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Despite many factors weighing in South Africa's favor on the agricultural front, including having official "food secure" status, millions of households have insufficient access to nutritionally safe food. This is largely a function of poverty, which is particularly pervasive in the rural areas. While the government's largely unsuccessful agricultural development programs have focused on large-scale commercial crops, such as wheat and maize, indigenous and traditional food crops could play a significant role. In this article, multiple criteria analysis is used to identify indigenous and traditional food crops that have the greatest potential to enhance food security in South Africa. The different indigenous and traditional food crops options were rank according to set criteria that were derived from the definition for food security as adopted in the article. Accessibility, affordability and nutrition formed the basis of the definition as subsequently the criteria used to rank the alternatives. Results from the analysis revealed that sorghum, sweet potatoes, and amaranth are among the indigenous and traditional food crops with the greatest potentia

The progress made in plant biotechnology has provided an opportunity to new food crops being developed having desirable traits for improving crop yield, reducing the use of agrochemicals and adding nutritional properties to staple crops. However, genetically modified (GM) crops have become a subject of intense debate in which opponents argue that GM crops represent a threat to individual freedom, the environment, public health and traditional economies. Despite the advances in food crop agriculture, the current world situation is still characterised by massive hunger and chronic malnutrition, representing a major public health problem. Biofortified GM crops have been considered an important and complementary strategy for delivering naturally-fortified staple foods to malnourished populations. Expert advice and public concern have led to designing strategies for assessing the potential risks involved in cultivating and consuming GM crops. The present critical review was aimed at expressing some conflicting points of view about the potential risks of GM crops for public health. It was concluded that GM food crops are no more risky than those genetically modified by conventional methods and that these GM crops might contribute towards reducing the amount of malnourished people around the world. However, all this needs to be complemented by effective political action aimed at increasing the income of people living below the poverty-line.

The progress made in plant biotechnology has provided an opportunity to new food crops being developed having desirable traits for improving crop yield, reducing the use of agrochemicals and adding nutritional properties to staple crops. However, genetically modified (GM) crops have become a subject of intense debate in which opponents argue that GM crops represent a threat to individual freedom, the environment, public health and traditional economies. Despite the advances in food crop agriculture, the current world situation is still characterised by massive hunger and chronic malnutrition, representing a major public health problem. Biofortified GM crops have been considered an important and complementary strategy for delivering naturally-fortified staple foods to malnourished populations. Expert advice and public concern have led to designing strategies for assessing the potential risks involved in cultivating and consuming GM crops. The present critical review was aimed at expressing some conflicting points of view about the potential risks of GM crops for public health. It was concluded that GM food crops are no more risky than those genetically modified by conventional methods and that these GM crops might contribute towards reducing the amount of malnourished people around the world. However, all this needs to be complemented by effective political action aimed at increasing the income of people living below the poverty-line.

The accumulated knowledge of common agricultural crops and their breeding for desirable traits has made them interesting as carrier organisms for GE products in pharming. The United States and other governments and institutions should support knowledge-base and biological character development of non-food carrier organisms—such as castor bean or tobacco—to make them attractive to pharmaceutical and chemical companies for transformation and synthesis of GE products in order to separate the growing of food from the growing of chemicals and pharmaceutical.

This book investigates how the changed agricultural policy climate affected government policies in the nine countries studied already as part of the preceding project: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. By repeating the cross-sectional survey made in over 100 villages in 2002 and converting it into a panel, it is possible to trace village- and household-level effects of agricultural policies and other macro-level processes. The book consists of 14 chapters most of which revolve around studies on each of the nine case study countries.

Über die Art und den Umfang des Anbaus von Feldfrüchten in städtischen Gebieten liegen kaum Angaben vor, insbesondere fehlt die Kenntnis, welche Produkte vornehmlich angebaut werden. Detaillierte Interviews mit 73 "Stadtbauern" in städtischen Peripherien des Ostkap geben erstmals Einblick in den Konsum, den Geldwert des Eigenkonsums und den Verkaufserlös selbst angebauter Nahrungsmittel. Auf dieser Basis und unter Auswertung der relevanten Literatur entwickelt der Autor einen Index städtischen Nahrungsmittelanbaus, der die Erfahrungen und Prioritäten der Haushalte reflektiert und damit für die Politik eine wesentlich bessere Planungsgrundlage darstellt als die bis dahin genutzten hypothetischen Annahmen. (DÜI-Hlb)

Recent evidence suggests that the main obstacle to sustainable agricultural development is the failure of any economic policy, whether promoting food crops or exports, to adequately address problems of natural resource management. Indonesia serves as a useful illustration, as the country's pursuit of both food self-sufficiency and export crop promotion strategies has encountered many problems of environmental and resource degradation. (DÜI-Sen)