In this issue

Food Security, Dec 2014

Richard Strange

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In this issue

Food Sec. 0 R. Strange ( 1 ) Birkbeck College, University of London , London , UK This issue consists of an obituary, 10 original papers and two book reviews. It is with considerable sadness that we report the death of Professor Brian Deverall. Brian was an inspirational figure in the world of plant pathology. His many contributions to the subject, which is of prime importance to food security, are reviewed by Greg Johnson, Richard Falloon and Lodovica Gullino. The first two papers of this issue concern the exploitation of resources for greater food production. In the first of these, Nesar Ahmed and co-authors promote the practice of combining aquaculture and agriculture either on a pond basis or as a combination of rice and fish farming. These techniques not only have considerable potential for increasing food production and enhancing its nutritional quality but also reducing risks associated with water scarcity. In the second paper, Francesco Orsini and co-authors point out that now more than half of the world's population live in urban areas. This raises the question: to what extent can the urban environment provide food for its inhabitants? Taking Bologna as their experimental city, they report that roof top gardens have the astonishing potential to grow more than 12,000 tonnes of vegetables annually, which is equivalent to 77 % of the inhabitants' requirements. The next paper by Melinda Smale and co-authors is concerned with the medium in which crop plants are generally grown - soil. Unfortunately, much of the soil in sub-Saharan Africa is of low fertility. Three practices, which are recommended to overcome this deficiency, are the addition of amendments, application of inorganic fertilizers and control of erosion - but adoption rates are low. As a result of a large econometric study in Western and Central Kenya, the authors - emphasize the importance of farmers being conversant with soil fertility management practices, security of tenure of the land they farm and enhancement of their access to markets. They suggest that these policies should particularly be targeted to women-headed households and young entrants into maize production. Besides poor soil fertility in sub-Saharan Africa, pests and diseases are further constraints to agricultural production. One approach to tackling this problem is the establishment of plant health clinics. As reported by Solveig Danielsen and co-authors, the Ugandan government, in 2010, adopted plant health clinics in order to improve extension services for farmers and to contribute to the surveillance of plant disease. Unfortunately, the implementation of the programme has been impeded owing to changes in Government policies, which involved decentralization and reforms of agricultural extension. The authors conclude that their experience demonstrates the necessity of fully understanding the local political environment and taking it into account in order for such programmes to operate successfully. Serge Savary’s paper continues with the theme of plant health and is the first of several on this topic, which are planned for publication over the next few issues of the journal. He points out that “crop management and plant health management, are generally addressed as two distinct entities, the former often being seen as a source for options for the latter”. In contrast, he takes a more holistic approach, viewing both as parts of production situations. The paper is illustrated by models, taking into account, inter alia, whether the life cycle of the pathogen corresponds approximately to the growing season of the plant (monocyclic), severity of disease being principally contingent on the initial inoculum, or whether the pathogen has multiple cycles during the growing season (polyclic), severity of disease being principally contingent on the secondary inoculum developed on the plant during its lifetime. The paper concludes with three examples of plant diseases and crop management: sheath blight of rice, coffee rust and Fusarium headblight of wheat. The next four papers are all concerned in different ways with people’s access to food. Céline Termote and co-authors collected and identified a formidable array of wild edible plants (WEPs) that grow in the buffer zone around the Lama forest in Benin and investigated the contribution some of these make to women’s diets. They found that the diet diversity of those who consumed WEPs was greater than those who did not but the contribution of the wild flora to the diet was low owing to infrequent use and small portion sizes. The authors suggest that, before widely promoting the use of WEPs, further investigations should be undertaken into their nutrient composition, sustainable harvest levels and possible integration into the cultural and commercial life of the local people. Kathryn Fiorella and co-authors investigated whether fishing households on Mfangano Island in Lake Victoria, Kenya, where non-native Nile perch were introdu (...truncated)


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Richard Strange. In this issue, Food Security, 2014, pp. 763-764, Volume 6, Issue 6, DOI: 10.1007/s12571-014-0401-1