Narrow Results

The improved food security in Asia that has facilitated the region’s development progress depends on nitrogenous fertilizers. Rising prices and shortages of imported fertilizer have prompted countries to explore alternative sources of crop nitrogen, including diversification with legumes. We evaluate an intervention in Nepal that promoted mungbean adoption. Our doubly robust impact evaluation approach accounts for nonrandom patterns of adoption related to livestock rearing, participation in agricultural cooperatives and training, and greater irrigated land use. Adopters growing mungbean for the 2-year study period showed an average increase of 20 kilograms (kg) in their annual consumption of mungbean-based foods, applied almost 40kg per hectare (ha) less fertilizers to their rice crops, and obtained an additional 280kg in rice yield per ha. Hence, agricultural innovations that use legumes such as mungbean can help promote sustainable intensification of cereal-based production systems, while enhancing food security and reducing balance-of-payments issues for the countries dependent on fertilizer imports.

Following the Minimum Food Security Quota (MFS-Quota) proposed by Ruiz Estrada (2010) to evaluate and determine the food sustainability of any given country in the event of any natural disaster, this paper sets out to apply the MFS-Quota to test Malaysia’s food storage and supply readiness for any potential natural disaster that may critically affect the socio-economic and political well-being of the country. The primary objective of the MFS-Quota is to calculate the approximate amount of annual food storage that any country needs in order to subsist through any potential natural disaster. As such, any country could build its own MFS-Quota based on its agriculture production system(s) and national food policy focus.

The world produces countless tonnes of food to feed everyone, yet the numbers of people who suffer from hunger remain high, especially in developing countries. This issue may highlight the importance of institutions as a foundation for the issue of food security. Hence, this study investigates the role of institutions on food supply in a panel of 56 developing countries. The dynamic generalized methods of moments results indicate that institutional factor plays a vital role in improving the availability of food and access to nutritious food for all people, thereby ameliorating the food supply problem. Therefore, the overall result suggests that policy-makers should improve the level of institutional quality so that it can form the fundamental ground toward alleviating hunger and improving the food supply.

China’s current agricultural policy includes a wide range of agricultural subsidies, but the overall effect and levels of protection are low. China’s continued use of agricultural subsidies to ensure national food security is important in the context of global poverty alleviation. We examine the effect of agricultural insurance financial subsidy policies on food security using a difference-in-difference model with data from 285 Chinese cities from 1978 to 2019. These agricultural insurance subsidies have a significant positive effect on food security, with the most noticeable improvements in the northeast region. Reform and redesign of the subsidy system for greater flexibility and coverage are needed to safeguard China’s food security.

Do Patents Threaten Food Security.

Providing Food Security to Central and South Asia.

More to Structure than Meets the Eye.

Medical Technology Integration in Healthcare.

Investing in Healthcare in China.

Feeding Asia in the 21st Century: Building Urban-Rural Alliances at International Conference on Asian Food Security (ICAFS) 2011 in Singapore.

AUSTRALIA – Cynata achieves major stem cell manufacturing milestone.

INDONESIA – Rice crucial to Indonesia's food security.

JAPAN – Japan joins Gates's Grand Challenge on tropical diseases.

JAPAN – On-farm system turns rice plants into biofuel and fodder.

SINGAPORE – Infant gut microbiota linked with gestation duration, delivery method and healthy weight gain.

SINGAPORE – Mundipharma demonstrates efficacy of BETADINE(R) formulations against Ebola virus.

SINGAPORE – Scientists determine mechanical forces that drive epithelial wound healing.

SINGAPORE – A*STAR researchers develop expert systems for identifying treatment targets for cancer and rare diseases.

SINGAPORE – NUS researchers pioneer novel strategy to prevent progression of inflammation-associated cancers.

THE PHILIPPINES – New biotech hub aims to nurture more rice researchers.

AFRICA – NAU researcher works to understand forces of abrupt climate change.

AFRICA – Researchers create new model to aid tech selection.

AFRICA – Combining bednets, vaccines ‘good or bad for malaria’.

AFRICA – Experts call for innovations to aid Africa's healthcare.

EUROPE – Europe's first fully remote diabetes trial approved.

UNITED STATES – Scientists identify genetic variations leading to hearing loss in young cancer patients.

UNITED STATES – 3D vaccine spontaneously assembles to pack a powerful punch against cancer, infectious diseases.

UNITED STATES – Researchers design “evolutionary trap” to thwart drug resistance.

UNITED STATES – Common allergy medication may be effective in starving and killing the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.

UNITED STATES – Scripps Research Institute scientists develop anti-HIV agent so powerful it can work in a vaccine.

UNITED STATES – Possible strategy identified to combat major parasitic tropical disease.

SINGAPORE – Mitigating Disease Outbreaks with Smart Mapping Technology.

SINGAPORE – Nestlé Expands Research and Innovation Activities in Asia with New Research Centre in Singapore's Biopolis.

UNITED STATES – Cornell Researchers Report Blood-Brain Barrier Breakthrough.

UNITED STATES – Blueberries May Offer Benefits for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

UNITED STATES – New Mouse Model to Aid Testing of Zika Vaccine, Therapeutics.

UNITED STATES – Harvard Scientists Report on Novel Method for Extending the Life of Implantable Devices in situ.

UNITED STATES & INDIA – Government Use of Technology Has Potential to Increase Food Security.

UNITED KINGDOM – OGT Develops New FISH Probes in ‘Outstanding’ Innovate UK Project.

UNITED KINGDOM – FEI Partners with Five Pharmaceutical Companies, the Medical Research Council and the University of Cambridge to Form Cryo-EM Research Consortium.

RUSSIA – Innovative Russian Medicine Mobilises Human Immune System to Fight Cancer.

AUSTRALIA – Positive Clinical Data from CAVATAK™ and YERVOY^® Combination Presented at the 2016 AACR Annual Meeting.

JAPAN – Bayer Receives Approval for Xofigo^® in Japan.

SINGAPORE – A New Way of Looking at Cancer

SINGAPORE – Novel Discovery by NUS Scientists Improves Profiling of AML Patients for Targeted Therapies

SINGAPORE – Red Meat Consumption Linked with Increased Risk of Developing Kidney Failure

SINGAPORE – Thomson Medical and UK-based Cell Therapy Limited Collaborate on Stem Cell Research to Develop Regenerative Medicines

UNITED STATES – New Biomaterial Developed for Injectable Neuronal Control

UNITED STATES – Research Shines Light on Lesser Known Form of Vitamin D in Foods

UNITED STATES – MRIGlobal to Lead International Research Collaboration for Tularemia Vaccine

INDIA – Improving Agricultural Yield and Quality through Tissue Culture Technology

TAIWAN – A Cascade of Protein Aggregation Bombards Mitochondria for Neurodegeneration and Apoptosis under WWOX Deficiency

Empowering nutrition via biotechnology

Feeding Asia’s children

DSM opens new office in Thailand.

Corteva Agriscience invests in research to help secure the future of food in APAC.

DuPont combines nutrition and biosciences business.

Ekso Bionics exoskeleton adopted in Singapore for stroke patients.

BlueChilli launches HealthTech Accelerator for Southeast Asia.

Inovio and Plumbline Life Sciences collaborate to develop vaccine for African Swine Fever virus.

The following topics are under this section:

• Ensuring food security for the future
• Natural products produced by fermentation hold potential to help Singapore’s farming economy grow

For the month of July 2020, APBN will explore implications the COVID-19 outbreak will have on food security in the Asia Pacific Region. In the Columns dive into primary care in the healthcare system looking at the importance of networks and increasing productivity through digitization. Read more on the interview with Associate Professor Jeremy Lim, founder of Southeast Asia's first stool bank, AMILI as the team works towards generating an understanding of the Asian gut microbiome.

Food security is a complex phenomenon made up of multiple dimensions — food availability, physical access to food, economic access to food, food utilization — each of which has a stability dimension which underpins it. This review provides details on these dimensions and links them to two published indices which provide assessments of the state of food security in a country. The paper further provides analyses of the main supply and demand factors in the food security equation. Food security faces natural and anthropogenic threats such as loss of productive land and water, climate change and declining crop productivity, all of which are potentially amenable to solutions provided by science and technology. Demographic and accompanying diet changes further exacerbate the demands made on the natural resource base for food production. Finally, possible responses to the challenges confronting a secured food future are discussed from technological, policy and system level perspectives.

The world’s population continues to expand and it is expected to cross 9 billion by 2050. This would significantly amplify the demand for food, which will pose serious threats to global food security. Additional challenges are being imposed due to a gradual decrease in the total arable land and global environmental changes. Hence, it is of utmost importance to review and revise the existing food production strategies by incorporating novel biotechnological approaches that can help to break the crop yield barriers in the near future. In this review, we highlight some of the concerns hampering crop yield enhancements. The review also focuses on modern breeding techniques based on genomics as well as proven biotechnological approaches that enable identification and utilization of candidate genes. Another aspect of discussion is the important area of research, namely hormonal regulation of plant development, which is likely to yield valuable regulatory genes for such crop improvement efforts in the future. These strategies can serve as potential tools for developing elite crop varieties for feeding the growing billions.

Fish is one of the major sources of animal protein. Due to rising world populations, increasing income and urbanization, demand for fish has been increasing. In order to meet the need for more fish, aquaculture has become increasingly important as wild populations and production from capture fisheries have declined due to overfishing and poor management. In recent years, production from aquaculture has increased rapidly to address the shortfalls in capture fisheries, especially in Asia where aquaculture production accounts for about 90% of world aquaculture production by volume. This paper reviews the status of the world’s fish production, provides an update on Asian aquaculture, and highlights developments that are contributing to sustainable fish production, particularly integrated multi-trophic aquaculture and aquaponics.

Food safety and food security are interrelated concepts with a profound impact on the quality of human life. Food security describes the overall availability of food at different levels from global to individual household. While, food safety focuses on handling, preparation and storage of foods in order to prevent foodborne illnesses. This review focuses on innovative thermal and non-thermal technologies in the area of food processing as the means to ensure food security through improving food safety with emphasis on the reduction and control of microbiological risks. The antimicrobial efficiency and mechanism of new technologies to extend the shelf life of food product were also discussed.

Food commodities have been used worldwide for both human consumption and energy, amid concerns of environmental degradation and damaging effects on local food systems. Presently, strategies of rural development have encompassed the use of green resources to produce biofuels and an agenda of food security. We argue that by the strengthening of a Sectorial System of Production and Innovation involving farming activity, industrial transformation and institutional support, production for food and for energy can be balanced. Our discussion contributes to the resolution of the potential conflict between agro-energy and food production and the role of public policies in stimulating second-generation ethanol based on remaining biomass. Based on the current literature and empirical evidences, the prospects for sugarcane ethanol in Brazil are examined, bearing in mind the development of a system able to produce second-generation ethanol, as a strategy able to mitigate negative effects on food security.

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) has the potential to play a crucial role in addressing global food insecurity. This paper presents the results of an evaluation of 17 recent Canadian SEAs, conducted for offshore petroleum exploration, exploring the extent of consideration for food security in current SEA practice. Document analysis was used to appraise consideration of eight core food security elements and conformity to procedural and analytical elements recommended for effective food security assessment in regional SEA. Performance variation among the SEAs in was observed. Notable deficiencies include lack of explicit consideration for food security and lack of transparency around public participation, as well as limited characterisations of the socio-political environment. Some encouraging findings, however, suggest that food security can be successfully addressed in regional SEA. In particular, the ‘system analysis’ approach typically employed in SEA in the offshore petroleum exploration industry is well-suited to food security assessment. Certain aspects of food security are already indirectly considered and incorporated in SEA; yet, there is considerable scope for improvement of integrating food security effectively in SEA.