Purvi Mehta is speaking today at a global conference on Accelerating the End of Hunger and Malnutrition, which is being held in Bangkok and is organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). A former leader of capacity development at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which is supporting this conference, Mehta now heads agriculture for Asia at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Continue reading
Author Archives: Susan MacMillan
Why foodborne disease is becoming a development priority—and is a solvable problem
In the past, foodborne disease was rarely seen as a development priority. This all changed when WHO published the first assessment of the global burden of foodborne disease. Covering just 31 hazards, the study found the health burden was comparable to that of HIV-AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis. Continue reading
Thanks to CGIAR funders of research for sustainable livestock!
Thanks to CGIAR funders of research for sustainable livestock! Continue reading
A move away from ‘grain fundamentalism’ to higher quality milk, meat and egg calories to fight malnutrition
Derek Headey, a senior research fellow at the CGIAR’s International Food Policy Research Institute, yesterday published an opinion piece in The Telegraph on the importance of using milk, meat and eggs to fight malnutrition and stunting in the developing world. But, Headey warns, these ‘animal-sourced foods’, particularly fresh milk and eggs, are prohibitively expensive for poor households. Continue reading
Why cows are getting a bad rap in lab-grown meat debate
The narrative posited by cultured meat proponents is that animal agriculture requires large amounts of land and water and produces high levels of greenhouse gases (GHG). The environmental impacts of a product, such as a beef hamburger, is then compared to the anticipatory ones for producing a cultured hamburger patty through tissue engineering-based cellular agriculture. While it is true that conventional meat production has a large environmental footprint, the problem with this dichotomous framing is that it overlooks the rest of the story. Continue reading
Yes, eating meat affects the environment, but cows are not killing the climate
As the scale and impacts of climate change become increasingly alarming, meat is a popular target for action. Advocates urge the public to eat less meat to save the environment. Some activists have called for taxing meat to reduce consumption of it. A key claim underlying these arguments holds that globally, meat production generates more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector. However, this claim is demonstrably wrong, as I will show. And its persistence has led to false assumptions about the linkage between meat and climate change. Continue reading
Dairy: A tool to fight poverty—An interview with IFCN’s Torsten Hemme
Having scanned the scientific literature (100 journal articles) on the impact of milk production on reducing poverty, Torsten Hemme, managing director of the IFCN (International Farm Comparison Network) Dairy Research Center, in Kiel, Germany, says that dairy is improving lives in multiple ways. Continue reading
‘High-yield’ farming costs the environment less than previously thought—and could help spare habitats
New findings suggest that more intensive agriculture might be the “least bad” option for feeding the world while saving its species—provided use of such “land-efficient” systems prevents further conversion of wilderness to farmland. Continue reading
FAO on the common but flawed comparisons of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock and transport
Livestock experts Anne Mottet and Henning Steinfeld, of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), warn of the pitfalls of simplification when looking at greenhouse gas emissions from livestock. Greenhouse gas emissions from livestock and transport are often compared, but in a flawed way. Continue reading
UN reports rising numbers of hungry people worldwide
New evidence continues to signal that the number of hungry people in the world is growing, reaching 821 million in 2017 or one in every nine people, according to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 released today. Limited progress is also being made in addressing the multiple forms of malnutrition, ranging from child stunting to adult obesity, putting the health of hundreds of millions of people at risk. Continue reading