•There are more than 608 million farms in the world.•Family farms produce roughly 80% of the world’s food in value terms.•Farms smaller than 2 hectares produce roughly 35% of the world’s food.•The ...largest one percent of farms operating 70 percent of the its farmland.•Agricultural censuses must cover non-household farms.
Numerous attempts have been made to estimate the share of the world’s food produced by family farms and by farms of different sizes. This paper updates estimates of the number of farms worldwide, their distribution and that of farmland, using the most recent agricultural censuses available, in combination with survey data where needed. It finds there are more than 608 million farms in the world, more than 90% of which are family farms (by our definition), and they occupy around 70–80% of farmland and produce roughly 80% of the world’s food in value terms. The paper also underscores the importance of not referring to family farms and small farms (i.e., those of less than two hectares) interchangeably: small farms account for 84% of all farms worldwide, as per the available census information, but operate only around 12% of all agricultural land, and produce roughly 35% of the world’s food (well below the 80% produced by family farms). A comprehensive examination of changes in farmland distribution over time is also provided to showcase the increased concentration of farmland among large farms as economies grow. The largest 1% of farms in the world (those larger than 50 ha) operate more than 70% of the world's farmland. These estimates are not free from bias given existing data gaps. The paper underscores the need to ensure that agricultural censuses cover non-household farms in order to enhance our understanding of agriculture and food production worldwide.
•Economic decisions underlie much of food loss and waste (FLW) along supply chains.•FLW measurement needs to improve and should account for both quantity and quality losses.•FLW reduction should ...balance efficiency, food security and environmental objectives.•More policy research needed to understand the trade-offs between these three goals.•Available evidence and knowledge gaps point to five major policy challenges to reduce FLW.
Despite broad agreement in policy circles on the need to reduce food loss and waste (FLW), considerable gaps in information still exist. This paper identifies policy-relevant information gaps, summarizes recent research that tries to fill these gaps and identifies five challenges for researchers, policymakers and practitioners in reducing FLW. The five challenges identified are: (i) measuring and monitoring FLW, (ii) assessing benefits and costs of FLW reduction and the tradeoffs involved, (iii) designing FLW-related policies and interventions under limited information, (iv) understanding how interactions between stages along food value chain and across countries affect outcomes of FLW reduction efforts, (v) preparing for income transitions and the shifting relative importance of losses and waste as economies develop.
Agriculture is under transformation in sub-Saharan Africa where millions still do not have access to a healthy diet. Policy makers in this region should find ways to accelerate agricultural ...transformation while increasing access to healthy diets. Optimizing agriculture’s public budget stands out as a handy option. By combining a dynamic computable general equilibrium model and a multi-criteria decision-making technique, and applying them in the context of Ethiopia, this paper points to an important trade-off that policy makers should keep in mind. An optimal allocation of agriculture’s public budget aimed at increasing agri-food output, creating off-farm jobs and reducing rural poverty, which are agricultural transformation objectives, will help to reduce the cost of a healthy diet, allowing around 2 million more Ethiopians to afford it. This number could even be higher should policy makers allocate the budget optimally aiming at only lowering the cost of a healthy diet, but at the cost of reducing household income and slowing down transformation.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com. How much would poor nations need to invest to eliminate poverty, get ...all children in school and provide adequate basic health care for all? Can they afford it? Financing Human Development in Africa, Asia and the Middle East provides some clear answers to these questions. The contributors assess feasible financing strategies underpinning actions to enhance human development in pursuance of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The contributors analyse these strategies in the context of broader concerns of economic development in nine countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The assessments stress the importance of redesigning macroeconomic policies so as to make these more supportive of long-term economic growth and employment creation, while ensuring sufficient investments in human development in order to end poverty and overcome deep-rooted inequalities.
Mexico's economy contracted unprecedentedly in 2020. Agriculture remains important for the economy and job creation, but it lacks strong productive dynamism and exhibits high informality. We show ...that investing in agriculture’s infrastructure can contribute to economic recovery and welfare post-COVID-19. On the basis of a dynamic computable general equilibrium model, we allocate to agriculture sectors public investment in productive infrastructure equivalent to 0.25% of GDP during three immediate years and analyze effects up to 2030. We see improvement in GDP, agri-food output and private consumption with rural poverty reduction. Based on the impact on these variables, a ranking suggests that new investments should prioritize the sugar cane sector. Highly ranked are also cereals, mainly maize, and other export-oriented crops such as flowers and coffee. Not only should investments prioritize these sectors, but the government should also finance them with foreign borrowing to speed up recovery and avert the short-term macroeconomic trade-offs of domestic financing.
Summary
Background
Promoter methylation of tumour suppressor genes (TSGs) has recently been implicated in the pathogenesis of several types of cancer. Regarding melanoma, over 100 genes that ...contribute to its pathogenesis have been identified to be aberrantly hypermethylated.
Objectives
This is a retrospective observational study that aims to analyse the prevalence of CpG island methylation in a series of primary melanomas, to identify the associations with the main clinicopathological features, and to explore the prognostic significance of methylation in melanoma survival.
Materials and methods
DNA methylation was analysed using methylation‐specific multiplex ligation‐dependent probe amplification in a series of 170 melanoma formalin‐fixed paraffin‐embedded tumour samples. The relationship between the methylation status, known somatic mutations and clinicopathological features was evaluated. Disease‐free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were displayed by the Kaplan–Meier method.
Results
In the entire cohort, one or more genes were detected to be methylated in 55% of the patients. The most prevalent methylated genes were RARB 31%, PTEN 24%, APC 16%, CDH13 16%, ESR1 14%, CDKN2A 6% and RASSF1 5%. An association between aberrant methylation and aggressive clinicopathological features was observed (older age, increased Breslow thickness, presence of mitosis and ulceration, fast‐growing melanomas, advancing stage and TERT mutations). Furthermore, Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed a correlation of methylation and poorer DFS and OS.
Conclusions
Aberrant methylation of TSGs is a frequent event in melanoma. It is associated with aggressive clinicopathological features and poorer survival. Epigenetic alterations may represent a significant prognostic marker with utility in routine practice.
What's already known about this topic?
Epigenetic aberrations have recently been implicated in the development and progression of many human cancers.
Regarding melanoma, over 100 genes have been identified to be aberrantly hypermethylated.
What does this study add?
Aberrant methylation of tumour suppressor gene promoters is associated with aggressive clinicopathological features and poorer melanoma survival.
What is the translational message?
DNA methylation may represent a potential prognostic biomarker for the management of patients with melanoma in routine practice.
Linked Comment: van Doorn. Br J Dermatol 2018; 179:250–251.
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•Affordability of food is affected by extreme events, COVID-19, and the war in Ukraine.•Up to 260 million people are at risk of losing access to energy-sufficient diets.•Up to 1 ...billion people are at risk of losing access to healthy diets.•Addressing income inequality is key for guaranteeing energy-sufficient diets.•Raising mean income and reducing diet cost are key to ensure healthy diets.
Climate-related shocks, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine have exacerbated world hunger, making it more difficult for people to meet their nutritional needs. This viewpoint examines, for 136 countries, the ability of populations to afford an energy-sufficient and a healthy diet in the face of shocks. Using pre-pandemic data from 2019, we calculate the percentage of countries’ populations at risk of losing access to these diets in the event of a one-tenth, one-fifth, or one-third reduction in real income. We find that, in addition to the 152 million people who were unable to afford a basic energy-sufficient diet in 2019, up to 260 million people (mostly in low-income and lower-middle income countries) are vulnerable to not being able to afford it should a shock reduce real income by up to one-third. The more expensive healthy diet, which was already out of reach for 3 billion people before the pandemic, risks becoming inaccessible to an additional 968 million people (nearly all in middle-income countries). Our findings indicate that addressing income inequality is key when trying to ensure access to energy-sufficient diets, while raising mean income and reducing diet cost are increasingly relevant for ensuring access to healthy diets, especially following a shock. We thus provide insights on how countries facing shocks will need a varying mix of social protection, income stabilization, lowering the cost of nutritious foods, and investing in broader economic development.
•We apply a general equilibrium model to quantify payoffs from investing in human development.•Scenarios show that public spending needs to rise to meet targets of the MDGs by 2015.•Public spending ...boosts aggregate demand depending on the source of financing.•Production factors accumulate and productivity rises.•There are GDP growth gains as a result of investing in human development.
We apply a general equilibrium model to quantify economic and social payoffs from investing in human development. The analysis revolves around scenarios of public spending that allow four developing countries to meet targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Public spending rises significantly to meet the targets by 2015. The ultimate effect on aggregate demand depends on the macroeconomic trade-offs of the financing source. The supply effect is that production factors accumulate and productivity rises as larger numbers of better-educated workers become employed. The magnitude of the GDP growth gains and options to magnify them after 2015 are identified.
Aggressive behavior of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) towards conspecifics is widely described, but they have also often been reported attacking and killing harbour porpoises (Phocoena ...phocoena) around the world. However, very few reports exist of aggressive interactions between bottlenose dolphins and other cetacean species. Here, we provide the first evidence that bottlenose dolphins in the western Mediterranean exhibit aggressive behavior towards both striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) and Risso's dolphins (Grampus griseus). Necropsies and visual examination of stranded striped (14) and Risso's (2) dolphins showed numerous lesions (external rake marks and different bone fractures or internal organ damage by blunt trauma). Indicatively, these lessons matched the inter-tooth distance and features of bottlenose dolphins. In all instances, these traumatic interactions were presumed to be the leading cause of the death. We discuss how habitat changes, dietary shifts, and/or human colonization of marine areas may be promoting these interactions.
The efficiency of a fault monitoring system critically depends on the structure of the plant instrumentation system. For processes monitored using principal component analysis, the multivariate ...statistical technique most used for fault diagnosis in industry, an existing strategy aims at selecting the set of instruments that satisfies the detection of a given set of faults at minimum cost. It is based on the minimum fault magnitude concept. Because that procedure discards lower-cost feasible solutions, in this work, a new optimal selection methodology is proposed whose constraints are straightaway defined in terms of the principal component analysis’s statistics. To solve the optimization problem, a level traversal search with cutting criteria is enhanced taking into account that the fault observability is a necessary condition for fault detection when statistical monitoring techniques are applied. Furthermore, observability and detection degree concepts are defined and considered as constraints of the optimization problems to devise robust sensor structures, which are able to detect a set of key faults under the presence of failed sensors or outliers. Application results of the new strategy to a case study taken from the literature are provided.
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