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This is another interesting article about the supertree, moringa oleifera.

This is the first of four planned papers on the nutritional, therapeutic, and prophylactic properties of Moringa oleifera. In this introductory paper, the scientific evidence for health effects are summarized in tabular format, and the strength of evidence is discussed in very general terms. A second paper will address a select few uses of Moringa in greater detail than they can be dealt with in the context of this paper. A third paper will probe the phytochemical components of Moringa in more depth. A fourth paper will lay out a number of suggested research projects that can be initiated at a very small scale and with very limited resources, in geographic regions which are suitable for Moringa cultivation and utilization. In advance of this fourth paper in the series, the author solicits suggestions and will gladly acknowledge contributions that are incorporated into the final manuscript. It is the intent and hope of the journal’s editors that such a network of small-scale, locally executed investigations might be successfully woven into a greater fabric which will have enhanced scientific power over similar small studies conducted and reported in isolation. Such an approach will have the added benefit that statistically sound planning, peer review, and multi-center coordination brings to a scientific investigation.

The following paper is intended to be useful for both scientific and lay audiences. Since various terms used herein are likely not familiar to the lay reader, nor are many of the references readily available to either scientific or lay audiences, we encourage active on-line dialog between readers and both the author and the journal staff. Both will attempt to answer questions and to direct readers to the experts in an open and public manner.. Part 1.

click here to continue reading about the therapeutic, nutritional and prophylactic properties of Moringa oleifera…

This article from IGTN suggests that the recent collapse of the WTO mini-ministerial, July 2008, reflects the new geopolitics of the global economy. The emerging economies are approaching trade issues and negotiations differently. Particularly they place more emphasis on supporting women employed in agriculture. There is new conviction among negotiators that poverty and livelihood issues cannot be left to the market to be regulated. These concerns contributed to the collapse alongside the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) issues.

The paper emphasises that the political value of technical issues should not be ignored. Reasons for this and for why the SSM was not the only reason for the collapse include:

• import surges of subsidised products could displace millions of people, giving the SSM major political value
• the G33, the G7 and the G20 could not find a common position in discussions on the SSM
• cotton, a highly politically contentious issue, was due to be discussed after the SSM and was likely to have caused problems
• agricultural market access discussions reflected a political choice that links growth to market access and ‘offensive interests’

In conclusion IGTN note:

• the context of the Uruguay Round no longer exists as the emerging economies now have a voice
• there may be increasing use of the Dispute Settlement Body. Brazil is currently launching a dispute on cotton subsidies
• Members can no longer ignore the new geo-politics of the world economy and need to face the challenges of a changing world

Read/download the full article here…

We’re currently trying to resolve IE explorer issues. pls. come back later….

The proceedings of the 7th AsiaDHRRA General Assembly is now available for download.

click here to read or download the proceedings…

visit the 7th AsiaDHRRA GA activity blog

HungerWednesday highlights this paper on the food crisis presented by AsiaDHRRA Chairperson Datuk Marimuthu Nadason during the Forum on Regional Strategic and Political Developments held in Singapore recently.

The devastating presence of food crisis in this millennium has undoubtedly shocked all walks of life, from policy-makers to housewives in all areas of the globe. Unexpectedly, an unimaginable catastrophic chain of complex elements have propelled millions of people into hunger and malnourishment. Despite all the advancement in technology in food production, increase affluence in many nations worldwide and increase trade facilitation to ease exchange of products
among countries through the World Trade Organization manifesto, food inflation has rattled
every nation.

continue reading the The Political-Economic Impact of the Rise of Commodity Prices…

Heres’s an interesting reading for TechTuesday from the DevelopmentGateway about how ICT are becoming essential tools in providing agricultural extensions services.

This paper reports on the 6th Consultative Expert Meeting of the ACP-EU Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation Observatory (CTA) on ICTs. The summary report provides an outline of the main issues, developments and trends in agricultural extension, as they relate to ICTs, with a special emphasis on improving rural livelihoods. The report draws on the presentations, case studies and discussions from the CTA Observatory.

Participants drew attention to the fact that extension is being compelled to change from a process of technology transfer (research to farmer) to a process of facilitating and brokering a wide range of communication, information and advocacy services.

Given these trends, participants focused on the following topics:

• Assessing the role and potential of modern ICTs in the context of changing paradigms and emerging new actors
• Identifying challenges and constraints on the increased use of ICTs in agricultural extension
• Articulating common principles, and developing a framework for the application of ICTs to improved pro-poor extension
• Establishing an inventory and state-of-the-art assessment of the use of ICTs in agricultural extension, including a collection of success stories and examples of good practice from ACP countries
• Specifying the implications for CTA’s priorities and future interventions.

download the paper on how ICT is transforming agricultural extension…

FarmFriday showcases this rice farming tips from Philrice on “Controlling water during the rainy season”

Don’t let your ricefields overflow with water.

“Too much water, like the lack of it, could cause stress on the rice plant, affecting its growth and yield,” explained Jovino de Dios of the PhilRice’s Agronomy, Soils, and Plant Physiology Division.

According to PhilRice experts, symptoms of stress due to excessive water include reduced tillering and leaf area during the rice plant’s vegetative stage. Excessive water refers to a water depth greater than 5 cm for more than six days.

continue reading about how to control water during the rainy season…

Stumbled upon this worrisome article in reddit..

http://onthecommons.org | 17 Nov 2006 / Jonathan Rowe

In my wife’s dialect of kari-ya, spoken on the island of Panay, in the Philippines, there is a word, binhi, which refers to the grains of rice that are set aside and used as seeds in the next planting season. There is a knack to choosing these. You want plump grains with no blemishes. Every farmer knows how to do it, and usually their families too.

This is not a quaint Third World custom. Seeds are independence, and survival. “When you have rice under the house,” my wife’s father says, “you do not have worries.” When you have seeds, then you will have rice, given just a little cooperation from nature. Those days might be numbered, though. The creep of “intellectual property” – which is the stalking horse for corporate control – into the fields of peasant farmers, is making their independence a thing of the past, and has put their survival into question.

continue reading how seed companies are threatening the survival of third world farmers….

For HungerWednesday, we have this insightful interview over at grains.org, of Timothy Lang, a Professor of Food Policy at City University in London and a leading authority on food.  “The steep rise in the price of basic food commodities on the world market this year came as no surprise to him, for he has been warning for some time that the world is “sleepwalking into a crisis”.

So, Professor Lang, is the crisis you predicted finally upon us?

Well, there is quite a lively debate about that. Some analysts say that the world is currently only experiencing a “blip” and that the rise in prices is temporary. Once the crisis has passed, the long term decline in commodity prices will continue. Indeed, history seems to be on the side of “blip” theorists. If you look at US wheat prices from 1860 to 2000, there were occasional “blips”, when prices rose sharply in response to a short-term crisis of one kind or another (during the First and Second World Wars, and in the early 1970s). But once those crises were over, prices resumed their long-term decline. “Blip” theorists say that this is what will happen now.

Continue reading Mr. Tim Langs interview about the food crisis…

This is big! and its all over the net. From IHT

GENEVA: A high-level summit meeting to salvage a global trade pact collapsed Tuesday after the United States, China and India failed to compromise on farm import rules, according to trade officials.

Trade diplomats, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said that the meeting of seven commercial powers collapsed here at the World Trade Organization’s headquarters.

continue reading about the collapse of the WTO talks over farm trade….

AsiaDHRRA, a network of social development organization focusing on rural development in south east Asia, joins the international civil society organization in expressing our deep concern regarding the crackdown of protesters happening in South Korea . We are sad to note the government has not been sensitive to the voice of the people. The current Korean government’s behavior is going against the stream of public opinion and the call for democracy.

We express our support to your cause and pray for the success of your protest through active and peaceful means.

We recognize your vigilance by keeping up the Candlelight Vigil Protest up to now, and carefully watching the actions of the government under the leadership of the new -president particularly on the issue of U.S. beef imports striving suppress demonstrator opposing for the full resumption of by violence.    

We appeal to the Korean Government to listen to the sentiment of its people and stop the violation of the Freedom of political assembly and association. 

We appeal to the Korean Government to listen to the sentiment of its people and ensure that the exercise of peoples rights for the freedom of political assembly and association are observed and protected.

For TechTuesday we found this interesting tidbit. haven’t gotten around to testing them out yet though.

The first edition of the UNESCO “Virtual Laboratory Toolkit” has just been released on the World Wide Web and within UNESCO’s Public@ series of representative “open access” CD-ROMs that are giving access to information in the public domain or to information provided on a benevolent basis by rights holders.

The Toolkit provides an extensive set of free person-to-person (P2P) communication tools (audio and video conference, scientific text chat, whiteboard, collaborative authorship, portal and mailing list management, etc.), and also basic advice on person-to-equipment (P2E) tools.
It was developed for UNESCO by a team of specialists working with the Institute for Informatics of the Technical University of Freiberg (Technical Coordinator, Germany), the COPINE Centre of the Obafemi Awolowo University (Ile Ife, Nigeria) and the Shanghai Research Centre for Applied Physics (China).

more here…..

Checkout the UNESCO “Virtual Laboratory Toolkit” here…

FarmFriday again and we share this article from FFTC about the looming soil pollution problems in the Asian REgion associated with “contamination of heavy metals in soils due to rapid industrialization, urbanization and intensive agriculture.”

TSUKUBA, JAPAN - The Asian economy has been growing fast in recent decades, and environmental stresses are building up rapidly along the way. Most alarming is the increasing contamination of heavy metals in soils due to rapid industrialization, urbanization and intensive agriculture in the region. Soil, which is the landscape for the ecosystem and the basic resource for food production, is now threatened by ’soil pollution,’ which has no obvious warning signs, and so has been growing unnoticed in many fields in Asian countries.

Along with industrial expansion, arable lands have been gradually degraded or contaminated with heavy metals and organic pollutants in most Asian countries. In the past two decades, this trend became more evident, significantly aggravating the quality of soils and crops as the concentration of pollutants continue to increase. Consequently, this brings about great risks to human health and the deterioratation of environmental quality.

continue reading about the threat of soil pollution to food safety and sustainable agriculture….

HungerWednesday features this writeup by Greenpeace we found on Eldis outlining the underlying causes of the food crisis and recommendations for the G8 countries.

Millions of people around the world are suffering food shortages, unaffordable food prices and hunger, primarily due to industrial farming, bad harvests related to climate change, unjust terms of trade and the rush for biofuels.

This brief argues that there is no single solution to the crisis. However, the G8 leaders at the Toyako, Japan summit from 7-9 July, need to step up emergency assistance to the 850 million people who are suffering from hunger, and address the underlying causes of the current food crisis by:

• increasing public investment in research and development on ecological and climate change-resilient farming
• stopping funding for genetically engineered (GE) crops and prohibit patents on seed
• phasing out the most toxic chemicals in agriculture and eliminating environmentally destructive agricultural subsidies
• protecting domestic food production through trade agreements
• dropping mandatory targets to increase the ratio of biofuels used in transport

read more on the underlying causes of the food crisis as outlined by Greenpeace here….