Hamburgers and the Rainforest – a Review of Issues and Evidence

This paper examines the relationship between North American beef consumption and deforestation in South and Central America. Some writers have argued that consumption of hamburgers in North America, particularly hamburgers consumed in fast food restaurants, contributes to the depletion of the rainforest in South and Central America. We survey the published policy literature on the causes of rainforest depletion in the region. We also review the published estimates of the rate and extent of clearing of rainforest that has occurred in South and Central America since 1970. Finally, we review the data on beef imports and consumption in Canada and the United States in a effort to assess the importance of South and Central America as suppliers of beef to the North American market. We conclude that the relationship between beef consumption in North America should not be considered an important cause of forest depletion in South and Central America. Domestic policies and market forces in the countries where rainforests are located are the leading causes of rainforest depletion in this region. This lesson seems to have been lost on some popular and even some textbook writers on this subject. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

甘肃省农业生产风险因素分析

农业生产风险主要受耕地生产潜力、播种面积、抵御自然灾害的能力及政策保障能力等因素的影响。根据甘肃省粮食产量统计资料，在甘肃省粮食综合生产能力评价研究的基础上，讨论了各类风险因素对粮食生产和粮食安全的影响，提出加强农田水利建设，提高抵御自然灾害风险的能力应是提高全省粮食综合生产能力的重要策略。     

食品安全管理存在问题及其对策研究

食品是人类赖以生存和发展的重要物质基础。当前食品安全形势严峻,面临来自多方面的挑战。食物中毒、滥用杀虫剂、采用新技术和新工艺等带来的食品安全问题,还有生产流通环节的问题。笔者论述了食品安全的定义及内涵;介绍国内、外食品安全现状的基础上,分析了食品安全的重要性;进而提出了食品安全的可行性对策:完善我国食品安全法律法规与标准体系,建立和健全食品安全管理的专门机构,加强食品流通秩序的管理,构建系统的食品安全教育培训体系,加强社会监督,发挥消费者在食品安全问题中的积极作用等。     

Food Security in Complex Emergencies: Enhancing Food System Resilience

This paper explores linkages between food security and crisis in different contexts, outlining the policy and institutional conditions needed to manage food security during a crisis and to rebuild the resilience of food systems in periods of relative peace. The paper reviews experiences over the past decade of countries in protracted crisis and draws lessons for national and international policy. It assesses the different alternatives on offer in fragile countries to address, for example, the disruption of institutional mechanisms and the decreasing level of support offered by international donors with respect to longer-term expectations. It proposes a Twin Track Approach to enhance food security resilience through specific policies for protracted crises that link immediate hunger relief interventions with a long-term strategy for sustainable growth. Finally, the article analyses policy options and the implications for both short- and longer-term responses vis-à-vis the three dimensions of food security: availability; access; and stability.     

气浮+生物接触氧化工艺处理食品加工废水

通过气浮 生物接触氧化工艺处理速冻食品加工废水的实验、设计和工程运行,结果表明:废水COD去除率能达到97%以上,使得最终出水的COD＜100mg/l.该工艺对冲击负荷有较强的适应性.     

Food justice youth development: using Photovoice to study urban school food systems*

How do youth learn through participation in efforts to study and change the school food system? Through our participatory youth action research (YPAR) project, we move beyond the “youth as consumer” frame to a food justice youth development (FJYD) approach. We track how a group of youth learned about food and the public policy process through their efforts to transform their own school food systems by conducting a participatory evaluation of farm-to-school efforts in collaboration with university and community partners. We used the Photovoice research method, placing cameras in the hands of young people so that they themselves could document and discuss their concerns and perspectives. The research was designed to gain insight about youths’ knowledge of food, health, and community food systems. Drawing upon the youth group’s insights, we build a framework for building critical consciousness through FJYD.     

Population viability and harvest sustainability for Madagascar lemurs

Subsistence hunting presents a conservation challenge by which biodiversity preservation must be balanced with safeguarding of human livelihoods. Globally, subsistence hunting threatens primate populations, including Madagascar's endemic lemurs. We used population viability analysis to assess the sustainability of lemur hunting in Makira Natural Park, Madagascar. We identified trends in seasonal hunting of 11 Makira lemur species from household interview data, estimated local lemur densities in populations adjacent to focal villages via transect surveys, and quantified extinction vulnerability for these populations based on species-specific demographic parameters and empirically derived hunting rates. We compared stage-based Lefkovitch with periodic Leslie matrices to evaluate the impact of regional dispersal on persistence trajectories and explored the consequences of perturbations to the timing of peak hunting relative to the lemur birth pulse, under assumptions of density-dependent reproductive compensation. Lemur hunting peaked during the fruit-abundant wet season (March–June). Estimated local lemur densities were roughly inverse to body size across our study area. Life-history modeling indicated that hunting most severely threatened the species with the largest bodies (i.e., Hapalemur occidentalis, Avahi laniger, Daubentonia madagascariensis, and Indri indi), characterized by late-age reproductive onsets and long interbirth intervals. In model simulations, lemur dispersal within a regional metapopulation buffered extinction threats when a majority of local sites supported growth rates above the replacement level but drove regional extirpations when most local sites were overharvested. Hunt simulations were most detrimental when timed to overlap lemur births (a reality for D. madagascariensis and I. indri). In sum, Makira lemurs were overharvested. Regional extirpations, which may contribute to broad-scale extinctions, will be likely if current hunting rates persist. Cessation of anthropogenic lemur harvest is a conservation priority, and development programs are needed to help communities switch from wildlife consumption to domestic protein alternatives.     

Inorganic elemental concentrations in birch bolete mushroom (Leccinum scabrum) and top soil: contamination profiles,bioconcentation and annual variations

Abstract

Analysis of inorganic and organic contaminants in foodstuffs aids in understanding the human exposure to these compounds via consumption. In this study, an edible mushroom species (Leccinum scabrum) and top soil samples were analysed for essential and toxic substances including phosphorus and inorganic elements over a period of three fruiting seasons. Analysis of silver (Ag), aluminium (Al), barium (Ba), calcium (Ca), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), mercury (Hg), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), sodium (Na), nickel (Ni), phosphorus (P), lead (Pb), rubidium (Rb), strontium (Sr) and zinc (Zn) in mushrooms and topsoil were performed using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) with ultrasonic cross flow nebulizer. Total mercury was determined by cold-vapour atomic absorption spectroscopy (CV-AAS). The results exhibited wide variation in concentrations of metals between soil and mushroom (cap and stipes) during three fruiting seasons. Positive bioconcentration factors (BFCs) indicate on bioaccumulation of several metals including, Cd, Cu, Hg, K, Mg, Na, P, Rb and Zn in caps and stipes of fruitbodies of this mushroom, while other metals such as Al, Ba, Ca, Co, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb and Sr were not exhibiting significant positive BFCs. Over a period studied, the caps were characterised by different (p?<?0.05) concentrations of Al, Co, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, P, Pb and Sr. Contamination profiles, temporal fluctuations, BCFs should be taken into consideration when assessing the nutritional value of this mushroom.     

模拟气候升温对湿地土壤微生物群落及磷素形态的影响

通过构建微宇宙湿地柱模拟气候升温的方法,采用高通量测序和核磁共振技术,分别研究了湿地土壤微生物群落和磷素形态对暖化作用的响应特征.结果表明,暖化作用导致了Firmicutes、Clostridia、Clostridiales、Clostridiaceae和Clostridium的相对丰度分别显著下降65%~98%、69%~87%、67%~87%、73%~97%和74%~93%,这表明暖化作用对不同分类水平上的物种Firmicutes到Clostridium具有显著的抑制效应.通过主坐标分析和聚类分析,不同湿地柱采样点的暖化组与对照组样本表现出显著的分离特征,揭示了暖化作用能够诱导微生物群落组成发生显著性变化.磷酸单酯和正磷酸盐是各湿地柱土壤主导的磷素形态,同时暖化作用导致了XX湿地柱采样点的磷酸单酯和正磷酸盐相对丰度分别显著升高275%和下降20%,JH湿地柱采样点的磷酸单酯和多聚磷酸盐相对丰度分别显著升高85%和下降49%,这表明不同磷素形态对暖化作用的响应具有土壤异质性特征.通过典型对应分析,揭示了暖化条件下微生物群落组成的显著变化对磷素形态具有显著的影响效应.