Weekly Overview: Has the New Global Sustainability Framework Missed the Mark?
GLOBAL - With VIV Europe 2014 taking place in the Netherlands this week, a University of Wageningen study has analysed the latest aims of the United Nations' latest plans for sustainable agriculture in developing countries and regions.
22 May 2014
3 minute read
By: The United Nations launched six Food and Agriculture Business Principles this week, designed to help agricultural communities in underdeveloped and developing regions, in particular, produce food sustainably. While receiving general support, these new principles are not the panacea that many global leaders had hoped.
An analysis of the proposals from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands points to some fundamental and elementary flaws and concerns in the way the principles have been presented and how these principles can be adopted by farming communities and implemented effectively.
Also in the Netherlands, the VIV Europe 2014 trade show for the intensive livestock and poultry sectors has been taking place in the city of Utrecht this week. There will be more reports from the event in the coming days and weeks but in the meantime, find out the renowned recipients of four special poultry industry awards at the show.
On bird flu, Harvard and Yale researchers have called for an end to animal research into bird flu, worrying that the virus could escape and trigger a global epidemic.
Since its last report at the end of March, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported just one new case of H5N1 influenza in humans - a young boy who is confirmed to have died from the infection in Indonesia, where the virus is known to be circulating.
From 2003 to 5 May 2014, 665 laboratory-confirmed human cases of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection have been officially reported to WHO from 15 countries. Of these cases, 392 have died.
According to a new report from China, genetic analysis of the avian influenza strains in Guangdong province - including its first human case - during the first wave of H7N9 activity suggests that the virus picked up internal genes from H9N2 viruses in local poultry, creating a new reassortant and showing that H7N9 can change quickly.
In poultry, the Taiwan veterinary authority has reported the detection at the end of April of low pathogenic H5N2 avian flu in native chicken breeders in Yunlin County.
