US nutrition experts say limits on saturated fats should no longer be recommended to reduce heart disease
Consumption / Diet / Event report / Human Health / News clipping / North America / Nutrition / USA

US nutrition experts say limits on saturated fats should no longer be recommended to reduce heart disease

Following a two-day, DC-based workshop entitled “Saturated Fats: A Food or Nutrient Approach?” a group of leading nutrition scientists, mainly from the U.S., released a consensus statement detailing their findings on the latest research regarding the intake of saturated-fats and heart disease. After reviewing the evidence, the expert group agreed that the most rigorous and current science fails to support a continuation of the government’s policy limiting consumption of saturated fats. Continue reading

(Enteric methane) greenhouse gas emissions in cows are cut 25% with feed supplement (3-NOP)
Animal Feeding / Cattle / Climate Change / Dairying / GHG emissions / Livestock / News clipping / North America / Science paper / USA

(Enteric methane) greenhouse gas emissions in cows are cut 25% with feed supplement (3-NOP)

The addition of 3-Nitrooxypropanol to the feed of dairy cows reduced their enteric methane emissions by about 25% in a recently published study—one in a series of Penn State studies of the investigational substance in the United States—which might be an early step toward it being approved for use in this country. Continue reading

Overuse and misuse of antibiotics – a problem driven by the world’s poor and rich alike
A4NH / Africa / AMR / Biotechnology / CGIAR / ILRI / Kenya / News clipping / Research / USA

Overuse and misuse of antibiotics – a problem driven by the world’s poor and rich alike

  As reported this week by Andrew Jacobs and Matt Richtel in the New York Times, ‘Kibera residents are prodigious consumers of antibiotics’. Kibera area, one of Africa’s largest urban slums, is located in Nairobi, Kenya, with a population of around one million. Most people in the slum lack access to running water, electricity and … Continue reading

Why cows are getting a bad rap in lab-grown meat debate
Advocacy / Biotechnology / Climate Change / Consumption / Environment / News clipping / Nutrition / Opinion piece / Policy / Rangelands / USA / Water

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

Beef cattle grazing on American rangelands—not feedlots—could be net carbon sink
Animal Production / Cattle / Climate Change / Environment / North America / Rangelands / Science paper / Soils / USA

Beef cattle grazing on American rangelands—not feedlots—could be net carbon sink

A new research paper by Michigan State University scientists analyses the impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems and finds that eEmissions from the multi-paddock grazing system were offset completely by soil carbon sequestration and that soil carbon sequestration from well-managed grazing may help to mitigate climate change. Continue reading

Tightened rules for use of antibiotics by livestock producers go into effect in the United States
Agri-Health / AMR / Animal Production / Article / Disease Control / Human Health / North America / USA

Tightened rules for use of antibiotics by livestock producers go into effect in the United States

From the United States comes this good news about a new rule that has gone into effect curtailing use of antibiotics in livestock production with the aim of reducing the rise of antimicrobial resistance to drugs of medical importance. Continue reading

Fighting climate change in a post-modernist world of pop art politics—Opinion by Phil Thornton
CCAFS / Climate Change / Environment / Europe / ILRI / North America / Opinion piece / Policy / Research / SLS / UK / USA

Fighting climate change in a post-modernist world of pop art politics—Opinion by Phil Thornton

Phil Thornton leads CGIAR research on institutions and policies for climate-resilient food systems. He makes the case for better and closer scientist-citizen engagement in an opinion piece published this week in the wake of this year’s national political election results in Australia, the UK and the USA. Continue reading

Food prize puts Kenyan researcher on global map—Kenya’s ‘Business Daily’ newspaper
Article / Award / Communications / Drought / Drylands / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Pro-Poor Livestock / Resilience / SLS / Staff / USA / Vulnerability

Food prize puts Kenyan researcher on global map—Kenya’s ‘Business Daily’ newspaper

Even with the Tuesday announcement that he had won the award, Andrew Mude, who holds a doctorate in economics, remains a modest man committed to resolving the dilemma that pastoral communities, especially in northern Kenya, have endured for decades. When he was named winner of the 2016 World Food Prize’s Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application this week, he could barely hold back his emotions, as the reality of his achievement hit home. Continue reading