomically best suited and transporting them to distant markets), modern science and scale economies mean that the world is now consistently able to produce a surplus of food, which can be safely and efficiently delivered to any location on earth in a relatively short period of time,” he says.

   A recent estimate says for the United States to maintain current output levels for 40 major food crops and vegetables under a locavore-like production system would require an additional 24.3 million hectares of cropland, 2.45 million tonnes more fertiliser, and 22.7 million kg more chemicals.

   “The result would be a profound increase in the carbon and energy footprint of the U.S. food system, and the destruction of significant natural habitat due to land use change,” Keogh says.

Ad development priority on US agenda

April 26, 2012 - The U.S. government has made major strides toward putting agricultural development back at the top of its foreign assistance agenda, reversing a three-decade long downward trend in U.S. global food security activities, says a new report issued by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The 2012 Progress Report on U.S. Leadership in Global Agricultural Development (PDF) is the second in a series of annual reports tracking changes to the U.S. government’s global agricultural development policy. The non-partisan assessment, issued by the Council’s Global Agricultural Development Initiative, examines how these changes have contributed to U.S. leadership in improving global food security. The Initiative is cochaired by Catherine Bertini, former executive director, UN World Food Program, and Dan Glickman, former secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

“It is clear that the U.S. government has begun to develop and implement a focused strategy for global agricultural development, with well-defined goals and benchmarks,” said Bertini. “Renewed U.S. efforts are helping further the plans of African, Asian, and Latin American country governments to revitalize their agricultural sectors, spur economic growth, and alleviate poverty.”

The report finds that under the direction of Secretary Clinton and Administrator Shah, both the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development are showing “outstanding” leadership in advancing these issues. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, via its activities to bolster agricultural infrastructure in developing countries, is also making “outstanding” contributions to renewing U.S. leadership. 

Congress receives a “good” evaluation for making policy changes and appropriating substantial resources for food security in a difficult budget environment. The U.S. Department of Agriculture receives a “good” evaluation and the Peace Corps a “satisfactory” evaluation for their respective contributions. The study also examines how the changes in Washington have led to higher levels of U.S. agricultural development activity in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Bangladesh.

The report concludes that while this recent progress should be celebrated, the hard work is just beginning. “The 2012 Progress Report is best viewed as a midterm evaluation of U.S. leadership in what must be a long-term effort, rather than a final grade on a finished job,” said Glickman.  “The challenge in the years to come will be to maintain this level of leadership and resourcing for the decade or more needed to bring tangible benefits to the developing world’s agriculturalists - and to our global food security.”

The food price crisis of 2008 spurred renewed international and U.S. attention to the challenge of global food insecurity. In 2009 President Obama pledged to double U.S. support for global agricultural development and Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Robert Casey (D-PA) introduced legislation to make food security a higher priority for U.S. foreign assistance. This same year, The Chicago Council released its seminal report entitled Renewing American Leadership in the Fight Against Global Hunger and Poverty (PDF). This report put forward a comprehensive strategy for revitalizing U.S. global agricultural development activities and funding.  

More than half of the world’s population living on less than $1.25 a day reside in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Food production will need to increase by 70 percent in the coming decades to overcome the challenge of global hunger, alleviate poverty through increasing the incomes of rural populations, and meet the growing demand for food. A key component to increasing food production and alleviating global poverty will be investments in developing country agriculture and food systems. - The Chicago Council on Global Affairs

Symposium tackles red tape challenges

As if feeding 9 billion people by 2050 was not enough of a challenge for the food industry, ever-evolving regulations can create confusion and significantly impede progress. 
Meanwhile, says Alltech, when news of food safety issues go viral, families who are already far-removed from the farm become wary of the entire supply chain and the organizations safeguarding it. The regulatory landscape presents a challenging environment for any farmer or food producer, also facing the formidable foes of economic woes and unpredictable weather patterns.
Alltech’s 28^th Annual International Symposium, held May 20 – 23 in Lexington, Kentucky, will address these challenges through its dedicated regulatory session, featuring expert speakers from leading regulatory organizations and influencers.  
“Agriculture is at a crossroad between competitiveness, trade, safety and sustainability. Minimum standards of feed safety are often not enough. Businesses are going beyond these minimum standards for several reasons including strict retailer procurement policies, brand/reputation management and consumer demand. This regulatory session will address both feed safety and trade against the backdrop of these competing demands,” said Jean Kennedy, European regulatory affairs manager for Alltech.
Regulatory focused session topics will include:
Feed Safety

• Key Challenges to Sub-Saharan Feed Safety and Regulation
• Food Safety Modernisation Act
• Japanese Case Study: Crisis Management
• Quality Assurance – A marketing ploy or a risk reduction strategy?

Feed Trade

• Ensuring Compliance Across International Boundaries
• Do Better Standards Mean Safer, Better Foods?
• 5 Trends that Might Concern You – Reviewing the regulatory scene
• Feeding 9 billion people: A unique challenge for the world’s feed industry

Featured presenters at the regulatory session will be De Wet Boshoff, executive director of the African Feed Manufacturers Association; Mario Cutait, chairman of the International Feed Industry Federation; Joe Hain, deputy director, Processed Products and Technical Regulations Division, Foreign Agricultural Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; Keith Millar, head of Animal Feed Unit and Secretary to the Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs, Food Standards Agency, United Kingdom; Joel Newman, president of the American Feed Industry Association; Ashley Peterson, National Chicken Council, United States; Katsuaki Sugiura, professor at the University of Tokyo Research Center for Food Safety; Patrick Wall, professor of Public Health at the University College Dublin, Ireland.
Other invited and confirmed roundtable participants include representatives from Argentina (SENASA), Chile (SAG), China (MOA and ZAoAS), Ecuador (AGROCALIDAD), Guatemala (MAG), the Dominican Republic (SEA), Mexico (SAGARPA) and Peru (SENASA).
Additional information on the regulatory session is available at www.alltech.com/symposium-sessions/regulatory. The 2012 Symposium will be the forum for more than 100 presentations by industry experts, including experts from Domino’s Pizza, Jack in the Box, Wendy’s, Nestle, Murphy-Brown, Future Farmers of America, PetSmart and the Harvard School of Business.

World food prices remain stable

World food prices in March remained virtually unchanged from their February levels, according to the latest FAO Food Price Index, published last week. The Index averaged 216 points in March, compared to 215 in February.

Among the various commodity groups, only oils prices showed strength, whereas dairy prices fell.

The FAO Cereal Price Index averaged 227 points in March, up 1 point from February. Maize prices registered some gain, supported by low inventories and a strong soybean market, but wheat changed little as supplies remained ample. After several months of declines, prices of rice recovered somewhat in March, underpinned by large purchases by China and Nigeria.

The FAO Oils/Fats Price index rose in March to 245 points, up 6 points or 2.5 percent from February, as markets reacted to the prospect of growing tightness in the 2011/12. Weak growth in world palm oil production and limited global soy oil export availabilities combined with declining rapeseed production contributed to the rise in oils prices.

The FAO Meat Price Index averaged 178 points in March, up marginally from  the previous month, sustained by a slight rise of bovine meat price but still reaching an all time high. Prices of pig meat and sheep meat changed little, while they weakened in the case of poultry amid slowing import demand and generally ample export availabilities. On average, meat prices in the first quarter were 3.5 percent higher than last year.

The FAO Dairy Price Index averaged 197 points in March, down 5 points or 2.5 percent from February and registered the lowest level since August 2010. All the dairy products showed weakness last month, in particular butter, as well as skim milk powder and casein. Since reaching record levels in March 2011, dairy prices have followed a downward trend, as supplies rose in Oceania, Europe and North America. As a result, prices in the first quarter were 12 percent lower in 2012 than last year.

The FAO Sugar Price Index averaged 342 points in March, and remained unchanged from February but was 30 points or 8 percent lower than in March 2011. Overall, sugar prices were volatile, as the market looked for direction ahead of the beginning of the new season in Brazil, the world's largest sugar producer and exporter. India, the EU and Thailand, have all reported increased output, which contributed to keeping prices below their high levels of last season.

Cereal stocks expected to rise

The forecast for world cereal carryover stocks in 2012 has been raised by 1 million tonnes over the previous month to 519 million tonnes.  Much of the upward revision relates to expectations of higher rice inventories.

At the current forecast level, the world cereal stocks-to-use ratio in 2011/12 reaches 22.1 percent, up slightly from 21.7 percent in 2010/11.  Among the major cereals, rice inventories are forecast to increase the most - by 11 million tonnes to 152 million tonnes, the highest level since 2000. Wheat stocks are also expected to rise sharply by 7 million tonnes to 196 million tonnes, the second highest level since 2003; however, coarse grains stocks could decline by nearly 3 million tonnes to 171 million tonnes, the lowest level since 2008.

Early outlook for 2012/12

The FAO's production forecast for wheat in 2012 remains at 690 million tonnes, 1.4 percent below the record in 2011 and unchanged from last month. In spite of this decline, world wheat supplies in 2012/13 would still exceed projected need because of large inventories, according to this month's report. Rice markets also appear to be well supplied in 2012/13 given consecutive years of record production which have helped boost inventories. However, coarse grain supplies will be particularly tight in the coming months, especially for maize in the United States, the world's largest producer and exporter. 

Wanted: most efficient feed convertors

A trial run in New Zealand by DairyNZ is seeking cows that are the most efficient converters of feed to milk. Scientists say within a year they should be able to confirm a genetic marker can clearly identify such high performing animals.

The trial is being carried out at the Westpac Taranaki Agricultural Research Station (WTARS) at Hawera in conjunction with LIC and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise with funding from the Ministry of Science and Innovation and DairyNZ.
It is being replicated in Australia under the auspices of the Department of Primary Industry in Victoria. The results of both trials will be combined to ensure sufficient scale to confirm the validity of results.
The trial started in 2008 with a special facility built at the research station. This consisted of 28 pens and feed stations for the 224 calves on the facility at any one time.
Kevin Macdonald, DairyNZ's senior scientist, has been supervising the trial.
"Initially we put calves that were between six and eight months of age through the pens for 60 days. We measured their live weight and their intake for 46 days and identified which were the most efficient and which were the least efficient. All told we put through about 1050 calves, and we've kept the 10% most efficient and the 10% that are least efficient," he says.
From the differences found between calves, LIC identified a likely set of gene markers for feed conversion efficiency (FCE). The markers were used to screen 3700 cows from commercial herds and 214 cows were bought as either efficient or inefficient.
Macdonald says they are now feeding the cows in the pens with the objective of validating the marker genes by conducting the same test. The feed intake, live weight and milk production are measured for 35 days. -Dairy News

Open source food safety network wins award

An open source Food Safety Knowledge Network devised by a Massey University Professor has won a major international award for improving food safety practices in developing countries.

Professor of Agribusiness Hamish Gow oversaw the development of the network that has been recognised with the international effective practice award by the Sloan Consortium.

He worked with a team at Michigan State University on the project that provides Third World food producers free and open access to best practice food safety guidelines.

“The project got started when I was director of Partnerships for Food Industry Development,” he says. “We needed a more effective and scalable model for reaching small and medium enterprises and farmers in developing countries with extension and capacity building.”

The network provides a set of steps that any producer can access that will take them from no food safety capacity to meeting international standards, Professor Gow says.

“We approached the Global Food Safety Initiative, a group comprising some of the biggest food producers in the world, and put together some technical working groups to create the competency requirements,” he says. “This involved four or five companies putting their food safety training manuals on the table. We built a set of training materials that are now available online and through regional and international consultants.”

The network appears to have had pleasing results, with anecdotal evidence showing there has been a big impact on food safety in some countries. “In Ukraine, I’m told, they have gone from 20 per cent compliance to 90 per cent,” he says.

Professor Gow says it is a model that is perfectly suited for knowledge transfer in the New Zealand agricultural sector. “This is a different type of model for engagement. It could help solve the extension problem with disseminating the latest research and best practices to farmers in an easily accessible manner out of Massey and other research organisations. It’s an advanced way of writing a textbook that has a lot more impact.”

Professor Gow’s work fits well with other projects at the University including the World Bank project that has seen public health and veterinary professionals taught master’s programmes through distance programmes devised and offered by Massey staff. The University has also begun offering short courses to Agribusiness managers in a joint initiative with Lincoln University.

The Sloan Consortium is an institutional and professional leadership organisation dedicated to integrating online education into the mainstream of higher education.

Crop Prospects and Food Situation released

FAO today forecast that 2012 world wheat production will be the second highest on record at 690 million tonnes and also announced that  international food prices rose one percent in February —  the second increase in two months. 

Published today, FAO’s quarterly Crop Prospects and Food Situation report forecast a 2012 wheat crop 10 million tonnes or 1.4 percent down from the record 2011 harvest but still well above the average of the past five years. 

Although plantings have increased or are forecast to increase in many countries this year in response to continuing strong prices, a return to normal yields is expected in areas where record highs were achieved last year, the report said. But it was still too early for a global forecast of 2012 cereal output, it added.

Impact of cold weather

Crop Prospects also noted a firming of  international cereal prices in recent weeks due to tightening current wheat supplies and concerns over the impact of severe cold weather in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Turning to the situation at regional level, the report said that adverse weather in West Africa caused a sharp drop in cereal and pasture production in large parts of the Sahel. This, combined with high food prices and civil strife, has led to high food insecurity and increased malnutrition in several countries, notably in Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso.

In the Near East, food security has deteriorated in the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen following civil conflict in the two countries. In Syria about 1.4 million people have become food insecure while thousands of families have been forced to flee their homes in Yemen.

In Eastern Africa, despite some improvement, the food situation of vulnerable groups remains precarious, especially in pastoral areas affected by earlier drought. The food security situation in the Sudan and South Sudan is of concern following poor harvests. 

In Southern Africa, overall crop prospects remain satisfactory despite dry spells and cyclones in some areas.

Gains in India

In Far East Asia, prospects for the 2012 wheat crop are generally favourable with output expected to reach last year’s record level due in particular to good gains in India.

In Central America, dry weather reduced plantings of the 2012 secondary maize crop in Mexico.Elsewhere, good  maize harvests are estimated despite  losses due to torrential rains during the recently concluded secondary seasons.

In South America, a prolonged dry spell affected the 2012 maize crop in Argentina and Brazil but above-average outputs are still forecast due to increased plantings.