Day 2 :
Keynote Forum
Ali M Nizamuddin
University of Illinois Springfield, USA
Keynote: The patenting of life, limiting liberty, and the corporate pursuit of seeds
Time : 10:05-10:40
Biography:
Ali M Nizamuddin is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois Springfield. He has received his PhD from Columbia University in International Relations. His dissertation examined the impact of market risks on investment patterns and the bargaining interaction between multinational corporations and host governments over the life cycle of an investment project. His research has been published in numerous academic journals including the Journal of Pacific Affairs, Asian Journal of Social Science, the International Social Science Review and the Encyclopedia of International Political Economy.
Abstract:
Throughout world history, what human beings ate was determined by what local producers cultivated and what they planted was determined by seasonal cycles. Some seeds that could withstand harsh weather were planted in the fall while most seeds were planted in the spring. After the harvest, farmers reclaimed the seeds so that they could replant them the following season. Today, however, these age-old practices that guided countless generations are becoming extinct. What we eat, the quality of our food and even the tastes that we develop are dictated by powerful corporations who are driven by the profit motive. My book entitled “The Patenting of Life, Limiting Liberty and the Corporate Pursuit of Seeds” investigates the corporate dominance of the world’s seed supply. The seed is nature’s gift and the first link in the food chain. This life form is becoming the exclusive intellectual property of the corporation. The advent of genetically modified seeds and strict patent protection accorded to them enable companies to own the seed even after the farmer has bought, planted and harvested the seed. Multinational corporations have a monopoly control over seeds and the accompanying pesticides which is leading to monocultures in the food system and the disappearance of traditional methods of farming. Local producers are forced to buy seeds each year, thereby fostering a feudalistic relationship of perpetual dependence. An imbalance of power has emerged and farmers are transformed from producers to consumers by these new arrangements. The leap to embrace biotechnology and genetically modified foods has been quite swift and conducted without the public’s knowledge. The food that our stomachs ingest may be increasingly bad for us. Case studies from four developing countries are presented for consideration.
Keynote Forum
Francis R Samonte
University of the Philippines, Philippines
Keynote: The global nutrition transition & climate change in the Philippines: A double burden phenomenon
Biography:
Francis R Samonte is an academic Pediatric and Adult Neurologist and Public Health Nutrition Specialist. From 1998 to 2010, he was a Clinical and Basic Neuroscience Fellow at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School with special concentration on cognitive sciences and later as a Research Fellow in Human Brain Development in children with neuro-developmental disabilities. He has completed his Clinical Fellowship at Harvard institutions and inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa honor society at Johns Hopkins University where he studied Neurobiology and Regulatory Affairs. For the past 5 years, he has researched into food security, nutrigenomics and cognitive functional outcomes across the lifespan of diseases in the Philippines. He is currently on Faculty at the University of the Philippines where his primary focus is on nutritional cognitive neurosciences and climate change/food security.
Abstract:
Statement of the Problem: The challenge of globalization has led to dramatic changes in food security, most especially in much of the developing nations. Globalization has played a central role in altering the access and availability of foods in developing nations through liberalization of food markets and the dynamic of transnational food companies spanning across the world. This dynamic change has created a nutritional transition or a dietary shift in lifestyle leading to higher levels of food security but also adversely caused increased rates of nutritional deficiencies and childhood obesity. Furthermore, climate change has greatly affected food security in many low lying nations. Environmental changes have led to chronic risks of food production and supply. Macronutrient and micronutrient deficiency is widespread in many developing countries affected by climate change. This burden of nutrition transition and climate change has clear socioeconomic implications that threatens the survival of the cultural dietary values and status in the Philippines; where economic development and climate change has come together to present a unique phenomenon.
Methodology: Data from the Philippine government agencies (Philippine Statistical Authority and Food and Nutrition Research Institute) related to nutritional, agricultural output and poverty were obtained spanning from 1990-2015. Features of the data included but not limited to the following: Demographic data (age, income, education, urban/rural), topographical data (coastal vs. inland), anthropometric measurements and nutritional survey (caloric density).
Conclusion & Significance: In the element of food security, the double burden of nutrition transition and climate change presents itself as a crossroad in the current challenges in the Philippines. The problems of obesity, malnutrition, declining quality of agricultural production create a difficult and volatile socioeconomic status that requires further assessment and careful national planning.
- Workshop
Session Introduction
Christopher Bryant
University of Montreal, Canada
Title: Using strategic development planning for agriculture to advance food security in agricultural territories in and around cities
Biography:
Christopher Bryant has almost 50 years of research experience in peri-urban agriculture (France, Canada and other countries) and 26 years research experience in adaptation of agriculture to climate change and variability as well as 30 years’ experience in community development. He was a Professor in Geography, University of Waterloo for 20 years and Professor in Géographie, Université de Montréal for 24 years. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph, Canada.
Abstract:
The development of Food Belts of different kinds around an increasing number of cities (e.g. in Belgium, France and Canada) relates to the increasing importance given to local foodstuffs by several segments of the market for foodstuffs. How to put in place a Food Belt^ There are several options and the introduction to this workshop will outline several of them. But the focus of the workshop will be on how to use a process known as strategic development planning involving farmers, social organizations and groups of citizens. The potential steps in this process will be presented and then the participants in the workshop will be asked to respond to a set of fundamental questions (in small groups of 5 to 6 participants) about the surroundings of one of the cities that they know where a Food Belt has yet to be put in place. The conclusions will of the different groups will be shared and a set of conclusions about how to start the strategic planning process for a Food Belt will be developed.
- Special Session
Session Introduction
Griffiths G Atungulu
University of Arkansas, USA
Title: Rice conditioning and processing to achieve safe storage and shipping conditions
Biography:
Dr. Griffiths G. Atungulu is an Assistant Professor of Grain Process Engineering in the Food Science Department at the University Of Arkansas Division Of Agriculture. Griffiths’ education has been in agricultural engineering with research specialization in grains process engineering. He holds Bachelors of Science degree in Agricultural Engineering from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Agricultural Engineering from Iwate University, Japan. At present, his program is focused on engineering effective strategies to maintain grain quality and prevent mycotoxin development.
Abstract:
Recently-introduced Equilibrium Moisture Content (EMC) Controlled drying technology, also known as “cabling technology”, for use in on-farm, in-bin drying systems offers a means to utilize the advantages of low-temperature, natural air in-bin drying of grain and reduce incidences of mycotoxin contamination. With the new “cabling technology”, drying fan operation is controlled depending on the EMC conditions of the drying air and the moisture content (MC) of the grain. Drying fans are operated only under set conditions of drying air temperature and relative humidity to avoid over-drying or re-wetting of the grain. Modern on-farm drying bins equipped with the new technology comprises in-bin sensors to measure ambient air conditions, and monitor the MC and temperature of the grain throughout the bin; the MC history of the grain during drying can be accessed anytime via the internet, which makes monitoring of the grain MC very effective. From an electronic monitor and fan control standpoint, the new “cabling technology” appears very promising for managing grain after harvest. However, the ultimate success hinges on (1) accurate EMC data to establish optimal airflow rates and fan run time, (2) understanding the kinetics of grain quality degradation and that of mycotoxin-producing mold proliferation, particularly in the upper layers where the grain stay at high MC for prolonged durations, and (3) provision of efficient supplemental heating systems to speed up grain drying in the event that the prevailing weather conditions do not allow complete and timely drying. This presentation will discuss grain quality and safety issues related to grains when using these new drying and storage systems.
- Young Researchers Forum
Session Introduction
Laura Kahn
Indiana University, USA
Title: Spatiotemporal twitter analysis of the Venezuelan food crisis
Biography:
Laura H Kahn is currently pursuing her Masters in Data Science from Indiana University with a passion for using data to reduce hunger and poverty using technology. She has volunteered with various local hunger alleviations non-profit groups.
Abstract:
Social media from countries with limits to free speech is often the most reliable source of event occurrence and is a reliable alternative form of journalism. Spatiotemporal analysis of location-based social media data allows new ways to describe events. Almost 37,000 Spanish geo-tagged Tweets from the city of Caracas, Venezuela were used to observe reactions to the food shortage crisis within each of the city’s five municipalities. The number of Tweets over time is explored. The hypotheses of whether certain Tweets are particular to a municipality location that is tested using multinomial naive Bayes, logistic regression and k-nearest neighbor machine learning classifiers.
Biography:
Jellason Nugun Patrick is an earlier career researcher building expertise in social adaptation to climate change for improving food security. He is passionate about enhancing resilience and improving food security of smallholder household as climate change and other environmental stresses limit agricultural potentials. He is currently researching on this theme for a PhD in the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, UK. He has few publications to his credit under review.
Abstract:
Statement of the Problem: Climate change adaptation in the northern Nigerian drylands is a contentious issue. The great Sahel drought of 1969 to 1974 exposed the crisis and conditions faced by the rural households in the drylands of Sudano-Sahelian Africa which have since been a subject of environmental research and development. Agriculture is said to be most vulnerable to environmental challenges in terms of losses in production and food security. The agricultural sector remains a major source of livelihood providing about 65% of permanent jobs and 25-30% of African GDP. In Nigeria, about 40 million people depend on the drylands for their livelihood but also experience poverty under these dry conditions. The purpose of this study is to integrate behavioral change theories in climate change adaptation in the Nigerian drylands context.
Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: Drawing on a survey of 220 households and a follow up survey to explore the theory of planned behavior for climate change adaptation intention.
Findings: Results of principal component analysis (PCA) showed majority of households perceived climate change to be happening; while other outlier households show limited knowledge of the climate changing. Interestingly, there was no difference in the socio-economic structure of the two separate groups. The theory of planned behavior was used to further explore role of cognition in influencing climate change adaptation.
Conclusion & Significance: Perception differed in each community; Zango household (driest region) responses were towards perception of high sunshine intensity and increasing dryness while Kofa responses (typically more rainfall than Zango) were more sensitive about reduced rainfall amount. Recommendations are made for policy to focus on improving climate change information to smallholders to enable them adapt and improve household food security.
Hiroko Seki
Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Japan
Title: Maintaining the taste component in chub mackerel
Biography:
Hiroko Seki is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Course of Safety Management in Food Supply Chain at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, who specializes in the quality of fish, the preservation of the taste component in fish muscles and the enzymes that are related to the degradation of ATP-related components.
Abstract:
Chub mackerel is consumed worldwide. A taste component of chub mackerel is inosinic acid (IMP), which is degraded by the IMP-degrading enzyme (IMPase). Therefore, suppressing IMPase activity is important for retaining IMP in fish. The IMPase activity largely depends on temperature and pH and therefore, these factors need to be controlled. Salt suppresses IMPase activity in several fish and therefore, might have the same effect in chub mackerel. Here, we investigated the effects of temperature, pH and salt on IMPase activity in chub mackerel. To prepare the enzyme solution, the fish flesh was homogenized with twice its weight of pure water and dialyzed against pure water. A 0.5 mL of enzyme solution was added to the reaction mixture (a final concentration of 33 mM K2HPO4 buffer [pH 6] or 50 mM buffer [succinic acid/NaOH: pH 4-8 or maleic acid/Tris/NaOH: pH 6-8], 0.83-4.2 mM IMP solution and 0-2.3% NaCl solution) and incubated at 10-60 °C for 24 hours. The reaction was stopped by adding 1.5 mL 10% perchloric acid, which was then neutralized using KOH. Next, the amount of IMP in each reaction mixture was estimated using HPLC. The relative IMPase activity was 65-67% at pH 4-5 and increased to 100% at pH 6, but sharply decreased to 8% at pH 8. Further, the IMPase activity was 45% at 10 °C and increased to 100% at 30 °C, but decreased to 39% at 60 °C. The enzyme activity was suppressed with increasing NaCl concentration: The relative activity decreased from 100% to 6.5% when NaCl concentration was increased from 0% to 1%. Therefore, it is preferable to store chub mackerel at low temperature in 1% NaCl solution with pH 7-8.
Fessehaye Hdremariam Desale
Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand
Title: Effect of post-harvest drying temperature on bioactive compounds and antioxidant properties of sweet potato
Biography:
Fessehaye Hdremariam Desale has completed his BSc in Agricultural Engineering and was working as a Graduate Assistant for four years in the field of Post-Harvest Engineering in Department of Agricultural Engineering at Hamelmalo Agricultural College, Asmara, Eritrea. He has recently completed his MSc in Technology Management of Agricultural Produces from Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand.
Abstract:
Statement of the Problem: Sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) is one among the staple food sustaining tuber crops. Extending its utilization by converting into flour through drying is a common practice. However, drying fresh sweet potato has some side effects on its final quality. A number of researches have been done on the effect of drying on quality of sweet potato. But comparisons made among different drying temperatures are very rare. The aim of this research is to study the effect of post-harvest drying on bioactive compounds and antioxidant properties of sweet potato flours.
Methodology: Fresh roots of orange fleshed (OFSP) and purple fleshed (PFSP) sweet potato varieties were cleaned, peeled, cut in to 3 mm uniform thickness slices and then dried in a cabinet hot air drier at three drying temperatures (55, 70 and 85 °C). To be used as a comparison slices were also freeze dried. All dried samples were then powdered. Flour extractions were analyzed for total phenolic content (TPC), total carotenoid content (TCC), total anthocyanin content (TAC), DPPH free radical scavenging activity and FRAP assay.
Findings: In OFSP, TPC, TCC and FRAP assay were significantly (p<0.05) decreased in hot air treated samples than freeze dried once. There was no significant difference in DPPH free radical scavenging activity among all drying treatments and no significant difference among hot air treated samples in TPC. However, TCC steeply decreased with increasing in drying temperature. In PFSP, TPC and TAC were reduced significantly in samples dried at 70 and 85 °C, whereas, those dried at 55 °C showed much higher amount in TPC and TAC. DPPH free radical scavenging activity and FRAP assay were significantly enhanced in hot air dried samples. Positive correlations between bioactive compounds and antioxidant properties were also observed in both varieties.
Conclusion: From these results, drying sweet potato at 55 °C may be better recommended for retaining the bioactive compounds and antioxidant properties.
Biography:
Samuel Amakye is currently an MPhil student of Development Geography at University of Bergen, Norway. His interest is in agriculture, food security and food systems. Earlier he has worked as a Research Assistant at Crops Research Institute in Ghana. He has participated in a number of research projects including Feed the Future, funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and also Crops and livestock integration project, funded by AUSAID, all in Ghana as an Enumerator.
Abstract:
Access to sufficient food in a sustainable way is a fundamental human right that needs to be enjoyed by everyone no matter the age, gender, nationality or religion of the individual. However, it is the right that has constantly been violated. Individual right to food are sometimes curtailed by lack of availability, access and sustainable way. This has been the situation for most smallholder farm households in Navrongo, Ghana. Navrongo is located in the Guinea Savanna zone of Ghana. This zone experience unimodal pattern of rainfall and therefore there is only one planting season. Due to this, households have to depend on their harvest year by year. Smallholder farmers are the major food producers in the country, yet still they are the most vulnerable to food insecurity. Food insecurity exist in most households in the study area throughout the year, however this reaches its peak during the lean season. The lean season in this context refers to the period in between planting and just before harvest. It is the time that smallholder farmer households experience the most difficult period in the year. Households’ food stock gets depleted and also it is the time when food prices reach its maximum. As low income households, the question is, how do they survive during such period? This and many other questions I seek to answer within the theoretical framework of sustainable livelihood approach and the concept of food security. Based on this, qualitative research methods (in-depth interviews, participant observation, focus groups, informal conversation) were used during the data collection. The qualitative research methods were used to be able to unearth the perceptions and the experiences of smallholder farmer households of lean season food insecurity.
Rejoice Wabiyaa Akuyo Ayifli
Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana
Title: Food Security Challenges in Ghana
Biography:
Abstract:
The agriculture sector has been the most dominant sector of the Economy of Ghana since independence. Close to seventy (70) percent of Ghanaians are engaged in the agricultural sector directly or indirectly along the value chain. In recent years Ghana face the challenge of making substantial progress in food security because average yields have remained stagnant. Commercial food imports and food aid have constituted about 4.7% of food needs in the last 15 years. Food production fluctuates from year to year due to frequent variations in the magnitude of rains during and between growing seasons. This recurrence of climatic stress destroys crops and livestock. Rainfall is a major determinant in the annual fluctuations of household and national food output. This creates food insecurity at household levels, which can be transitory in poor communities and chronic in distressed areas. In high population density areas such as the Upper East Region, the situation is cyclical and severe for three to five months each year. There are therefore regional disparities in food insecurity due to seasonal food deficits in the three northern regions. The Ghanaian government over the years have adopted various policies and strategies to sustain food security within its borders. Most often, a countries food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people’s dietary needs as well as their food preferences. In most countries, like Ghana, health problems related to dietary excess are an ever increasing threat, In fact, malnutrition and foodborne diarrhoea are become double burden. The government has drafted a three pillar food security policy. Food availability, sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis, Food access, having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Food use: appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation. The food and agriculture sector development policy (FASDEP) I & II and the medium term agricultural sector investment plan (METASIP) I&II are the policies and strategies adopted in recent years by the government of Ghana. The FASDEP II and the METASIP II are the current policy and strategy been implemented by the Ghanaian government.