Occurrence of aflatoxin M1 in human milk samples in Vojvodina,Serbia: Estimation of average daily intake by babies

The objectives of the study were to determine the aflatoxin M1 content in human milk samples in Vojvodina, Serbia, and to assess the risk of infants' exposure to aflatoxins food contamination. The growth of Aspergillus flavus and production of aflatoxin B1 in corn samples resulted in higher concentrations of AFM1 in milk and dairy products in 2013, indicating higher concentrations of AFM1 in human milk samples in 2013 and 2014 in Serbia. A total number of 60 samples of human milk (colostrum and breast milk collected 4–8 months after delivery) were analyzed for the presence of AFM1 using the Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay method. The estimated daily intake of AFM1 through breastfeeding was calculated for the colostrum samples using an average intake of 60 mL/kg body weight (b.w.)/day on the third day of lactation. All breast milk collected 4–8 months after delivery and 36.4% of colostrum samples were contaminated with AFM1. The greatest percentage of contaminated colostrum (85%) and all samples of breast milk collected 4–8 months after delivery had AFM1 concentration above maximum allowable concentration according to the Regulation on health safety of dietetic products. The mean daily intake of AFM1 in colostrum was 2.65 ng/kg bw/day. Results of our study indicate the high risk of infants' exposure, who are at the early stage of development and vulnerable to toxic contaminants.     

Co-creating an alternative: the moral economy of participating in farmers’ markets

Growing dissatisfaction with the globalised food system, articulated on the behalf of both producers and consumers, has caused a variety of public debates surrounding the ethics of food production and consumption to become increasingly visible in society over the last two decades. Simultaneously, farmers’ markets (FMs) and other forms of direct marketing have experienced a noteworthy increase in participants, indicating an emerging demand for an alternative to conventional food networks, alternatives that are often perceived as providing a more just and moral relationship to food production and consumption. This study examines consumer and producer motivations for participation in FMs and opinions towards conventional and alternative agriculture in order to elucidate what (if any) values and morals are shared among producers and consumers. This study draws upon the theoretical framework of moral economy to understand whether these shared values suggest FM participants are working to co-create an alternative economy based on “moral” principles such as fairness, justice, and reciprocity. This mixed-methods study consists of consumer surveys (N?=?377) and semi-structured interviews with producers (N?=?17) from five FMs in the state of Delaware. The results suggest that producer and consumer motivations to participate in FMs, particularly a shared emphasis on social value, are indicative of a sense of moral economy. However, this moral economy is complicated by tension towards consumers and the alternative food movement more generally expressed on behalf of producers.     

Influence of Bioenergy Crop Production and Climate Change on Ecosystem Services

Land use change can significantly affect the provision of ecosystem services and the effects could be exacerbated by projected climate change. We quantify ecosystem services of bioenergy‐based land use change and estimate the potential changes of ecosystem services due to climate change projections. We considered 17 bioenergy‐based scenarios with Miscanthus, switchgrass, and corn stover as candidate bioenergy feedstock. Soil and Water Assessment Tool simulations of biomass/grain yield, hydrology, and water quality were used to quantify ecosystem services freshwater provision (FWPI), food (FPI) and fuel provision, erosion regulation (ERI), and flood regulation (FRI). Nine climate projections from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase‐3 were used to quantify the potential climate change variability. Overall, ecosystem services of heavily row cropped Wildcat Creek watershed were lower than St. Joseph River watershed which had more forested and perennial pasture lands. The provision of ecosystem services for both study watersheds were improved with bioenergy production scenarios. Miscanthus in marginal lands of Wildcat Creek (9% of total area) increased FWPI by 27% and ERI by 14% and decreased FPI by 12% from the baseline. For St. Joseph watershed, Miscanthus in marginal lands (18% of total area) improved FWPI by 87% and ERI by 23% while decreasing FPI by 46%. The relative impacts of land use change were considerably larger than climate change impacts in this paper. Editor's note : This paper is part of the featured series on SWAT Applications for Emerging Hydrologic and Water Quality Challenges. See the February 2017 issue for the introduction and background to the series.     

Reluctant pioneers in the European periphery? Environmental activism,food consumption and “growing your own”

East European food self-provisioning (FSP) has fascinated scholars of post-socialism ever since the early 1990s. In keeping with its predominantly economic and cultural conceptualisations, much of this research has been concerned with FSP’s role in household economy and with the social profile of its practitioners. In contrast to western conceptualisations of FSP as an opportunity to expand food activism and foster social justice and environmental sustainability, post-socialist FSP has rarely been considered as such. In Czechia, FSP is practised by 43% of citizens and many of them do so in a relatively environmentally friendly way. Yet, most food-related campaigns run by environmental NGOs (ENGOs) pay little attention to FSP and focus on market-based ethical consumerism and alternative food networks instead. Using insights from actor-network theory, this paper discusses how Czech ENGO activists engage with FSP through discourse and in practice. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with leading activists, we show that FSP does figure in non-food-related campaigns and that the FSP practised by activists themselves or the FSP carried out by relatives and relatives’ friends are not the same as the FSP on which they are reluctant to campaign. These differences, which include controllability and the time-consuming nature of practising FSP according to some of the activists’ ideals, help this paper to come to an initial understanding of why Czech ENGOs do not run campaigns explicitly focused on FSP at the moment and shed some light on how this could change in the future.     

Relating to nature,food and community in community gardens

This paper sheds critical light on the motivations and practices of community gardeners in relatively affluent neighbourhoods. The paper engages with community garden, alternative food and domestic garden literatures, to understand how people fit food production into their everyday lives, how they develop relationships to plants and how these in turn shape relations between people in a community group. The paper draws on participant observation and semi-structured walking interviews conducted at three community gardens in Sydney, Australia. The paper concludes that to fit community gardening into busy lives, people strategically choose plants with biophysical qualities that suit personal as well as communal circumstances and objectives. The paper shows how community is relationally constituted through the practices of growing and sharing food. Tensions might arise through the practices of growing food on communal and private plots and the taking and giving of food, but it can also encourage people to reflect on community food production and on their roles as individuals in a community group.     

环境治理对红枫湖水生食物链中汞积累的影响

于2015年以贵州省贵阳市饮用水源地红枫湖的水生食物链作为研究对象,通过测定不同营养级生物的汞含量及稳定碳氮同位素,并结合2007年红枫湖的数据,对比红枫湖水体的汞含量及水生食物链中的汞含量、食物链长度及生物放大率的变化。结果发现:相比于2007年,湖水中的总汞浓度降低了40%,但鱼体总汞和甲基汞含量分别增加了140%与210%,甲基汞在总汞中占的比例平均增加了18%。食物链长度增加一级,汞的生物放大率降低。可能的原因是:2008年政府对红枫湖进行综合治理后,水体富营养化程度降低,湖中食物链结构发生改变,鱼类生长速度减慢,使得鱼体内汞的生物稀释作用减弱,鱼体的汞含量相对升高。同时,高强度捕捞,使得鱼样个体普遍偏小,导致生物放大率较低。     

近45 a来我国农业气象灾害变化特征及其对粮食产量的影响

利用农业部种植业管理司发布的数据,针对近45 a(1970~2014年)来我国农业气象灾害变化特征及其对粮食产量影响的问题,采用数理统计和偏相关分析方法进行了研究。结果表明:黑龙江、山东和河南是受灾和成灾面积最大的省份;山西和内蒙古是受灾率和成灾率最高的两个省份;旱灾是我国主要的气象灾害,洪涝灾害波动明显,沿海地区台风灾害持续上升;东北地区旱灾比重增加,低温灾害有所减轻;华东地区洪涝、低温和台风灾害比重增加;华北地区低温和风雹呈现上升趋势;华南地区台风灾害增长显著;西北地区风雹和低温增加;西南地区旱灾和洪涝走势相反;中南地区旱灾减轻,洪涝加重;气象灾害直接影响到粮食总产量,干旱和洪涝灾害影响尤为明显;气象灾害与粮食产量的关系呈现出先上升后下降趋势。     

基于灰色聚类法的长江经济带中心城市生态安全评价研究

以长江经济带为研究区域,选取长江经济带中心城市武汉市、上海市、重庆市为研究对象,首先运用PSR模型构建具有长江经济带特色的生态安全评价指标体系,包含目标层、准则层、指标层3个层次共31个指标;然后通过主成分分析方法进行权重求解,消除了指标间的影响,使各指标权重更加客观;最后构建基于白化权函数的灰色聚类模型对3个城市2004~2015年的生态安全状态进行评价。评价结果表明:3个城市2004~2015年间生态安全水平总体呈上升趋势,生态安全状态不断好转。     

Combining land-use planning and tenure security: a tenure responsive land-use planning approach for developing countries

There is tenure insecurity around land ownerships and land rights in most developing countries. There are also many land-use planning projects being implemented in these countries. Often, land-use planning exists in these countries but is not formally linked with tenure security. This study argues that combining them by conducting land-use planning in a way that promotes tenure security presents a new approach. A central premise for the rationale of this intervention is that processes of land-use planning may inadvertently increase tenure security. By way of methodology, it evaluates land-use planning case studies from Africa, Asia and South America. It uses the three case study examples to build a case for making tenure security one of the major planned outcomes of a land-use planning process and provides a detailed framework for operationalising the concept. Its main contribution to the literature is that it introduces the concept of tenure responsive land-use planning.     

Environmental Security: A Geographic Information System Analysis Approach—The Case of Kenya

Studies into the relationships between environmental factors and violence or conflicts constitute a very debated research field called environmental security. Several authors think that environmental scarcity, which is scarcity of renewable resources, can contribute to generate violence or social unrest, particularly within states scarcely endowed with technical know-how and social structures, such as developing countries. In this work, we referred to the theoretical model developed by the Environmental Change and Acute Conflict Project. Our goal was to use easily available spatial databases to map the various sources of environmental scarcity through geographic information systems, in order to locate the areas apparently most at risk of suffering negative social effects and their consequences in terms of internal security. The analysis was carried out at a subnational level and applied to the case of Kenya. A first phase of the work included a careful selection of databases relative to renewable resources. Spatial operations among these data allowed us to obtain new information on the availability of renewable resources (cropland, forests, water), on the present and foreseen demographic pressure, as well as on the social and technical ingenuity. The results made it possible to identify areas suffering from scarcity of one or more renewable resources, indicating different levels of gravity. Accounts from Kenya seem to confirm our results, reporting clashes between tribal groups over the access to scarce resources in areas that our work showed to be at high risk.