Best of our wild blogs: 15 Aug 17

Cyrene with dugong signs, stars and more!
wild shores of singapore

OCBCcares Fund for the Environment – how to submit an competent proposal? Training workshop on Thu 24 Aug 2017: 4.00pm – 7.00pm
Otterman speak

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Singapore scientist wins Asean award for research on rice

VALERIE KOH Today Online 15 Aug 17;

SINGAPORE — Singapore might not be a rice-producing country, but that has not stopped it from contributing to research in the field.

Last week, Dr Yin Zhongchao, 50, was named the Outstanding Rice Scientist of Singapore at the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) Rice Science and Technology Ambassadors Award.

To mark Asean’s 50th anniversary, the inaugural award was given to 15 rice scientists and farmers across the region at a ceremony in the Philippines.

Dr Yin, a senior principal investigator at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory who has been studying how to genetically improve rice grains, was the only winner from Singapore.

He said yesterday in an interview with TODAY: “Young Singaporeans may prefer bread or spaghetti, but rice is a staple, especially in Asia ... (As) a food safety concern, rice is important to us.”

Much of his research is underscored by the need to boost productivity in paddy fields, and to keep bacteria from destroying harvests.

Containing bacteria is important for farmers during seasonal monsoons or floods, which could cause bacteria to spread, Dr Yin said.

Without advancements in research and development, bacteria could kill up to 80 per cent of a harvest and affect the quality of the remaining crops.

Dr Yin, who is married with two sons, attained Singapore citizenship in 2006. He was born into a family of rice farmers in Anhui, China.

As a child, he learnt to transplant rice on paddy fields and harvest grains. Later, he pursued postgraduate education in plant genetics, focusing specifically on rice.

At the invitation of a former supervisor, he moved to Singapore to study bacterial diseases in rice after getting his PhD in 1997.

In 2005, Dr Yin and his research team published their findings on a cloned gene — Xa27 — in a scientific journal. Once introduced to rice grains, the gene builds resistance to bacterial blight, which causes the wilting of seedlings and drying of leaves.

The team modified another gene, Xa10, to keep pace with the evolution of bacteria, and in another breakthrough in 2015, they were able to use the modified gene to build resistance to 26 bacterial strains from various countries including China, Japan and Australia.

Dr Yin’s team also worked on the Xa10 and Xa27 genes to induce products that could trigger “cell death”.

“The bacteria is either killed by the death of the cell, which produces a lot of toxin, or by the loss of nutrition,” he said. “(So, it) cannot spread further to the surrounding healthy cell (of the rice grain).”

On his award, his employer Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory said that it “recognises Dr Yin’s outstanding scientific research in the field of understanding bacterial diseases in rice, as well as his positive contribution to rice productivity improvement at the Asean level”.

Last year, Dr Yin was part of the team that contributed seven varieties of Singaporean rice seeds to the Norwegian Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a secure seed facility.

Among them was a variety known as Temasek Rice, modified to be disease- and weather-resistant.

The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA), which nominated him for the award, said Temasek Rice has favourable qualities such as high yields, and fungal and bacterial resistance.

“The development of Temasek Rice is a successful example of research benefiting people and the environment,” it told TODAY.

Dr Yin’s team also works closely with farmers in the region to develop sustainable farming practices to improve productivity and the livelihoods of the rice farming community, and their work would help to contribute to the long-term food security for the region, the AVA added.

Despite these breakthroughs in agricultural science, Dr Yin feels that his work is hardly done.

“I want to learn how bacteria infects rice plants and then grow new rice with greater resistance,” he said.

“As a scientist, we cannot say we’ve finished research in a certain field. In rice bacteria, there are still many questions that (have) to be answered.”

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Factory farming in Asia creating global health risks, report warns

Growth of intensive units has potential to increase antibiotic resistance and could result in spread of bird flu beyond region
Fiona Harvey The Guardian 14 Aug 17;

The use of antibiotics in factory farms in Asia is set to more than double in just over a decade, with potentially damaging effects on antibiotic resistance around the world.

Factory farming of poultry in Asia is also increasing the threat of bird flu spreading beyond the region, with more deadly strains taking hold, according to a new report from a network of financial investors.

Use of antibiotics in poultry and pig farms will increase by more than 120% in Asiaby 2030, based on current trends. Half of all antibiotics globally are now consumed in China alone. The Chinese meat and animal feed producers New Hope Group and Wen’s Group are now among the 10 biggest animal feed manufacturers in the world.

The growth of Asian meat production in intensive units is also producing a rise in greenhouse gas emissions from the food chain, with emissions likely to rise by more than 360m tonnes, the equivalent of running 100 coal-fired power plants for a year. There are knock-on impacts such as deforestation, as China’s need for animal feed is responsible for more than a third of Brazil’s soybean production.

The report, Factory Farming in Asia: Assessing Investment Risks, comes three years after a meat scandal in China, in which suppliers to McDonalds, KFC and others were found to be using dirty meat and products past their sell-by date. It also comes in the midst of a growing food scandal in Europe, which has required the recall of millions of eggs tainted with harmful chemicals, and as concerns have been aired over the impact of Brexit on imports of farm products to the UK.

Asian food companies have rapidly expanded their meat production in response to growing populations and the tastes of the rising middle class, but this expansion has come to the detriment of food safety.

Jeremy Coller, of Coller Capital, said: “Investors have a big appetite for the animal protein sector in Asia. But the growth is driven by a boom in factory farming that creates problems like emissions and epidemics, abuse of antibiotics and abuse of labour. Investors must improve the management of sustainability issues in the Asian meat and dairy industries if they want to avoid a nasty bout of financial food poisoning.”

However, the report also found that deploying modern techniques could assist in reducing the impact of factory farming – for instance, by using barcodes to enable consumers to check the provenance of eggs, by reducing greenhouse gases and improving the health of livestock.

Avian flu is an increasing threat, with the latest strain to take hold in China, H7N9, proving more deadly than previous strains. It has already killed 84% more people in the four years since its emergence than the H5N1 strain that came to public attention in 2006. Affected industries in China include suppliers to McDonalds and Walmart. An outbreak of bird flu in South Korea in 2016-17 resulted in the cull of a fifth of the country’s flock.

The authors of the study recommended that investors assess the risks of food production in the assets they hold, as financial firms can persuade the companies they fund to make improvements in their supply chain. But they said awareness among investors was currently too low and should be raised.

Previous food scandals have damaged the finances of multinational companiessuch as McDonalds and KFC. Jaideep Panwar, sustainability and governance manager at APG Asset Management Asia, said: “[This] reminds investors to keep a close eye on the long-term risks of food assets in Asia.

“The evolution of what are now early stage regulatory moves in Asia, supplier conditions introduced by international brands and import restrictions can have an impact on the productivity of Asian producers and their access to markets. Investors will assess the ability of companies in the meat supply chain to position themselves ahead of these risks.”

Melissa Brown, partner at Daobridge Capital in Hong Kong, added: “Few issues are as politically sensitive in Asia as food safety. Yet far too many food sector equities have been priced as if [these] risks don’t matter and that good risk management won’t be recognised in the market.”

The report was published on Monday by the international investment network FAIRR and the Asia Research and Engagement consultancy.


Factory farming in Asia poses environmental, forced-labour risks: report
Rina Chandran Reuters 16 Aug 17;

MUMBAI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The rapid growth of factory farming in Asia for livestock and seafood poses enormous environmental and forced labor risks, in addition to threats to public safety and health, according to a report by an investor network.

Half Asia's aquaculture production is from factory farms, said the report published this week by Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (FAIRR), referring to the major, industrial operations that raise large numbers of animals for food.

"Asia's meat, seafood and dairy industries face a range of badly managed sustainability risks – from emissions to epidemics, fraud to food safety, and abuse of labor," said Jeremy Coller, founder of FAIRR.

"It is clear that significant environmental and social risks are building up."

Meat demand in Asia is predicted to grow by a fifth to 144 million tonnes by 2025 as populations expand and incomes rise, the report said.

China, which has the largest animal population in Asia, is promoting large-scale farming for greater efficiency and economies of scale.

But the practice has serious environmental repercussions, besides leading to rural job loss and land rights violations, said the report published together with Singapore-based Asia Research and Engagement.

Cows, goats and chickens have higher greenhouse gas emissions and water footprints than other proteins.

In addition, crops grown to feed them are causing forest loss.

In Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta, for example, most mangrove forests have been cleared for shrimp ponds, while the growth in soy cultivation in Latin America for China's pork and poultry production has come at the expense of rainforests.

Asia's factory farms also increase the risk of forced labor of migrants, children and trafficked workers, the report said.

Thailand's multibillion-dollar seafood sector has come under fire in recent years after investigations showed widespread slavery, trafficking and violence on fishing boats and in onshore food processing units.

Last month, Thai Union - the world's largest canned tuna company - in an agreement with environmental group Greenpeace, said it would take steps towards sustainably caught tuna while ensuring all workers are "safe".

Also earlier this year, a Thai court dismissed a compensation claim by 14 migrant workers from Myanmar who had alleged labor violations at a chicken farm that supplied the European Union.

"Top producers are working towards developing sustainable production systems, certified through an increasing number of ecolabels," said Coller.

"But a general lack of traceability in supply chains has made it difficult...to evaluate and mitigate these risks."

Reporting by Rina Chandran @rinachandran, Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.

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