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An independent review of the Livestock Crop Research Programme with a focus on quality of science and output-outcome parameters for the period 2017-20. Contains analysis of product progress, bibliometrics analysis and extensive results of interviews. Includes recommendations for future interventions. The results were independently pier reviewed.

• While market access quotas have generated high levels of rents for traders and exporters in Namibia, Botswana, Norway, and offshore entities in the UK, their developmental benefits are diffuse, unclear, and difficult to unpack; • The consolidation of trade between small supply (Namibia, Botswana) and demand markets (Norway) provides some unique advantages for trading parties, given the former’s efficiency and scale disadvantages in international trade, and the latter’s desire to actively manage its food imports; • However, such a strategy is not necessarily replicable or scalable, as it entails both high entry costs for access and high risks from the over-reliance on a limited number of markets and the specter of animal disease incursions.

Conducted between September 2017 and April 2018, this analysis of the Zimbabwe beef value chain addressed the questions: What is the contribution of the value chain to economic growth? Is the economic growth generated by the value chain inclusive? Is the value chain socially sustainable? and, Is the value chain environmentally sustainable? The historical background for the Zimbabwe beef value chain is important as it provides context for the current situation. During the colonial and post-colonial period the key objective for the beef sector was intensive commercial farming and exploitation of market access opportunities under the Lome Convention. Following this Zimbabwe underwent a period of intensive land reform with large-scale transfer of farm land from Commercial (white) farmers to small-scale (black) farmers. Somewhere between 161,500 and 300,000 households have resettled on about 4.9 million hectares (Scoones et al, 2010). Commercial farms (white) have declined from 4,000 to about 725. However, various categories of 'new' (black) commercial farms have been developed pre-and post-land reform (11,000+ households). During this period the national disease control system failed and exports ended. Causes of this collapse include: co-habitation of buffalo and cattle; and, un-restrained movement of cattle from high-risk areas. Illegal exports and imports are also reported. Currently, Zimbabwe aims to reinstate centralised veterinary control to manage transboundary diseases. This has, so far, been unsuccessful with regular outbreaks of food-and-mouth disease occurring, including during the period of this research. A high proportion of the Zimbabwe population is poor (72.3%) and extremely poor (16.2%). Malnutrition affects 33.8% of children between 6-59 months of age. Rural Zimbabwe is poorer than urban areas by some margin (30.4% of households are extremely poor in rural areas vs 5.6% in urban areas). This drives migration and emigration. Livestock are essential for resilience and coping; cattle holding and maize yields closely correlated. Farms without livestock are the most vulnerable. Beef consumption is declining: from 13kg to 4 or 6kg per capita reflecting income changes and the availability of cheap chicken meat. Zimbabwe is a semi-arid country with 85% of the area receiving less than 800mm of rain a year. Resource endowment is high, but distribution skewed and sustainability is questioned by many. Key environmental issues include: land degradation, largely through poor land management; deforestation, through land clearance and fuel use; water scarcity, due to over extraction and urbanisation; pollution of water and air, through mining, urbanisation and intensive agriculture; biodiversity loss, through agricultural expansion and habitat loss; and, climate change and variability, resulting in higher temperatures and lower/variable rainfall.

This article provides a look at the planning process in Ontario from the point of view of a citizen. Ben Bennett is representing Residents for Sustainable Development in Guelph, which opposes two big-box proposals before the Ontario Municipal Board. As co-author of a new book on what has become a seven-year-long saga, Bennett shares his insights into the planning profession and the system from the perspective of a non-lawyer and nonplanner. The proposals, one anchored by Wal-Mart, the other by Zellers, were rejected by city council in the late spring of 1997. The date for the hearing was originally set for July 1998, but was repeatedly delayed. After five years of legal wrangling, court challenges and political intrigue, the hearing finally got under way in April of this year. It is scheduled to run for twenty weeks., Le présent article trace le portrait de l'aménagement urbain en Ontario tel que perçu par un citoyen. Ben Bennett, porteparole du groupement Citoyens pour un développement durable, de Guelph, auprès de la Commission des affaires municipales de l'Ontario, s'oppose à deux projets de grande surface. Co-auteur d'un livre traitant de la situation qui dure maintenant depuis sept ans, Ben Bennett nous fait part de ses réflexions sur la profession du point de vue d'un intervenant qui n'est ni urbaniste ni avocat. Les projets, l'un présenté pour Wal-Mart, l'autre pour Zellers, furent rejetés par le conseil municipal à la fin du printemps 1997. Une audience, prévue pour juillet 1998 et reportée plusieurs fois, après cinq ans de contestations, de guérilla juridique et d'intrigues, sera tenue en avril 2002 pour une durée de quelque 20 semaines., in English and French; text in English., https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/5482/Article003.pdf?sequence=3

The extent of physical and economic postharvest losses at different stages of cassava value chains has been estimated in four countries that differ considerably in the way cassava is cultivated, processed and consumed and in the relationships and linkages among the value chain actors. Ghana incurs by far the highest losses because a high proportion of roots reach the consumers in the fresh form. Most losses occur at the last stage of the value chain. In Nigeria and Vietnam processors incur most of the losses while in Thailand most losses occur during harvesting. Poorer countries incur higher losses despite their capacity to absorb sub-standard products (therefore transforming part of the physical losses into economic losses) and less strict buyer standards. In monetary terms the impact of losses is particularly severe in Ghana and estimated at about half a billion US dollar per annum while in the other countries it is at the most about USD 50 million. This comparison shows that there are no “one-size-fits-all" solutions for addressing postharvest losses but rather these must be tailor-made to the specific characteristics of the different value chains

Uncertainty about the importance of influenza transmission by airborne droplet nuclei generates controversy for infection control. Human challenge-transmission studies have been supported as the most promising approach to fill this knowledge gap. Healthy, seronegative volunteer ‘Donors’ (n = 52) were randomly selected for intranasal challenge with influenza A/Wisconsin/67/2005 (H3N2). ‘Recipients’ randomized to Intervention (IR, n = 40) or Control (CR, n = 35) groups were exposed to Donors for four days. IRs wore face shields and hand sanitized frequently to limit large droplet and contact transmission. One transmitted infection was confirmed by serology in a CR, yielding a secondary attack rate of 2.9% among CR, 0% in IR (p = 0.47 for group difference), and 1.3% overall, significantly less than 16% (p, Author summary Understanding the relative importance of influenza modes of transmission informs strategic use of preventive measures to reduce influenza risk in high-risk settings such as hospitals and is important for pandemic preparedness. Given the increasing evidence from epidemiological modelling, exhaled viral aerosol, and aerobiological survival studies supporting a role for airborne transmission and the potential benefit of respirators (and other precautions designed to prevent inhalation of aerosols) versus surgical masks (mainly effective for reducing exposure to large droplets) to protect healthcare workers, more studies are needed to evaluate the extent of risk posed airborne versus contact and large droplet spray transmission modes. New human challenge-transmission studies should be carefully designed to overcome limitations encountered in the current study. The low secondary attack rate reported herein also suggests that the current challenge-transmission model may no longer be a more promising approach to resolving questions about transmission modes than community-based studies employing environmental monitoring and newer, state-of-the-art deep sequencing-based molecular epidemiological methods.