In most crop breeding programs, the rate of yield increment is insufficient to cope with the increased food demand caused by a rapidly expanding global population. In plant breeding, the development ...of improved crop varieties is limited by the very long crop duration. Given the many phases of crossing, selection, and testing involved in the production of new plant varieties, it can take one or two decades to create a new cultivar. One possible way of alleviating food scarcity problems and increasing food security is to develop improved plant varieties rapidly. Traditional farming methods practiced since quite some time have decreased the genetic variability of crops. To improve agronomic traits associated with yield, quality, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses in crop plants, several conventional and molecular approaches have been used, including genetic selection, mutagenic breeding, somaclonal variations, whole-genome sequence-based approaches, physical maps, and functional genomic tools. However, recent advances in genome editing technology using programmable nucleases, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), and CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins have opened the door to a new plant breeding era. Therefore, to increase the efficiency of crop breeding, plant breeders and researchers around the world are using novel strategies such as speed breeding, genome editing tools, and high-throughput phenotyping. In this review, we summarize recent findings on several aspects of crop breeding to describe the evolution of plant breeding practices, from traditional to modern speed breeding combined with genome editing tools, which aim to produce crop generations with desired traits annually.
Emerging interdisciplinary science efforts are providing new understanding of the interdependence of food, energy, and water (FEW) systems. These science advances, in turn, provide critical ...information for coordinated management to improve the affordability, reliability, and environmental sustainability of FEW systems. Here we describe the current state of the FEW nexus and approaches to managing resource conflicts through reducing demand and increasing supplies, storage, and transport. Despite significant advances within the past decade, there are still many challenges for the scientific community. Key challenges are the need for interdisciplinary science related to the FEW nexus; ground‐based monitoring and modeling at local‐to‐regional scales; incorporating human and institutional behavior in models; partnerships among universities, industry, and government to develop policy relevant data; and systems modeling to evaluate trade‐offs associated with FEW decisions.
Key Points
Food consumes 90% of global freshwater but 25–30% is lost or wasted; therefore, saving food saves embodied water and energy
Resource scarcity can be managed by reducing demands, increasing supplies, storage, or transport
Advances in remote sensing and modeling provide tools to develop adaptive strategies to manage the FEW nexus
•Winter cues signal food scarcity.•Across species, these cues promote higher energy intake.•We found winter cues to elicit thoughts related to survival and energy-dense foods.•Winter cues increased ...preferences toward energy-dense (vs. low-calorie) foods.•The current results suggest that this effect may be sex-specific.
Winter cues signal a scarcity of food. Birds and mammals respond to such environmental cues by consuming more energy. They convert this surplus into body fat that serves as a buffer against impending food shortages. Similarly, humans exhibit higher obesity rates among food-insecure populations. However, to date, it has been unclear whether winter cues qualitatively affect consumers’ food preferences. Results from five studies (N = 865), with one of them preregistered, show that watching videos depicting winter cues elicits thoughts about energy-dense foods and survival. Such cues elicit higher preferences for energy-dense than low-calorie foods, as verified by meta-analytic evidence, with this effect likely differing between women and men. Taken together, our results support an evolutionary account postulating that humans have developed sex-specific responses to perceivable cues of food scarcity. As a result, winter cues induce people to favor products they deem higher in calories. Given the importance of limiting energy-dense food consumption for addressing environmental and public health issues, policymakers and marketers should be aware of this phenomenon when designing public communication campaigns.
Improving diabetes care in Northern Haiti John T Devlin; Nancy Charles Larco; Philippe Larco ...
Global journal of medicine and public health,
02/2024, Letnik:
10, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Aims We attempted to improve clinical outcome measures (HbA1c, blood pressure, preventive foot care) in a high-risk population of diabetic patients living in Northern Haiti.
•Energy-dense foods contribute to climate change.•Climate change reports often highlight a rising threat of food scarcity.•We found such videos to increase preferences toward energy-dense foods.•In ...line with the evolutionary account, this effect was stronger for women.
Whereas large-scale consumption of energy-dense foods contributes to climate change, we investigated whether exposure to climate change-induced food scarcity affects preferences toward these foods. Humans’ current psychological mechanisms have developed in their ancestral evolutionary past to respond to immediate threats and opportunities. Consequently, these mechanisms may not distinguish between cues to actual food scarcity and cues to food scarcity distant in time and space. Drawing on the insurance hypothesis, which postulates that humans should respond to environmental cues to food scarcity through increased energy consumption, we predicted that exposing participants to climate change-induced food scarcity content increases their preferences toward energy-dense foods, with this effect being particularly pronounced in women. Three experiments—including one preregistered laboratory study—confirm this notion. Our findings jointly demonstrate that receiving information about food shortages distant in time and space can influence current food preferences.
Mass media extensively inform societies about events threatening the global food supply (e.g., pandemics or Brexit). Consumers exposed to such communication may perceive food resources as becoming ...scarcer. In line with an evolutionary account, these perceptions can shift decision-making in domains such as food preferences or prosociality. However, existing literature has solely focused on actual and past food insecurity experiences threatening mostly low-income families, thus neglecting the future-oriented perceptions among the general population. This paper broadens the food insecurity research scope by developing a new construct—anticipated food scarcity (AFS)—which is defined as the perception that food resources are becoming less available (in the future). We have developed and psychometrically validated the 8-item Anticipated Food Scarcity Scale (AFSS) in eight studies (N = 1333). The 8-item AFSS is unidimensional and has good psychometric qualities. The scale is sensitive to food scarcity cues and, therefore, can be used in experimental research. Moreover, its relatively narrow set of items makes it an exceptionally potent tool for use in online surveys, field settings, and lab studies. Taken together, the AFSS presents an alternative approach to food scarcity measurement in affluent societies and, consequently, can foster novel research on food waste, prosocial behaviors, and other similar topic areas.
•High-caloric foods are preferable compared to low-caloric foods.•For women, high-caloric foods are preferable in a resource scarce ecology.•Individuals modify their food preferences when reporting ...higher food scarcity.•Food scarcity is associated with food preferences in perceived safe ecologies.
To solve the adaptive problem of food uncertainty, humans have evolved cognitive mechanisms for preferring energy dense foods which are sensitive to ecological cues. In the current studies, ecological cues were used to determine if individuals alter their preferences for energy dense foods when exposed to safe, resource scarce, or violent ecological cues. In addition, the Anticipated Food Scarcity Scale (AFSS) was used to assess overall dispositional responses to food instability. Study 1 used a between-within subjects design, and the findings showed that individuals were more likely to prefer high-caloric foods compared to low-caloric foods, regardless of ecological scenario. In Study 2, using a within-subjects design, individuals’ preferences for food were moderated by anticipated food scarcity, where food preferences were higher when in a safe compared to a resource scarce ecology. The studies show that energy dense foods are preferred overall and anticipating food scarcity is associated with those ratings at the individual level, when considering food in a safe ecological scenario.
Carbon neutrality has been a global consensus to navigate away from catastrophic climate change. In particular, such climate changes also generate inevitable influences on economic securities, such ...as energy security and food security, through energy structure transformation etc. Energy and food are essential elements for human beings, and they are naturally linked to sustainable development. Usually, emergency events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, may threaten energy security or food security in a region, the risk of which would be amplified due to the energy-food nexus effect. This is no doubt also a challenge and an opportunity for countries to achieve carbon neutrality. To realize the stable pathways to carbon neutrality, it is important to analyze the energy scarcity risk and food scarcity risk of each industry and country as well as the nexus effect between energy and food. In this paper, we combine multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis with network control analysis (NCA) to investigate the dependence degree of each country and region on energy and food resources as well as the risk transmission network of the energy-food scarcity nexus. Base on this, the impact of climate policy on energy-food nexus scarcity risk is analyzed. We found some interesting conclusions. First, regarding the risk transmission network of the energy-food scarcity nexus, China, Germany and the US are the main generators, and the main receptors are Taiwan, Mexico and the Netherlands. These results imply that international trade transfers energy/food scarcity to geographically distant regions via the international supply chain. Second, as for the scarcity risk per unit of output, small economies that rely heavily on imported energy or food (such as Cyprus and Luxemburg) have the highest scarcity risk and are among the top receptors of transmitted risks. We suggest collaborative conservation and management of energy and food resources. Third, the analyses that assess the emission intensity and scarcity risk find that implementation of emission control policies could significantly decrease initial energy scarcity risk and energy-food nexus scarcity risk. This implies that besides emission reduction achievement, climate policies bring co-benefits of energy-food nexus security. Moreover, the co-benefit of energy and food nexus security for low income economies associated with climate policy is much higher than that for high income economies.
•Characterized energy-food scarcity to track the risk transmission network.•Developed MRIO and NCA models to investigate the dependence degree of nexus.•Weighed initial risk of energy-food scarcity against intensity-based scheme.•Identified scarcity nexus and control allocation matrix.•Explored trends in transmission network of integral energy-food resource management.
Abstract The new states that were established in the autumn of 1918 presented themselves as something new and better. Not only were they supposed to be the embodiment of the “national yearnings” of ...the formerly “oppressed nations” of the Habsburg Empire, but they were also meant to be more democratic and it was promised that their administrations would work better and their economies would flourish. In short, they were to be a decisive break with the imperial past. However, the new nation-states often could not deliver on these lofty promises, and, as a result, their legitimacy began to erode rather rapidly. In this context, the inability to quickly improve the food supply played an important role. In the Slovene part of Yugoslavia, the inadequate supply of basic foodstuffs, rationing, and increasing prices made the already volatile situation worse, as parts of the population began to grumble, protest, and yearn for the Habsburgs, looking across their northern and western borders. Police and court files, district captains’ reports, and various other sources indicate that after the proclamation of independence the mood of the population quickly soured, and that the legitimacy of the new state was often questioned.
Seasonal timing of reproduction in voles is driven by photoperiod. We hypothesized that a negative energy balance can modify spring-programmed photoperiodic responses in the hypothalamus, controlling ...reproductive organ development. We manipulated energy balance by the 'work-for-food' protocol, in which voles were exposed to increasing levels of food scarcity at different ambient temperatures under long photoperiod. We found that in common voles (Microtus arvalis) and tundra voles (Microtus oeconomus), photoperiod-induced pars tuberalis thyroid-stimulating hormone β-subunit (Tshβ) expression is reduced to potentially inhibit gonadal development when food is scarce. Reduction in gonadal size is more pronounced in tundra voles, in which anterior hypothalamic Kiss1 is additionally downregulated, especially in males. Low temperature additionally leads to decreased hypothalamic Rfrp expression, which potentially may facilitate further suppression of gonadal growth. Shutting off the photoperiodic axis when food is scarce in spring may be an adaptive response to save energy, leading to delayed reproductive organ development until food resources are sufficient for reproduction, lactation and offspring survival. Defining the mechanisms through which metabolic cues modify photoperiodic responses will be important for a better understanding of how environmental cues impact reproduction.
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