Food supply chain safety

FOOD SECURITYU.K. Government Not Sufficiently Prepared for the Increasing Risk from Animal Disease
Outbreaks of animal diseases have occurred in each of the past six years and the U.K. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) have worked hard to manage them. It’s likely that DEFRA and APHA would struggle to cope with a more severe outbreak of animal disease. Long term resilience is being undermined by the necessity of focusing on increasingly frequent outbreaks and there is no long-term strategy.
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FOOD SECURITYEarly Warning Tool Will Help Control Huge Locust Swarms
The migratory locust can reach plague proportions, and a swarm covering one square kilometer can consume enough food in one day to feed 35,000 people. A new tool that predicts the behavior of desert locust populations will help national agencies to manage huge swarms before they devastate food crops.
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FOOD SECURITYCollaborative Planning for Australian Food Security Preparedness
By Andrew Henderson
Australia’s food security, commonly assumed safe thanks to our being a net food exporter, is increasingly vulnerable in a world marked by geopolitical and environmental instability.
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FOOD SECURITYHelene and Milton Upended a Key Part of the Nation’s Agriculture System
By Ayurella Horn-Muller
America depends on Southeastern agriculture. After two hurricanes and billions of dollars in damages, the US food supply chain faces an uncertain future.
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FOOD SECURITYBiosecurity for Food Security
By Saba Sinai and Andrew Henderson
Biosecurity is a fundamental enabler for a country’s’ food security, a critical but often overlooked element of national security, and it is time for it to be treated accordingly.
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FOOD SECURITYU.S. Capable of Achieving Seafood Independence, New Study Shows
From lobster to haddock and seaweed, seafood plays an important role in the U.S. economy, diet and culture. The nation is one of the top producers of marine and aquatic foods worldwide, but also the second largest seafood importer.
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FOOD SECURITYCan Florida’s Orange Growers Survive Another Hurricane Season?
By Ayurella Horn-Muller
Oranges are synonymous with Florida, but a perfect storm of hurricanes, diseases, and water scarcity threatens to wipe out the state’s famed citrus industry.
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FOOD SUPPLY SECURITYSafeguarding U.S. Agriculture and Food Supply
By Dimitri Kusnezov
DHS S&T conducts research aiming to ensure that U.S. domestic agriculture systems are resilient against disturbances that could cause food shortages, sickness or injuries, and economic crises.
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FOOD SECURITYTaking Illinois’ Center for Digital Agriculture into the Future
By Lauren Quinn
The Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has a new executive director, John Reid, who plans to support CDA’s growth across all dimensions of use-inspired research, translation of research into practice, and education and workforce development.
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FOOD SECURITYNorway's Seed Vault Protecting Africa's Food Supply
By Ludger Schadomsky
African scientists have preserved precious seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, deep in Norway’s Arctic permafrost. The vault preserves food for disaster scenarios.
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FOOD SECURITYExperts Warn of Risk of Civil Unrest in U.K. Due to Food Shortages
Food shortages—especially a shortage of popular carbohydrates such as wheat, bread, pasta, and cereal — caused by extreme weather could lead to civil unrest in the U.K., according to a new study, which has surveyed some of the country’s leading food experts.
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FOOD SECURITYSecuring the Food Pipeline from Cyberattacks
By Jesenia Hernandez
Sensors detecting the amount of food that herds of cattle are eating. Machines taking thousands of photos of fruit per second to detect their defects and sort them by quality. Robots packing fruit and vegetables into bags and boxes for purchase at grocery stores: Researchers are protecting the food and agriculture sector.
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FOOD SECURITYClimate Intervention Technologies May Create Winners and Losers in World Food Supply
By Kitta MacPherson
A technology being studied to curb climate change – one that could be put in place in one or two decades if work on the technology began now – would affect food productivity in parts of planet Earth in dramatically different ways, benefiting some areas, and adversely affecting others.
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FOOD SECURITYMore U.S. Crops to Require Irrigation
With climate change, irrigating more crops in the United States will be critical to sustaining future yields, as drought conditions are likely to increase due to warmer temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns. Yet less than 20% of the nation’s croplands are equipped for irrigation.
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NUCLEAR WINTERNuclear War Would Be More Devastating for Earth’s Climate Than Cold War Predictions – Even with Fewer Weapons
By Mark Maslin
A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill 130 million people and deprive a further 2.5 billion of food for at least two years. A global nuclear war including the US, Europe, and China could result in 360 million people dead and condemn nearly 5.3 billion people to starvation in the two years following the exchange.
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