Tag: climate change

United in science: SLU’s role in unraveling genetic mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance in Escherichia coli amid Morocco’s climate change crisis

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This blog is written by Ikhlass El Berbri, associate professor of animal infectious diseases at the Agronomy and Veterinary Institute Hassan II, Morocco.

Ikhlass El Berbri and Erik Bongcam-Rudloff in Rabat, Morocco.

The world is currently facing an anthropogenic climate crisis that is already impacting human health and is likely to do so in increasingly severe ways. Climate change effects on human health include heat-related mortality, a variety of health issues from natural disasters like flooding and droughts, food insecurity due to reduced crop yields, and a heightened risk for the transmission of infectious diseases and the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Furthermore, climate-induced changes in temperature and rainfall, along with extreme weather events, promote the proliferation of resistant bacterial strains and increase the need for antibiotics, compounding the problem of antibiotic resistance.

The emergence of multiple drug-resistant bacteria is indeed rising to dangerously high levels globally, severely undermining the effectiveness of available antibiotics. As a result, even minor injuries and routine medical procedures now pose serious risks due to antibiotic-resistant infections.

Escherichia coli is a common pathogen found consistently in the digestive tracts of animals and humans, as well as in the environment. Multidrug resistance in Escherichia coli has become a concerning issue, increasingly observed in both humans and veterinary medicine worldwide. E. coli is intrinsically susceptible to almost all clinically relevant antimicrobial agents, but this bacterial species has a great capacity to accumulate resistance genes, mostly through horizontal gene transfer. In recent years, E. coli has become one of the common bacterial sources to antimicrobial resistance genes, which has been prevalent and exhibited an increasing trend. One of the most important factors favouring this spread is ecosystems and climate deregulation, which cause human and animal populations to migrate and create novel transmission pathways for pathogens, including E. coli.

In this context, and to assess the role of the environment in the transmission and spread of resistant bacteria, our project aims to determine the genetic relatedness of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli isolated from animals and their environment.

With this regard, and to ensure that the results are thoroughly and effectively explored to understand the genetic mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, and in order to improve my skills in term of genomic sequencing and bioinformatics analysis, I have opted for a collaboration with a team with international renown researchers from the Department of Animal Sciences, Bioinformatics Section, led by Professor Erik Bongcam-Rudloff, at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). The team’s innovative work and collaborative environment offer a unique chance to explore the complexities of my research, using their expertise to improve my understanding of the outcomes of my results.

      A photo capturing the essence of teamwork at the lab at SLU. Photo: Udeshika Sewwandi

During my stay at SLU, I gained a wealth of valuable knowledge and experience. I had the privilege of engaging with renowned experts in the field and built a strong network of contacts. These connections are very important for my academic journey and are also instrumental in facilitating future collaborations. Professor Erik Bongcam-Rudloff also visited the Veterinary Institute Hassan II in Morocco, where he delivered lectures and tutorials on bioinformatics for students and researchers. Following these productive exchanges of researchers between Sweden and Morocco, we are now prepared to launch new projects that leverage our combined expertise to address significant global health challenges.

 

SLU has an important role to play in the implementation of Agenda 2030, in Sweden and beyond.

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This blog post was written by Jens Olsson, researcher at the Department of aquatic resources,Vice Dean responsible for environmental monitoring and assessment at the NJ-Faculty; and coordinator for SLU Water Forum.

Photo: Jens Olsson

The High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) is an annually recurring meeting that serves as UN’s platform for sustainability and focus on reviewing the progress and achievements of Agenda 2030. This years’ forum took place in early July, and was the first since the pandemic to be held on site in the United Nations headquarters in New York. The theme for the meeting was recovery from the pandemic while also advancing the implementation of Agenda 2030. The Sustainable Development Goals (SGD’s) in focus for the meeting were SDG 4 (Quality Education), 5 (Gender Equality), 14 (Life Below Water), 15 (Life on Land) and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).

As SLU has extensive and decisive knowledge for the implementation of at least SDG 14 and 15, we were invited by the Government Offices of Sweden to be part of the Swedish delegation for HLPF. In my role as Vice Dean responsible for environmental monitoring and assessment at the NJ-Faculty and coordinator for SLU Water Forum, I participated as SLU’s representative in the delegation.

The reports shared at the meeting on the progress towards global sustainability was anything but positive. Despite that we are approaching the half-time summit of Agenda 2030, it is apparent that goal fulfilment is moving too slow, and in many cases in the opposite direction to what is desired. This is mainly the result of the Corona pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also due to a lack of political will and societal commitment. The Ministerial declaration following HLPF was also one of the weakest so far, with substantial backlash with regards to gender equality and rights of vulnerable groups.

In spite of this negative development, during HLPF it was clearly stated that we now must go from words to action and accelerate the implementation of the extensive societal transformation needed to reach the ambitious goals of Agenda 2030. This also to hamper the impact of the concurrent and multiple global crises including climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. What was also obvious at the meeting is that the perspectives of young and vulnerable people are essential for this transformation to happen, as is making use of local knowledge from, among others, indigenous people. It was concluded that economic growth needs to be decoupled from negative impacts on biodiversity, and that we are at a stage in time where knowledge for reaching the goals is available. Now, perhaps more than ever before, political will and societal commitment are essential to move from words to action.

Photo: Jens Olsson

For me this was a true personal experience, and despite the reports of slow progress and backlash towards reaching the goals of the Agenda in 2030, it was fascinating to see and meet that many countries and committed people in one place at one time. In spite of all the bad news, the spirit of hope was present, and I witnessed that the majority of participating countries shared their ambitions for a more sustainable future. It was also instructive to be part of a large and inclusive delegation with participation from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds including representatives from governmental agencies (for example The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management), the civil societies, youth organisations and municipalities, and also politicians.

I think that for the implementation of Agenda 2030 in Sweden and beyond, SLU has a key role to play. However, we need to raise awareness of the Agenda in our organisation and accelerate our positive impact and contribution to social and environmental sustainability. Even more, I believe that we as a university can make a greater contribution with knowledge, data, advice, innovation and education to support the achievement of the ambitious goals of the Agenda.

DevRes 2021: Takeaways that may help us in reaching SDGs in low-income countries

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This blog post is written by Adan Martinez Cruz, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Forest Economics and SLU Global coordinator.

From 14 June to 16 June 2021, DevRes 2021 allowed us to exchange insights on challenges and opportunities to accomplish the 2030 Agenda –with a focus on low-income countries. Originally scheduled for June 2020 to take place at Umeå University campus, DevRes went digital. The success of this adaptation strategy can be illustrated by the 500 registered participants from all over the world, the 125 speakers in 51 sessions, and the variety of topics covered.

I was fortunate to chair two sessions and I will tell you my takeaways from these sessions.

During the “Gender and inclusion in agriculture” session, we learnt about the relevance of empowering women to fight poverty among smallholder farmers in Nigeria, and about the role of ethnicity and gender in adopting agroforestry strategies in Vietnam. In particular, Mai Phuong Nguyen, who works at World Agroforestry, reported her findings from semi-structured interviews to 60 farmers (30 men and 30 females) across three provinces of northwestern Vietnam. These interviews explore preferences, constraints, and opportunities to adopt agroforestry practices among Thai and H’mong people. These two ethnic minorities rely on farming sloped land, which results on high levels of soil erosion –hence the need to explore the opportunities for adoption of agroforestry. The finding I wish to highlight here is the difference across gender in interest and perceptions about benefits from agroforestry –women are less certain about what agroforestry entails, and therefore are less interested in adopting agroforestry practices. This difference seems to be originated in the different channels of information that men and women have access to –while men have formal and informal learning channels, women rely mostly on informal channels. The implication is that formal agricultural extension services, which are not currently reaching out to women, must be tailored to inform women or otherwise agroforestry practices may spread at a slower pace than desired.

During the “Climate change –resilience, mitigation, and adaptation” session, we discussed how climate impacts efficiency of subsistence farming in Ethiopia, the effect of the Sloping Land Conversion Program on Chinese farmers’ vulnerability to climate change, and how capital assets enable resilience to water scarcity among small farmers in Indonesia. Francisco X. Aguilar, who is Professor at the Department of Forest Economics in SLU, and co-authors have explored the association between rural livelihood capitals (natural, human, social, financial, and physical) and the avoidance of, adaptation to, and inability to withstand water scarcity among 200 small farmers in South Sulawasi, Indonesia. Their findings illustrate not only heterogeneity in the association but also the relevance of social and human capitals as assets to enable resilience. In particular, physical and natural assets in the form of irrigation infrastructure and direct access to water sources were saliently associated with resilience to water scarcity; factors associated with capacity to adapt were more nuanced with social capital being closely linked. Years of farming experience as a form of human capital asset was strongly associated with resiliency.

DevRes aims to explore the challenges that require societal transformation in order to accomplish the 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As illustrated by the couple of findings I have highlighted here, DevRes 2021 delivered insights that we have taken with us in our pursue to design policies that empower citizens of low-income countries to accomplish by their own means the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs.

“Planting trees is always good”

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– A Master’s thesis about Swedish carbon offsetting initiatives through tree planting projects in the Global South.

This blog post is written by Emil Planting Mollaoglu, Research Assistant at the Department of Urban and Rural Development, MSc in Rural Development at SLU

Image by João Lima from Pixabay 

Over the past two years, I have studied the Rural Development and Natural Resource Management Master’s Programme at SLU. During the spring and summer of 2020, I wrote my Master’s thesis – which focused on the role of companies and consumers in mitigating climate change. More specifically, the thesis explored how two Swedish companies, MAX Burgers (MAX) and ZeroMission, presented carbon offsetting on their websites. MAX is a fast-food restaurant chain that has received a lot of attention for its engagement with climate change and ZeroMission is an intermediary company that sells carbon offsets to MAX and many other Swedish and Scandinavian businesses. Through interviews with customers at MAX, my thesis also explored how carbon offsetting was perceived by a sample of Swedish consumers. The thesis illustrates how planting trees in Uganda has enabled MAX to communicate to its customers that they will solve climate change by eating at their restaurants – in spite of the company’s yearly increase of greenhouse gas emissions.

In recent years, many Swedish companies have voluntary made commitments to reduce their climate impact. An approach adopted by several Swedish food and beverage companies (among others) to lower the impact is to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. This is commonly called “carbon offsetting” and it means that emissions occurring in one place are compensated for by reducing emissions or storing carbon somewhere else. This is done through projects producing carbon credits – for example through capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by planting trees. The carbon credits can then be traded on carbon offsetting markets as a way for people, companies, organisations and governments to offset their negative climate impact.

Although it may sound good that actors offset their climate impact, carbon offsetting by planting trees in the Global South is not without contestation. Critique has for example been raised regarding uncertainties of the permanence and additionality of projects. These are two of the conceptual pillars of carbon offsetting. Offsetting projects are also meant to deliver sustainable development benefits to stakeholders in the Global South, and yet, there are documented cases of a lack of such benefits and even of negative impacts on communities. In addition, so-called natural climate solutions (such as forest preservation) and methods for carbon dioxide removal (such as afforestation) are not infinite. To meet the targets of the Paris Agreement we need these tools for negative emissions to counter the impact we already have had on the climate. Researchers have therefore argued that we should change how we think about carbon offsetting and move away from the idea that we can compensate for continuing to emit greenhouse gases.

From Vi Agroforestry in Kitale, Kenya. Photo: Malin Planting.

Since 2008, MAX has been offsetting 100% of its emissions through Plan Vivo certified tree planting projects – mainly in Uganda. Since 2018, the company has expanded its investments in planting trees and now offsets 110% of its emissions. MAX calls this approach “climate-positive” because the carbon offsetting extends beyond the company’s own emissions and captures an extra 10% of CO2. The Swedish company has gained international recognition for this approach. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has praised MAX for introducing the world’s first “climate-positive” menu and in 2019 the company received the UN Global Climate Action Award, which was presented at the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid.

The results of my thesis show that the two companies describe climate change as a problem of both reducing emissions and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but that MAX’s emissions have continued to increase on a yearly basis. My analysis also show that the companies highlight consumption as a cause of climate change, but that the “climate-positive” approach attempts to turn consumption into the very solution to the problem. In this regard, a lot of responsibility for solving the problem was put on consumers, who were expected to choose products and companies based on their climate impact. The two companies also highlighted that deforestation is a major cause of climate change and that companies within the food industry in particular are part of causing deforestation. The argument here was that deforestation occurs as a result of land-use change, from forest land to agricultural land for cultivation of food crops. Both MAX and ZeroMission therefore argued that companies within the food industry have a responsibility to counter the loss of trees by planting new ones. The final theme of the analysis emphasised how carbon offsetting was represented as a solution to sustainable development challenges in the Global South.

Image by João Lima from Pixabay 

The thesis concludes that all the abovementioned representations reinforced each other and created a strong narrative for offsetting by planting trees in the Global South. At the same time, the customers’ responses implied that the view on how private actors and individuals can mitigate climate change is not homogenous, as they partially contrasted the two companies’ representations of climate change. The customers’ responses also illustrated a mental distance to the tree planting project in Uganda. This was for example apparent as one of the customers expressed that they did not understand the connection between MAX in Sweden and a tree planting project in Africa, but that “planting trees is always good”.

Finally, and as mentioned above, the thesis illustrates how a lot of responsibility for solving the problem of climate change is put on the individual consumers. Planting trees in Uganda has enabled MAX to communicate that climate change will be solved by its customers, that choose to eat at the Swedish fast-food restaurant chain instead of somewhere else, in spite of the company’s yearly increase of greenhouse gas emissions.

At the Department of Urban and Rural Development at SLU, there is an ongoing project that explores how Swedish companies and consumers perceive carbon offsetting through tree planting projects. I am part of this project as a research assistant and currently work on an academic article that partly is based on my thesis. If you are interested in or want to know more about carbon offsetting, you can find out more about the project here and you are also most welcome to read my thesis, which is available online.

For the love of the spud in spite of its beauty spots

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This article was written by Erik Alexandersson, Researcher at the Department of Plant Protection Biology, SLU. 

Small holder farmers together with Lerato Matsaunyane at ARC in Randfontein. Photo: Flip Steyn.

Today, 26 October, is the offical potato day here in Sweden and a good opportunity to look closer at this quite nutritional crop. The potato is grown and eaten all over the world and production is on the rise in many low income countries – primarily in Africa. The versatility and adaptability of this beloved spud is the key to it´s wide spread. However, diseases and drought due to changed climate present threats to yields in the future.

Potatoes have long been essential for Western cuisine. They are loved in many forms. Why not boiled together with meat and sauce, as fries accompanying that novel non-meat burger or simply as crisps, which can be seen as the centrepiece of cosy television time with the family. Worldwide potato is today the third most consumed crop.

The potato retains its popularity in spite the rise of the fast-boiling pasta and popularity of low-carb diets. Consumption in the industrialised world have been stable the last 20 years even if it now and again ends up in the dietary cold box.

In low-income countries, potato production is still on the rise though. In 2008, the total production even passed that of the industrialised world. Not the least in sub-Saharan Africa where incidence of malnutrition are among the highest in the world, and sadly more than 15% of the total population still lacks sufficient food.

In fact, its cropping area and production have increased more than those of any other food crop in Africa (1). Today, it is maybe foremost an important cash crop for small-scale farmers, but since the areal and demand are rising we can predict that it will have a greater importance to future food security in the region.

Potato has a fantastic ability to adapt and yield in different climate conditions. Originating from the Andes the potato is grown on all continents except Antarctica. Its ability to produce well in so many different environments is an important part of its success. Still many diseases affects the production. In temperate regions late blight is considered as one of the most dreaded plant diseases. Extensive research has gone into combating late blight and today we have both conventional bred and genetically modified potatoes carrying additional resistance genes with high level of resistance as well as efficient pesticides.

Potato trials in Roodeplaat. Photo: Flip Steyn

However, in an African perspective, other diseases such as early blight, which thrives in warmer climates and insect pests that destroy harvested tubers can cause larger problems. The underlying mechanisms of several other diseases than late blight are less studied and lesser known. Unfortunately, efficient resistance factors are unknown and remain to be discovered for use in breeding programmes. For early blight, there is also an increased problem with pesticide resistance.

For the small-scale farmers it is not easy to afford to protect their potato crop or take the right measures. One powerful way to convert research into practice are field demonstrations for farmers, advisers and policy makers, something we tried out with our colleagues Lerato Matsaunyane at the Agricultural Research Council in Pretoria, South Africa and Tewodros Mulugeta at Kotebe Metropolitan University in Ethiopia.

Furthermore, for the farmers in Southern Africa, unpredictable rains have caused big problems for agriculture. In this context, potato will have a challenge as it is sensitive to drought, also to shorter micro-droughts and clearer focus on research on drought tolerant varieties is needed. Unfortunately, climate change is expected to have a very large impact on agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa. The need for a future drought tolerant potato is evident.

Luckily, the International Potato Center and other research institutes are doing multifaceted research to provide a disease free and drought tolerant potato suitable for different needs in African agriculture.

But, today is the official potato day here in Sweden, so let us just for a moment look away from these beauty spots of this loved spud. Did you for example know that the nutritional value of potato is not that bad! Tubers harbours fibre and important nutrients such as vitamin C, tocopherols and carotenoids! And with the right cultivar under the right conditions it can be one of the most high-yielding crops! With a production of 15, 40 or even 60 tonnes per hectare it can for sure feed many hungry stomachs.

References

(1) Ortiz, O., & Mares, V. (2017). The historical, social, and economic importance of the potato crop. In The Potato Genome (pp. 1-10). Springer, Cham