Rising food prices could press the poor into hunger, warns Oxfam
This year, hardly a week seems to have gone by without the release of another report on global food systems and food security. Each has a different focus: in May there was an FAO report highlighting the problem of food waste, while earlier in the year I posted articles on the ‘Hand Picked’ CABI blog…
Update: New Pest & Disease Records (1 June 11)
We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Click on the links to view the abstracts. Fusarium tricinctum associated with head blight on wheat in Argentina. Castañares, E.; Stenglein, S. A.; Dinolfo, M. I.; Moreno, M. V. (2011) Plant Disease 95 (4),…
Update: Plant Health News (25 May 11)
Here’s a taste of some of the latest news stories about plant health: Deadly fungus threatens Latin American cocoa crop African Agriculture, 23 May 2011 US: Infection lets whiteflies thrive Fresh Plaza, 17 May 2011 Farming Tips Reach Developing World Via Cell Phone VOANews.com, 16 May 2011 Molecular technique advances soybean rust resistance research ACES News, 16 May 2011…
Update: New Pest & Disease Records (18 May 11)
We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Click on the links to view the abstracts. A new red spider mite from the African oil palm from Brazil (Acari: Tetranychidae). Flechtmann, C. H. W.; Noronha, A. C. S. (2011) Systematic and Applied…
Update: Plant Health News (11 May 11)
Here’s a taste of some of the latest news stories about plant health: It Takes a Community of Soil Microbes to Protect Plants from Disease ScienceDaily, 7 May 2011 Disease-resistant coffee stuck in Ugandan labs SciDev.Net, 9 May 2011 Study Shows Corn Gene Provides Resistance to Multiple Diseases North Carolina State University news room, 5 May 2011 Long-term prospects…
Update: New Pest & Disease Records (5 May 11)
We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Click on the links to view the abstracts. First records of the jumping plant-louse Acizzia jamatonica (Kuwayama) (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Psyllidae) in Slovakia and Greece. Lauterer, P.; Bartoš, R.; Milonas, P. (2011) Plant Protection Science…
CABI publishes third working paper
CABI’s own, Matthew Cock, covers strategic entry points for funding taxonomic support to agriculture in developing countries in the third working paper published by CABI. The importance of taxonomy to agriculture is discussed, with emphasis on how to address the need for taxonomic support in developing countries. One of the subjects explored by this paper…
Climate change and the fight against plant diseases
Earlier this month, Dr Adrian Newton from the James Hutton Institute spoke about the implications of climate change for pathogen defence in plants, at the Society for General Microbiology Spring Conference in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, UK. He explained, “The communities of microbes on plants are complex and include harmless and beneficial organisms as well as…
More Plant Clinics for Sierra Leone
Plant clinics have taken off in Sierra Leone and are a permanent feature of the extension landscape backed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security. However they are trying to extend the numbers of plant clinics so as to make them more accessible to farmers and to this end, CABI with funding…
Wheat rust and climate change – a possible connection
A possible link between wheat stripe rust and climate change was observed by researchers meeting at the International Wheat Stripe Rust Symposium, which convened in Aleppo, Syria last week. The symposium organised by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) aimed to review the current global status of wheat stripe rust…