8. Enzymes as tools

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-127
Author(s):  
Paul Engel
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Waste Treatment ◽  
Hair Removal ◽  
Industrial Chemistry ◽  
The Past ◽  
Industrial Use

‘Enzymes as tools’ addresses the application of enzymes on the industrial stage. In the past, there were considerable barriers to this wider application of enzymes: enzymes were typically fragile and unsuitable for robust industrial handling. By using genetic methods and unusual organisms enzymologists today are able to obtain sturdy enzymes in amounts that make them economically realistic for industrial use, and supplying these enzymes is the central business of a number of large companies. One of the largest markets for enzymes is as additives in washing powders for clothes and in tablets for dishwashers. Other areas of application for enzymes include food production, hair removal, farming and waste treatment, and industrial chemistry.

Waterlogging and Salinity in the Indus Plain : Some Basic Consideration

1965 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Dorfam
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Water Development ◽  
The Past

It takes more than ordinary population for a group of strangers to recommends changes in the efforts of a great nation to contend with a problem that goes that goes to the very roofs of its social structure and its livelihood. Yet we did just that in our Report on Land and Water Development in the Indus Plain[l]. We hoped our recommendations would be considered sympathetically and debated fully, that our sound suggestions would be adopted and our unsound ones forgiven. All this has been granted us, and more. The months since the Panel's report was prepared have been eventful for the economic development of West Pakistan. It is hard to cast our minds back to the gloom that filled the atmosphere when the Panel was convened. Food production had been stagnant for the past several years, sem and thur were spreading through the most productive portions of the Plain, expensive efforts to control these twin menaces had been baffled. WAPDA knew, of course, that in principle tubswells could do the job, but there were more failures to report than successes

scholarly journals Ecosystem Services Changes on Farmland in Response to Urbanization in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area of China

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 501
Author(s):  
Xuege Wang ◽  
Fengqin Yan ◽  
Yinwei Zeng ◽  
Ming Chen ◽  
Bin He ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Great Loss ◽  
The Past ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Farmland Loss ◽  
The World

Extensive urbanization around the world has caused a great loss of farmland, which significantly impacts the ecosystem services provided by farmland. This study investigated the farmland loss due to urbanization in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China from 1980 to 2018 based on multiperiod datasets from the Land Use and Land Cover of China databases. Then, we calculated ecosystem service values (ESVs) of farmland using valuation methods to estimate the ecosystem service variations caused by urbanization in the study area. The results showed that 3711.3 km2 of farmland disappeared because of urbanization, and paddy fields suffered much higher losses than dry farmland. Most of the farmland was converted to urban residential land from 1980 to 2018. In the past 38 years, the ESV of farmland decreased by 5036.7 million yuan due to urbanization, with the highest loss of 2177.5 million yuan from 2000–2010. The hydrological regulation, food production and gas regulation of farmland decreased the most due to urbanization. The top five cities that had the largest total ESV loss of farmland caused by urbanization were Guangzhou, Dongguan, Foshan, Shenzhen and Huizhou. This study revealed that urbanization has increasingly become the dominant reason for farmland loss in the GBA. Our study suggests that governments should increase the construction of ecological cities and attractive countryside to protect farmland and improve the regional ESV.

Introductory remarks

1977 ◽  
Vol 280 (972) ◽  
pp. 105-105
Keyword(s):  
Climatic Change ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Time Scale ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Climatic Fluctuations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Different Sources

In the last year or two there has been a remarkable increase in the interest, both popular and scientific, in the subject of climatic change. This stems from a recognition that even a highly technological society is vulnerable to the effects of climatic fluctuations and indeed may become more so, as margins of surplus food production are reduced, and nations become more interdependent for their food supply. In this respect our concern is with quite small changes - a degree (Celsius) or less in temperature and 10 % or so in rainfall. Probably we may discount some of the more alarmist suggestions of an imminent and rapid change towards near glacial conditions as these are based on very sketchy evidence. However, whatever the time-scale of climatic fluctuations with which we are concerned, we may hope to learn a great deal which is relevant to the factors which will control our future climate from the study of its more extreme vagaries in the past. Information relevant to the weather in such extreme periods is coming forward in increasing detail and volume from a wide range of disciplines. The variety of the evidence, its lack of precision as a strict measure of climate, and the number of different sources all make it difficult for an individual to build up a clear picture of past climates. However such a picture is needed, if explanations and interpretation are to be possible. Ideally one would need a synchronous picture of the climate of the whole world at selected epochs in the past. Various international programmes are directed to forming such pictures.

scholarly journals Food, diet and the pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 122 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-57
Author(s):  
Kate Bayliss ◽  
Ben Fine
Keyword(s):  
Health Services ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Healthy Eating ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
The Past ◽  
Poor Diet ◽  
Land Grabs ◽  
Corporate Interests ◽  
Global Systems

This article is concerned with the ways that diet-related health outcomes (including increased incidence and severity of Covid-19) are linked to the system of provision for food. Worldwide obesity has tripled in the past three decades, creating an immense strain on health services, with poor diet associated with 22 per cent of global deaths in 2017. We show that neoliberal and financialised global systems of food production have intensified dysfunctional practices such as land grabs and price speculation. Moreover, capitalist expansion of production inevitably creates pressures to increase consumption such that malnutrition from overeating runs neck and neck with undernutrition on a global scale. It is shown how food corporates (producers, retailers, and so on) are instrumental in creating avenues to affect our diets in ways that are far more effective than government campaigns to promote healthy eating. It is these powerful systemic corporate interests that need to be addressed in order to improve diets and consequent health outcomes.

Historical Changes in Large River Fish Assemblages of the Americas

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Waste Treatment ◽  
Fish Assemblages ◽  
Large River ◽  
Low Flow ◽  
Physical Habitat ◽  
Willamette River ◽  
Habitat Alterations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Species Occurrences

<em>Abstract.</em>—The Willamette River is Oregon’s largest river, with a basin area of 29,800 km<sup>2</sup> and a mean annual discharge of 680 m<sup>3</sup>/s. Beginning in the 1890s, the channel was greatly simplified for navigation. By the 1940s, it was polluted by organic wastes, which resulted in low dissolved oxygen concentrations and floating and benthic sludge deposits that hindered salmon migration and boating. Following basin-wide secondary waste treatment and low-flow augmentation, water quality markedly improved, salmon runs returned, and recreational uses increased. However, water pollution remains a problem as do physical habitat alterations, flow modification, and alien species. Fish assemblages in the main-stem Willamette River were sampled systematically, but with different gear, in the summers of 1945, 1983, and 1999. In the past 53 years, tolerant species occurrences decreased and intolerant species occurrences increased. In the past 20 years, alien fishes have expanded their ranges in the river, and four native fish species have been listed as threatened or endangered. We associate these changes with improved water quality between 1945 and 1983, fish migrations, altered flow regimes and physical habitat structure, and more extensive sampling.

Archaeobotany: Methods

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Champion ◽  
Dorian Q. Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Origins Of Agriculture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
The World ◽  
Archaeobotanical Remains ◽  
Agriculture And Food ◽  
Botanical Remains ◽  
General Scope

Archaeobotany’s goals are to investigate the interactions between human societies and the plant world in the past from the botanical remains preserved in archaeological sites, including the environment people exploited and the foods they extracted from it. Archaeobotanical research in Africa has tended to be less widely practiced than in many other parts of the world, and systematic archaeobotanical sampling is still only incorporated into a minority of archaeological field projects in Africa. Nevertheless, there is potential for archaeobotany to contribute to a holistic understanding of Africa’s past. The general scope of archaeobotany is outlined before focusing on how typical archaeobotanical remains relate to agriculture and food production. A short overview on the practical side of collecting archaeobotanical samples is provided. Archaeobotany’s two general themes are discussed: hunter-gatherer subsistence and the origins of agriculture.

scholarly journals Anaerobically-Digested Brewery Wastewater as a Nutrient Solution for Substrate-Based Food Production

Horticulturae ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Ignasi Riera-Vila ◽  
Neil O. Anderson ◽  
Claire Flavin Hodge ◽  
Mary Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Waste Treatment ◽  
Nutrient Recycling ◽  
Control Treatment ◽  
Brewery Wastewater ◽  
Waste Streams ◽  
Urban Waste ◽  
Treatment Facilities ◽  
Raw Wastewater

Urban agriculture, due to its location, can play a key role in recycling urban waste streams, promoting nutrient recycling, and increasing sustainability of food systems. This research investigated the integration of brewery wastewater treatment through anaerobic digestion with substrate-based soilless agriculture. An experiment was conducted to study the performance of three different crops (mustard greens (Brassica juncea), basil (Ocimum basilicum), and lettuce (Lactuca sativa) grown with digested and raw brewery wastewater as fertilizer treatments. Mustard greens and lettuce grown in digested wastewater produced similar yields as the inorganic fertilizer control treatment, while basil had slightly lower yields. In all cases, crops in the digested wastewater treatments produced higher yields than raw wastewater or the no fertilizer control, indicating that nutrients in the brewery wastewater can be recovered for food production and diverted from typical urban waste treatment facilities.

Food and drink in Scotland: the economic base

1986 ◽  
Vol 87 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 115-123
Author(s):  
G. F. B. Houston ◽  
L. D. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Food Processing ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Domestic Demand ◽  
Economic Base ◽  
Export Markets ◽  
Food Manufacturing ◽  
Alcoholic Drink ◽  
The Past ◽  
Food Expenditure ◽  
Food And Drink

SynopsisWhile food and drink expenditure per head in Scotland is much the same as in the rest of the U.K., primary food production is at a relatively higher level, food processing is slightly less important and alcoholic drink production very much higher. Food production in Scotland is almost 80% of food consumption but probably less than 40% of what we cat has remained within the country all the way from farm or sea to the Scottish consumer. Over half of Scottish consumers' food expenditure goes to processing and distribution and around a quarter to the farming and fishing industry; the balance is spent on imports. Farm output has roughly doubled over the past 30 years while farm prices (relative to other prices) have roughly halved. In recent years food manufacturing has regained the production levels of 1979 while other manufacturing has declined by over 10%. The alcoholic drink industry has suffered much more from the recession. The relatively stable domestic demand for food conceals changes in the pattern of that demand and the development of all sections of the Scottish food and drink economy depends on their adapting to these changes as well as exploiting opportunities to replace imports or develop export markets.

ASPECTS OF CHEMICAL ADDITIVES IN FOODS1

1957 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-48
Author(s):  
K. G. Weckel
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Food Distribution ◽  
Insect Control ◽  
Chemical Additives ◽  
Military Logistics ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Military Campaigns ◽  
Effective Use

The history of man is closely associated with his food supplies; survival, migrations, community development, formation of government, military campaigns, religious worship, functions of politics. The ability of man to produce food in quantity for increasing populations is dependent upon effective use of fertilizers, insect, rodent, fungicide, miticide, weed, and simular controls, and mechanization. Insect control is an intense problem. The American farm enterprise is rapidly changing characteristics, in population, manpower output, available acreage, and acreage output. Food distribution practices also have changed markedly in the past decade. Military logistics have strong impacts on food production and utilization practices. The necessity for new forms of foods for shifting populations has resulted in re-evaluation of regulations governing the use of chemicals in foods, their functions, and effects.

Nigerian agricultural growth softens oil shock

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Agricultural Growth ◽  
Agricultural Transformation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Oil Revenue ◽  
Oil Shock ◽  
The Government

Subject The outlook for Nigeria's agricultural sector. Significance The success of government policies on agriculture was central to the Finance Ministry's reassurances on Nigeria's ability to weather the oil price shock and increase non-oil revenue. The government has presided over a marked increase in food production over the past four years under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), arguably making it one of the main policy achievements of the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Impacts Commercial interest in African agribusiness often falls short given the difficulty of making smallholders competitive in dislocated markets. Input subsidy policies (fertiliser, seeds) often remain inseparable from political appeals to rural electorates. Such policies are not always amenable to 'transformative' interventions -- and in some cases, will actively distort them.

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