News by Subject Agriculture

Rice is the most widely consumed staple food source for a large part of the world's population. It has now been confirmed that rice can contribute to prolonged low-level arsenic exposure leading to thousands of avoidable premature deaths per year.

In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, eating well in a sustainable way is more important now than ever, Flinders University experts say. 'Eating local' and growing your own fruit and vegetables can save money, provide families and local producers with vital income - and also improve health and immunity.

Researchers analyzed the interconnected food, water and energy challenges that arise from the sugar industry in India - the second-largest producer of sugar worldwide - and how the political economy drives those challenges.

Global warming will modify the distribution and abundance of fish worldwide, with effects on the structure and dynamics of food networks. However, making precise predictions on the consequences of this global phenomenon is hard without having a wide historical perspective.

COVID-19 has led to a global economic slowdown that is affecting all four pillars of food security - availability, access, utilization, and stability. The greatest threats are to food accessibility, due to income losses and disruptions in supply chains - particularly for more nutritious foods and the world's poor.

Recent events have shown how vulnerable the meat processing industry is to COVID-19. Professor Robert Henry says reducing risk of spreading infection in a future pandemic will require automation. But is the public ready for robots slaughtering and eviscerating animals to reduce the risk of infectious disease? And while there is ongoing resistance to GMOs and gene edited foods, Professor Henry says governments need policies to support these technologies, to safeguard regionally-based future food production.