including the major staple food crop wheat. The summer monsoon was exacerbated this year by an unusual jet-stream pattern in the upper atmosphere;
He took the helm after the US Food and Drug Administration accused the company of falsifying safety data.
As demand for food production rises, so does the global demand for synthetic fertilizer, in
With ever-increasing food demand, there is no sign that phosphate use in China will dwindle.
Nature Newsindia's moratorium on genetically modified (GM) food crops is unlikely to be lifted after it emerged that key sections from a landmark report by six Indian science academies,
which recommended that the country resume planting of GM food crops, had been plagiarized from an article in favour of such crops.
In more relaxed conditions, many animals opt for high-protein foods that help them to grow
All that sugary food means that the stressed-out insects are ingesting foods richer in carbon and poorer in nitrogen than their calmer,
It's another nail in the coffin of the idea that hunter-gatherers didn't use plants for food,
and her team were widely distributed, offering a reliable, even nutritious source of food, she says.
But 5 of the 18 authors listed on the Science paper work for big food
Margaret Mellon, director of the food and environment programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists based in Cambridge,
because global food production is going to have to double over the next 40 years to meet the needs of a growing population.
matooke, is synonymous with'food'in one of the local languages. But delays to a law regulating the commercial growing of genetically modified (GM) food in the country means it is not clear
when the improved banana could be released to farmers. The bananas have a gene from green pepper to protect against banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW
Although political resistance to the introduction of GM food has softened in recent years several MPS remain sceptical.
The aim is to help to secure future affordable food supplies for the world's poorest people.
Rice is the most important food crop of the developing world and is the staple food of more than half of the world's population.
But owing to falling research funding during the past 10-15 years and a lack of commercial interest in the crop,
Smorgasbord of genomes for food lovers: Nature Newsgenome gastronomes rejoice! Today sees the publication of genome sequences behind two of the tastiest treats:
Earlier this year, a team backed by food giant Mars unveiled a preliminary sequence of the cacao tree Theobroma cacao.
and do not compete for land with food, but the cellulose they contain is hard to break down.
Nature Newsresearch Policy Events People Business Trend watch Research Crop catalogue A global search to gather the wild relatives of essential food crops such as wheat,
Sleep-deprived bees are less proficient than their well-rested hive mates at indicating the location of a food source to other members of the colony by waggle dancing the figure-of-eight dance used to communicate the quality
The bill comes after repeated outbreaks of food-borne illness, and gives the Food and Drug Administration broad new food-policing powers.
The agency would also have to identify the most significant contaminants and issue science-based guidance on how to fight them.
But because the bill is argued to raise taxes, congressional rules require a revote in the Senate,
Studies in animals suggest that exposure to bisphenol A a hormone-disrupting plasticizer used in food-can linings
for example, Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs published the first batch of plans from the agencies responsible for national infrastructure,
and towards improving functional landscapes so they are not just making food, for example, but also providing ecosystem services.
when food supplies dwindle. But now, a selection of the soil-dwelling species Dictyostelium discoideum have been shown to husband their bacterial food source.
By prudently harvesting the bacteria and then migrating with them, the amoebae are seed able to a new food source at their destination.
The study published today in Nature1, shows that this'bacterial husbandry'is similar to the behaviour of other social animals,
when scant food supplies prompted a move to new hunting grounds. Debra Brock, a molecular biologist at Rice university in Houston, Texas, who led the study,
'When presented with a food source, farmer amoebae stop feeding earlier than their non-farming relatives,
and save some food to take with them during their multicellular migration. If they then end up in an area that lacks sufficient edible bacteria,
because carrying your own food source means that you don't have to travel as far to find lunch.
Research Hunger still rife Entire segments of the food production system have been neglected damagingly in international attempts to reduce hunger and poverty, according to a report from the Worldwatch Institute,
there are political and economic hurdles to their widespread commercial use not least the public's aversion to GM food.
Future of food could be bright: Nature Newsthe world will be feed able to the predicted 2050 population of nine billion people, according to two French agricultural research organizations.
The second scenario, based on a food intake of 3, 000 kcal per person per day in all regions of the world, including 500 kcal per day of animal origin,
and would mean a substantial cut in food consumption in some countries and a big increase in others.
The figure of 3, 000 kcal per day is the current world average for individual food intake,
Changes in food needs living standards, climate and other factors call for new avenues of research, according to the report.
These include the Dualine project on food sustainability; European projects looking at the longevity of animal production;
food-market regulation; and the use of international consortiums to develop new production strategies for rice, wheat and other cereals.
These questions will be investigated as part of a new $us60-million per year research programme proposed by the International Food Policy Research Institute,
On 1 february, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told Orexigen Therapeutics of La jolla, California, that concerns about the possible cardiovascular risks of the drug Contrave (naltrexone/bupropion) outweighed its weight-loss benefit.
The funding was confirmed at a meeting of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture this week in Bali, Indonesia.
No country has within its borders the crop diversity required to meet future food needs.
signatories are legally bound to pass on genetic information about the world's 64 most important food crops,
The clearances, a response to rising demand for food and biofuel, released as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the entire UK transport sector does in a year.
Nature News2011's biggest problem will be food, John Beddington, the UK government's chief scientific adviser, told a meeting in London on 28 february.
while producing more food to feed the world's growing population means that climate-smart agriculture is the only way forward,
So future rises in food production must be achieved without corresponding boosts in fertilizer use, added Gordon Conway, professor of international development at Imperial College London.
providing food and coastline protection, and said that they can rebound if communities stop unsustainable practices.
and to foods that have been fortified with various essential nutrients, but these items are often unaffordable or unobtainable in the developing world.
and lives because we are using sustainable foods that people already grow, Kent says. Plants can be fortified either through conventional plant breeding
Money set aside for conservation could be used to target the underlying drivers of deforestation-such as local people's need for food
Just conserving a plot of land doesn't mean that the market from somewhere else is going to supply food to those people,
With food insecurity, low yields and growing populations in Sub-saharan africa, conserving future farmland could pose a serious cost to people in terms of their welfare and livelihood.
and help to meet the increasing demand for food. In addition, free distribution of fuel-efficient stoves would decrease the need for charcoal.
But it would simultaneously prevent leakage, increase food production and decrease emissions. And even if crop yields had to be doubled
Business Hepatitis approvals As expected, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved what is only the second drug to directly target the hepatitis C virus. Telaprevir (Incivek),
Nature Newsfarmers have produced less food during the past three decades than they would have done were climate change not happening, according to a study published today1.
says Gerald Nelson, an agricultural economist with the International Food Policy Research Institute in WASHINGTON DC,
There has been a perception that a perfect storm of conditions led to higher food prices in recent years.
and rainfall trends had on each nation's food production from 1980 to 2008. They estimate that
bumped up food commodity prices worldwide by about 6. 4%over 30 years. The authors admit that their results are packed full of assumptions.
That same study also concluded that warming would hit food production in developing countries harder than in the developed world,
The results should add impetus for developed nations to take the effects of climate change on food production seriously,
Roger Beachy, director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) in WASHINGTON DC, resigned his post,
the controversial overhaul of NIFA's flagship competitive grants programme, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI.
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced its intention to assemble an international coalition of regulatory agencies to strengthen product safety worldwide.
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved more cancer drugs than the European Medicines Agency (EMA),
¢â oe2 July An annual United nations Food and agriculture organization meeting in Rome debates rising global food prices. go. nature. com/l3naqa Â
Bacterial infections often originate from contaminated food, but it is now about six weeks since the start of this outbreak and the trail is going cold.
It also warns that rising food and fuel prices could easily favour the conversion of land for agriculture and other uses over forest conservation.
It is possible that the strain has evolved a combination of adhesion proteins that makes it particularly hard to remove from food,
for example from pollution from fertilisers running off of agricultural land, says Bob Watson, chief scientist for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs,
as well as market goods, such as energy and food. In doing so, it builds on previous studies,
and former head of the USDA's National Institute for Food and Agriculture. The Kentucky bluegrass decision drives this point home,
The not-so-humble potato (Solanum tuberosum) is the world's fourth most important food crop
Monitoring and assessment have focused so far mainly on the symptoms of land degradation and desertification, such as loss of top soil and decreased food production.
Companies that sell foods with added ingredients that are intended to boost health or prevent illness are under increasing pressure to substantiate the claims about their products.
he can examine the effect of probiotic foods under tightly controlled conditions, with defined communities where all the actors and genes are known.
the first milestone is for the drug to gain approval from the US Food and Drug Administration before the end of March 2014.
Nature Newsa DNA analysis of ancient storage jars suggests that Greek sailors traded a wide range of foods not just wine,
Some of them contain residues of food, such as olive pits and fish bones, but the vast majority of them are discovered empty and unmarked.
) Degraded lands A rapid expansion of agricultural production over the past 50 years has left 25%of the planet's land resources'highly degraded',according to a United nations assessment of resources for food and agriculture.
said that global food production would need to rise by 70%by 2050 to feed the growing population;
And insects attracted to the plants provided extra food for the fish. More from Scidev.
this approach will be increasingly important for ensuring that food production provides people with enough protein.
and food to poor households in exchange for labour on projects to improve soil quality,
one-third of the food produced for human consumption is lost to inefficiencies in production, storage and transport,
The US Food and Drug Administration had planned to mandate graphic health warnings on packets from September 2012,
and Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. Policy Drug approvals rise The US Food and Drug Administration approved more innovative drugs this year than in any year of the past decade,
¢â presents recommendations for avoiding future food crises. ccafs. cgiar. org/commission Number crunch $131 bn Lifetime sales of Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering drug
Many of the world s forests are valuable sources of food or income for indigenous people.
'such as medicine and food. Results from the survey published earlier this year1 show that about one-third of such forests are vulnerable to climate change.
California, filed an application to the US Food and Drug Administration to sell its two-in-one antiretroviral medication Truvada (emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) to people not infected with HIV.
Ahnert, himself an amateur molecular gastronomist, was intrigued by the anecdotal suggestion that the reason some foods go well together is
for example share flavour compounds with many other foods. Once these foods were removed from the analysis
the extent of flavour sharing dropped away. Conversely, in East Asian cooking, when the team removed the most common ingredients that shared the least flavour compounds (beef, ginger, pork, cayenne, chicken and onion) from the analysis,
Pill politics In a surprise move, the US Secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, has overruled the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and denied girls under 17 access to the emergency contraceptive levonorgestrel known as the morning-after pill,
but"is a step forward, especially given Brazil s need to regulate food production and avoid deforestation.
 The first Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA), published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs (Defra), examines 100 potential consequences of climate change for the United kingdom. The study
laying the groundwork for a biofuel that doesn't sacrifice food crops. Yasuo Yoshikuni and his colleagues at the Bio Architecture Lab in Berkeley, California, engineered the bacterium Escherichia coli
Many researchers are exploring ways to produce ethanol without using food crops such as sugar cane or maize (corn),
or maize not only detracts from food supplies, but also takes up huge areas of arable land.
but only produce several thousand tonnes a year for food. Biofuel production would require billions of tonnes."
Antibiotic ban The US Food and Drug Administration is restricting some uses of a major class of antibiotic in farm animals,
Rules tighten on use of antibiotics on farmsthe US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now moving to protect key antibiotics known as cephalosporins,
restrict veterinary surgeons to using the two cephalosporin drugs specifically approved for food-producing animals ceftiofur and cephapirin and ban prophylactic use.
a retired KSU biophysicist who helps to lead a group called No NBAF in Kansas. The group says that a facility that works on highly infectious animal diseases does not belong"in the centre of the food-animal health corridor.
whether to introduce crop-specific indirect land-use change (ILUC) factors that recognize the extra emissions that plant feedstocks cause by displacing food crops,
According to most scientific studies including one by the International Food Policy Research Institute in WASHINGTON DC used by the European commission to prepare an impact assessment and legislation biodiesel from palm oil,
BUSINESS Biosimilars rules Drug-makers keen to sell generic forms of branded biological drugs such as enzymes and antibodies were excited to finally see draft guidance on the matter emerge from the US Food and Drug
and modern markets for food and other forest products, he says
A whiff of interstellar clouda NASA spacecraft has detected directly atoms from outside the boundary of the Solar system
and livelihoods of local populations by denying them access to their traditional lands and food sources4.
Large-scale acquisitions have increased since global food and oil crises in 2007. Many economists thought that the pressure would ease eventually
The growing middle class, especially in Asia, is hungry for food, oil and minerals. Africa is most at risk
soya and palm oil could have the greatest impact on carbon (see'Food versus forests').'With more than US$4 million in seed money from Norway, the consortium plans to announce an initial round of projects in the run-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de janeiro (Rio+20) in Brazil in June.
but consumers and environmentalists have contributed also by pressuring major food suppliers to sign moratoria on the purchase of soya and beef from recently cleared land.
which make up the lion s share of the food consumed around the world. Cereals and vegetables need lots of nitrogen to grow,
Bunce thinks that food and drug regulatory agencies should consider adopting deep-sequencing techniques to screen herbal medicines;
judged by the access they got to food, water and grooming. The researchers divided the monkeys into ten new groups, where their social ranks changed.
Cooking makes food easier to chew and digest, so the first humans to adopt it could get more energy from the same amount of food
and spend less time foraging. But it has proved difficult to work out when humans made this leap.
But the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs, which is responsible for btb control in Britain,
and the stalks, leaves and stems of food crops. It is seen as a more sustainable biofuel
because it does not divert food from dinner tables to biorefineries. But cracking apart the tough cellulose molecules is a lot harder than brewing up simple sugars.
while the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) works out how to regulate them. Exemplar Genetics
As early as 1999, the FDA spoke about the promise of GE animals for both food and pharmaceutical purposes.
however, FDA approvals for two GE food animals have stalled: a salmon with a gene prompting faster growth,
whether they re bred to produce food, drugs or, in Swart s case, disease.""The NAD process doesn t fit us real well,
derives from a 2010 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) report, which concluded that significant annual investment would be required to ensure food security through to 2050.
Of those 29, at least half contained fats came from dairy foods. Carbon isotopes from milk fat can also point to the sorts of food the dairy animals ate
as different plants incorporate varying amounts of carbon-13 relative to carbon-12. The team found that the milk fats came from a range of plants,
That seems unlikely at the moment, says Maximo Torero, a food-market and trade analyst at the International Food Policy Research Institute in WASHINGTON DC.
the US Food and Drug Administration on 17 Â July gave the green light to a second obesity treatment:
Food science deserves a place at the tablealthough it typically commands less attention than many areas of government-funded research,
A key component of this spending is the $705 million allocated to the US National Institute of Food
In this country, we take food and agriculture for granted. The average American spends only nine cents per dollar on food.
In India and China, the average person spends about one-third of their income on food.
Suddenly it becomes part of your consciousness. It is in your conversations every day. You go to other countries,
if we don t worry about food and agriculture education too. We should consider adding an A
Kids should know where food comes from, why it is important to think about the kind of food that we eat
and not gorge ourselves on calories, and so on. A lot of health problems are attributable to people not knowing about food.
Of course other factors are involved, but at the end of the day, education is where it s at. My number-one priority is going to be conversations with stakeholders everybody from average citizens to farmers, ranchers, scientists and people from the private sector and university faculties.
I hope that we continue on a trajectory to increase competitive grant funds that is commensurate with the challenges NIFA addresses includi food
or past infection with bacterial food-borne disease. The latest research will help direct efforts
Obesity pill The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new weight-loss drug on 27 june
California, suppresses food cravings by mimicking the effects of serotonin in the brain. The agency rejected the drug two years ago because of safety concerns,
Palm-oil boom raises conservation concernspalm oil was touted once as a social and environmental panacea a sustainable food crop,
Such expansion is driven by the steadily rising demand for palm oil, mainly from the food sector,
which they define as the difference between attainable and actual yields of food crops. Assembling the most comprehensive global data set of crop yields
"Our study adds to growing evidence that we can increase food production and improve the environment by doing nothing more than being smart.
In 1957, the virus jumped to Portugal after pigs near Lisbon s airport were fed infected human food scraps (the virus particles can survive meat curing processes.
But agencies such as the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural affairs in London are nevertheless watching the situation closely."
The pigs food can also carry the virus if it includes contaminated pork products. Swill feeding, in which pigs are fed scraps of human food waste,
or heat-sterilizing the food scraps can prevent disease transmission, says Dixon."I remember being taken to a little backyard farm near Nairobi,
and relied on livestock for food and income. While animal health officials focus on containing the spread of African swine fever,
Companies set to fight food-label plansource: California Secretary of Statethose in favour of labelling argue that the public has the right to know what is in their food,
citing food safety concerns and a general mistrust of corporate interests in agriculture. Opponents say that the labels will be perceived as warnings,
They also argue that the move would raise food costs, and expose grocers, farmers and food manufacturers to frivolous lawsuits for incorrect labelling.
or the quantity of GM ingredients in a food. Meat from animals fed on GM CROPS would not need to be labelled.
in June, the American Medical Association said that there was no scientific reason to label GM foods,
the labelling could support health studies by helping to track people s food choices. Pro-GM plant scientists also point out that the crops can benefit the environment by enabling farmers to use less-toxic herbicides
which depends on food availability, for example. But those studies failed to account for the synergistic effects of habitat loss, fires, urban expansion and hunting on the fragmented forests.
and sent food prices soaring. The Food and agriculture organization of the united nations has suggested that the United states suspend biofuel production from maize,
such as loss of food production as land is made available to grow biofuels. If these changes were taken into account,
Gene-test regulation Personal-genetics company 23andme announced on 30 Â July that it was seeking approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its genetic tests related to health
and the US Food and Drug Administration released reports that found inorganic arsenic in rice products.
Rat study sparks GM furoreeurope has never been particularly fond of genetically modified (GM) foods, but a startling research paper published last week looks set to harden public and political opposition even further,
The study1, published in the peer-reviewed journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, looked for adverse health effects in rats fed NK603 maize (corn),
The explosion of media coverage about the findings has energized opponents of GM food especially in Europe.
and a managing editor of Food and Chemical Toxicology, says that the study raised no red flags during peer review.
has complained previously about the lack of independent feeding studies of GM foods. The controversy over the findings is likely to be settled only after detailed analysis of the paper and its data,
whether such feeding studies are appropriate for testing the safety of whole foods, says Peter Kearns, head of food safety,
whereas compounds in foods are heterogeneous, and doses are difficult to control. Regulators rely mainly on more robust tests that compare the toxicological and nutritional profiles of GM foods with their non-GM counterparts to screen for potential concerns.
Resolution of the debate over the safety of GM foods can come only from rigorous science clarifying the issues,
Kearns adds
Maize cells produce enzyme-replacement druggrowing crops is simpler and cheaper than culturing mammalian cells,
In May, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Elelyso (taliglucerase alfa) a drug for the lysosomal storage disorder Gaucher disease which is produced in cultured carrot cells.
yet many Americans are concerned increasingly about the health and safety of our food. The use of hormones, antibiotics and pesticides,
What steps would you take to ensure the health, safety and productivity of America s food supply?
One in four people were getting sick every year due to food-borne illness, and children and the elderly were more at risk.
I signed the most comprehensive reform of our nation s food safety laws in more than 70 years â oe giving the Food and Drug Administration the resources,
prevented food from being contaminated with dangerous bacteria, bolstered surveillance used to detect contamination problems earlier,
and minimize pesticides and antibiotics in our food. I set the ambitious goal to increase the number of certified organic operations by 20 percent â oe
I am protecting human health by ensuring that the foods the American public eats will be free from unsafe levels of pesticides by making sure that all new,
Preventive practices are the best tool to reduce the incidence of food-borne illnesses because they provide the greatest control over the potential risks of contamination
to develop specific guidance for the commodities most often associated with food-borne illness outbreaks.
and a collaborative instead of combative relationship between regulators and businesses, America s food system will continue to be the world s best.
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