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People living near livestock may be at increased risk of LA-MRSA

People who live near livestock or in livestock farming communities may be at greater risk of acquiring, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), according to a new study led by an international team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Dutch Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.

11 Oct 2012

'Innovation, markets, people, political leadership' needed to achieve food security

"Our global food security challenges are daunting: food price spikes and increasing food prices look set to continue unabated, around one billion are suffering from chronic hunger, and we must feed a growing population in the face of a wide range of adverse factors, including climate change," but "I believe there is reason for optimism," Sir Gordon Conway, professor of international development and agricultural impact at Imperial College London, writes in the Huffington Post U.K. "Impact" blog.

11 Oct 2012

'Bold goals' needed to spur political action in fight against hunger

"Achieving the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the prevalence of hunger in the world by 2015 is still within reach, but a strong, sustained acceleration of efforts is needed," U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva writes in a Reuters opinion piece.

10 Oct 2012

Number, proportion of world's hungry drop but remain too high, U.N. report says

The U.N. "revised down the number of the world's hungry on Tuesday to just under 870 million but slammed the figure as 'unacceptable' and warned that the fight against hunger was slowing down," Agence France-Presse reports.

10 Oct 2012

Food prices rise in September after two months of relative stability, FAO says

"Global food prices rose by 1.4 percent in September after holding steady for two months as cereals, meat and dairy prices climbed, the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] said Thursday," Agence France-Presse reports (10/4).

6 Oct 2012

Perplexing evolutionary history of malaria transmitting mosquito species

An African mosquito species with a deadly capacity to transmit malaria has a perplexing evolutionary history, according to discovery by researchers at the Fralin Life Science Institute at Virginia Tech.

6 Oct 2012

Report finds increase in occurrence of MRSA bacteria in Denmark

In 2011, more Danes became infected with MRSA bacteria, and the number was the highest in over 25 years. The increase was primarily seen in otherwise healthy people without any hospital relation. Although the number of MRSA positive pig herds is on a par with the level seen in 2010, significantly more pigs at slaughter were found to be infected with the so-called pig MRSA, and the number of people infected with pig MRSA is increasing. This appears from the Danish surveillance report, DANMAP, for 2011.

5 Oct 2012

Scientific American examines intersection of humanitarian aid, economic development, climate change

Scientific American examines the intersection of humanitarian aid, economic development, and climate change, saying, "Environmental, humanitarian, and economic challenges do not exist in isolation, but that is how the world most often deals with them."

3 Oct 2012

ONE blog interviews USAID nutrition chief

In the ONE blog, Kelly Hauser, ONE's policy manager focusing on agriculture, nutrition and U.S. food aid reform, interviews Anne Peniston, head of the nutrition division at USAID. Peniston discusses "her professional and personal experiences in the U.S. and abroad, her vision for USAID's nutrition strategy, and the role of NGOs in global nutrition," according to the blog.

2 Oct 2012

Examining the intersection between nutrition and agriculture

In the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Leslie Elder, a senior nutrition specialist at the World Bank, and Yurie Tanimichi Hoberg, a senior economist at the World Bank, write about the intersection of policies and programs in nutrition and agriculture, saying they "are not always closely coordinated."

2 Oct 2012

U.N. meetings focus on improving nutrition among women, children

Political and private sector leaders met on Thursday at a High-Level Meeting on Scaling Up Nutrition, held in New York on the sidelines of the 67th U.N. General Assembly session, the U.N. News Centre reports.

29 Sep 2012

The state of science and technology in Canada, 2012

An authoritative, evidence-based assessment of the state of science and technology in Canada has found that Canadian science and technology is healthy, growing and internationally respected. Over the past five years, real improvements have occurred in the magnitude and quality of Canadian science and technology.

28 Sep 2012

Reporting on progress of New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition

In this blog post on FeedtheFuture.gov, Tjada McKenna, deputy coordinator for development for Feed the Future, and Jonathan Shrier, acting special representative for global food security and deputy coordinator for diplomacy for Feed the Future, answer five questions about the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which was established by the G8 in May 2012.

28 Sep 2012

Unclear whether Romney would increase or decrease current foreign aid budget

"In a speech to the Clinton Global Initiative on Tuesday, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney acknowledged the value of foreign aid and its purpose: providing humanitarian assistance, improving security and encouraging economic growth," but "we don't know whether he would really protect the current budget ... from further cuts if he is elected," a New York Times editorial states.

28 Sep 2012

Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mozambique join new alliance for food security and nutrition

Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Mozambique have joined the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which, launched earlier this year by the G8, is aimed at boosting food security and addressing malnutrition in Africa, VOA News reports.

28 Sep 2012

Public, private sectors must engage to increase chances of success in fighting NCDs

"Some academics and non-profit organizations are skeptical of the motives of the increasing number of multinational companies who seek partnerships to address non-communicable diseases (NCDs)," Derek Yach, senior vice president of global health and agriculture policy at PepsiCo and former head of NCDs at WHO, writes in the Huffington Post's "Impact" blog.

25 Sep 2012

Global trade pressures may heighten disease incidence

The pressures of global trade may heighten disease incidence by dictating changes in land use. A boom in disease-carrying ticks and chiggers has followed the abandonment of rice cultivation in Taiwanese paddies, say ecologist Chi-Chien Kuo and colleagues, demonstrating the potential for global commodities pricing to drive the spread of infections.

24 Sep 2012

Study finds high levels of ESBL bacteria in Danish chicken meat

Nearly half of the samples from chicken meat imported into Denmark contain ESBL bacteria and for the first time the level is almost as high in Danish chicken meat. By contrast, the occurrence in Danish pigs has decreased significantly since farmers stopped using cephalosporins for pigs.

20 Sep 2012

U.S. can help improve global food security

"For all its importance to human well-being, agriculture seems to be one of the lagging economic sectors of the last two decades," Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, writes in a New York Times opinion piece.

20 Sep 2012

Articles examine food, water security issues

The following articles examining food and water security were published on Thursday. The U.N. News Centre writes, "The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have called on the private sector to invest massively in agriculture, stressing that this is vital to winning the fight against hunger."

15 Sep 2012