Only days after the spectacular liftoff of what is currently the heaviest space rocket, the privately-built Falcon Heavy, NASA announced the next launch will carry a specially built atomic clock. The new device, much smaller and sturdier than earth-bound atomic clocks, will help future astronauts navigate in deep space. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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 A cavernous bunker on a remote island above the Arctic Circle, where polar bears roam, holds the key to 12,000 years of agriculture but also to food supplies for future generations with countries urged to deposit seed samples there.

Welcome to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which turned 10 on Monday. It holds nearly one million seed samples from the world’s gene banks – an agricultural back-up in the event of disasters ranging from nuclear war to climate change.

“It’s fair to say that agriculture has never, ever faced bigger challenges than today,” Marie Haga, executive director of The Crop Trust, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The Crop Trust, an international group working to protect crop diversity, runs the vault in collaboration with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center

(NordGen).

Among the challenges facing agriculture, experts have said, are rising hunger, population growth and greater climate pressures.

That means the world needs to produce more food that is more nutritious, and to do so “on less land, with less water, less pesticides, less fertilizer to keep within what the planet can stand”, Haga said.

The answer could lie in a modest room in the vault, measuring 12 meters (40 ft) by 27 metres, where nations have deposited seed samples of food crops for safekeeping, she said.

Shelves of boxes, stacked in neat rows at minus 18 degrees Celsius (0F), hold seeds from the United States and Russia, Australia and North Korea, and Nigeria and Colombia to name just a few.

In the decade since the vault was founded, 73 institutions have deposited crop-seeds at this so-called Bank of Last Resort.

The Crop Trust is urging other gene banks around the world to follow suit. China is the notable omission, it said, although discussions are ongoing.

Haga’s concerns are echoed by Carly Fowler, a renowned American agriculturalist who helped to found the seed vault.

“Agriculture faces a historically unprecedented combination of challenges. At the top of the list is climate change,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We’re looking at climates in the near future that haven’t existed in the entire history of agriculture … We have to be proactive to make sure that agriculture does get ready for climate change.”

‘The Bank of Last Resort’

To do that the world needs a diverse sets of crops in its arsenal, but that is exactly what it has been losing, experts said.

“Our food system is extremely vulnerable. We are basing ourselves now on 12 plants and five animal species for 75 percent of the food we eat,” said Haga, a former Norwegian politician.

Historically, farmers cultivated at least 7,000 different plants to eat. Today, 60 percent of global calorie intake comes from wheat, rice and maize, said Haga.

This loss is partly due to a focus on “productivity, appearance and taste” at the expense of other aspects such as nutrition, said Kent Nnadozie at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Nnadozie, who is secretary of the FAO’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, said one consequence is that a major disease or virus “could wipe out the entire crop.”

To combat that risk, the Treaty – which was brokered by the United Nations – facilitates seed exchanges between global gene banks to research and develop new crop varieties. Currently, 144 countries have ratified the Treaty.

Worldwide, the FAO said, more than 1,700 gene banks of varying sizes hold collections of food crops.

But many are exposed to disasters and conflict; some have to deal with more mundane problems such as a lack of funding, poor management, malfunctioning equipment or erratic power supplies. 

The loss of a crop variety is irreversible.

Ahmed Amri, from Morocco’s International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), knows those threats well.

In October 2015, ICARDA became the first to withdraw seeds from Svalbard after Syria’s civil war had damaged a seed bank near the city of Aleppo.

The gene bank was relocated to Morocco and Lebanon, the seeds have been grown, and re-depositing began last year. On Monday, ICARDA deposited more than 8,600 seed samples. It was one of 23 institutions to hand over 77,000 samples on the day.

“These samples include wheat, barley, durum wheat and bread wheat, lentils, chickpeas, fava beans and wild relatives of these species … So this is a big achievement,” Amri told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The FAO’s Nnadozie said the Syria example showed how well the vault could work.

“It’s almost like you put your money in a long-term savings account. Once you are in a desperate situation and you need to, (you) take some money, and then you can put it back again.”

“This is the final backup, should anything go wrong – natural disasters, crisis, war, nuclear, whatever – you can always go back there.”

Climate pressures

The Svalbard archipelago, the furthest north reachable on a scheduled flight, was chosen for the vault’s location because it is remote, there are no volcanoes or earthquakes, and the permafrost keeps the seeds in deep-freeze.

Yet the vault, built 120 meters (400 feet) into the rock, is facing its own climate pressures.

An unexpected thaw of permafrost meant water flowed into the entrance of the vault’s tunnel in late 2016. The seeds were not in danger, but Norway said on Friday it would spend 100 million krone ($13 million) to upgrade the vault.

“When I came up here the first time in 1985 … there was always ice on the fjord. Now you never see complete ice on the fjord,” Haga said.

Scientists have warned that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free much sooner than previous predictions, which forecast sea ice would first disappear completely during summer months between 2040 and 2050.

Fowler said he was confident the seeds were safe, but welcomed Norway’s decision to strengthen the vault.

“We’ll be tight and dry and we’ll deal with whatever climate change gives us,” he said.
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When Angela was born without lower legs, her father believed she was an evil spirit and should be taken to a “concoction man” — a traditional herbalist who would kill the baby and bury her.

But Angela survived after a midwife put her mother in touch with charity worker Joseph Asakibeem, who has devoted his life to saving Ghana’s “spirit children.”

In parts of northern Ghana, babies born with disabilities are traditionally seen as bringers of bad luck, said Asakibeem, who on Monday won the Bond Humanitarian Award that recognizes hidden “superheroes” for his work with the charity AfriKids. Until recently, many spirit children were taken to a concoction man who would lock them in a room after administering a poisonous potion.

“The local belief is that if you survive, it’s proof you are not a spirit, but if you die, it’s confirmation that you are a spirit,” said Asakibeem, a project manager at AfriKids.

“Unfortunately, most times the child dies. They then bury the child in an isolated place away from the village.”

Babies whose mothers die in childbirth, or who are born after something bad has happened to the family, also risk being labelled spirit children.

Smart girl

Angela, now a bright seven-year-old, is one of 110 children rescued by Asakibeem and his team at AfriKids.

She has learned to walk with prosthetic limbs, helps her mother with chores, and is thriving at school. Angela’s parents separated after her birth but her father has begged for a reconciliation after seeing her progress, AfriKids said.

“She’s a very strong girl, she’s smart and a fast learner,” Asakibeem told Reuters by Skype.  “My hope is one day she will become a nurse or teacher and serve as a role model to the community.”

Asakibeem, 41, grew up in the Kassena Nankana region in northern Ghana, where the belief in kinkirigo, or spirit children, was deeply embedded.

In 2005, up to 15 percent of babies who died were thought to have been killed as spirit children, according to AfriKids.

Asakibeem began talking to parents, village elders and concoction men to change mindsets and dispel superstitions by informing them about the medical reasons for disabilities and promoting health care.

Asakibeem said many disabilities in the region were linked to poor nutrition and health care during pregnancy, and a lack of access to medical help during labor complications.

AfriKids has set up a center in Asakibeem’s home village, Sirigu, and another in nearby Bongo district, providing help for disabled children, a support group for their mothers and antenatal care for pregnant women.

It gives small loans for businesses like basketry, pottery and poultry farming to help mothers support their families.

Reaching concoction men

One challenge was persuading the concoction men to stop.

AfriKids provided livestock and loans to kickstart businesses.

It also takes them to areas where children with disabilities flourish and some of those who once made a living from killing children have become advocates to protect them, Asakibeem said.

No child killings have been reported in Kassena Nankana for 10 years, but Asakibeem said they continue elsewhere.

“We’re now expanding our work to the whole of northern Ghana. My dream is that in 15 years I can stop this practice.”
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A freak warming around the North Pole is sending a blast of Arctic cold over Europe in a sign of “wacky” weather that may happen more often with man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday.

On the northern tip of Greenland, the Cape Morris Jesup meteorological site has had a record-smashing 61 hours of temperatures above freezing so far in 2018, linked to a rare retreat of sea ice in the Arctic winter darkness.

“It’s never been this extreme,” said Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI). Warmth was coming into the Arctic both up from the Atlantic and through the Bering Strait, driving and cold air south.

Around the entire Arctic region, temperatures are now about 20C (36°F) above normal, at minus eight degrees Celsius (17.6°F), according to DMI calculations.

To the south, a rare snow storm hit Rome on Monday and some Brussels mayors planned to detain homeless overnight if they refused shelter with temperatures set to fall as low as minus 10 Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) in the coming week.

Hit by easterly winds from Siberia, cities from Warsaw to Oslo were colder than minus 8C.

As long ago as 1973, a study suggested that an ice-free Arctic Ocean could make regions further south colder. That “warm Arctic, cold continent” (WAC#C) pattern is sometimes dubbed “wacc-y” or “wacky” among climate scientists.

“Wacky weather continues with scary strength and persistence,” tweeted Professor Lars Kaleschke, a professor at the University of Hamburg.

“The question is whether this weather will happen more often. This is just one event so it’s hard to make a causal relationship,” he told Reuters.

Sea ice shrinking 

Scientists say a long-term shrinking of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, linked to global warming, exposes warmer water below that releases more heat into the atmosphere. That in turn may be disrupting the high altitude jet stream.

“The jet stream becomes wavier, meaning that colder air can penetrate further south and warmer air further north,” said Nalan Koc, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Arctic Ocean sea ice is at a record low for late February at 14.1 million square kilometres (5.4 million), according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. That is about a million less than normal, or roughly the size of Egypt.

Erik Solheim, head of the U.N. Environment, said the rare weather fits a wider pattern driven by a build-up of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels from cars, factories and power plants.

“What we once considered to be anomalies are becoming the new normal. Our climate is changing right in front of our eyes, and we’ve only got a short amount of time to stop this from getting significantly worse,” he told Reuters.

Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, almost 200 nations agreed to limit a rise in temperatures to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.5 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial times, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C (2.7F).

Polar vortex

“The risk of an ice-free Arctic in summer is about 50 percent or higher” with warming of between 1.5 and 2.0 degrees, according to a leaked draft of a scientific report by a United Nations panel of scientists, obtained by Reuters.

The World Meteorological Organization said the chill in Europe was caused by a “Sudden Stratospheric Warming” above the North Pole that led to a split in the polar vortex, a cold area of air above the Arctic that spilled cold south.

A big problem in figuring out whether the Arctic warmth is driven by human activities or natural variations is a lack of measuring stations. There are no thermometers at the North Pole and satellite measurements go back only to the late 1970s.

On the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, temperatures were just above freezing, with rain, and about 13.4C (24F) above the long-term average on Sunday.

“There have also been recent winters with similar deviations,” said Rasmus Benestad, senior scientist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who plans to quit the Paris Agreement, has often expressed doubts about mainstream global warming science during cold spells, such as at New Year in the eastern United States.

And Mottram at DMI said Europe’s winters had become less severe. “It’s not actually that cold. Its just our perceptions have shifted from a normal winter.”

 

 
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About 1-in-3 people in the world eats food that fills them up but doesn’t have enough protein, vitamins and minerals.

 

Known as “hidden hunger,” the situation can lead to a weakened immune system, stunted growth and impaired intelligence.

 

But San Francisco food tech company Just thinks it has the answer – bring Silicon Valley know-how, drive and resources to figure out how to make a country’s traditional, popular dish more nutritious while maintaining taste and low cost.  

 

Turning a local dish into a nutritious meal

 

Known for making plant-based mayonnaise, cookie dough and salad dressings that can be found in U.S. supermarkets, Just launched an initiative in Liberia working with local manufacturers and suppliers to make a product called Power Gari. It is based on cassava, a popular ingredient in Liberian cooking.

 

In January, Power Gari began appearing on store shelves in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. It has six ingredients, more than 80 percent of which are from local sources, according to the firm. The company licenses the formula to a Liberian manufacturer and works with local suppliers to meet food safety standards. [[https://justforall.com/en-us/stories/power-gari]]

 

“Our goal here is to build a better food system in Liberia and that means we are hands-on,” says Taylor Quinn, director of emerging markets for Just, who lives in Monrovia.

 

Struggling to get the right taste

 

Over the past two years, Quinn has carried ingredients from Liberia to San Francisco for the chefs and scientists at Just to look for ways to make an affordable, traditional meal more nutritious. But they balance those concerns with making sure that Liberians will like the taste.

 

“It’s sometimes hard to get the exact flavor profile,” Quinn said. “The cassava or the sugar or whatever it may be that we’re using in northern Liberia is different than what we can get access to here in the office.”

 

The formula for Power Gari turns the starchy cassava into a fortified porridge of vitamins and minerals. Its 12 grams of protein are derived from a soy protein concentrate. It is flavored with locally-sourced red palm oil and salt.

 

The company is constantly tweaking the formula, part of its “startup mentality” approach, Quinn said.

 

Power Gari costs roughly 5 cents per 50-gram serving for the bulk product that is in schools. The sealed packages sold in retail stores costs about 15 cents per serving.

 

A machine that works when the power goes out

 

For Quinn, one of the most challenging aspects of Just’s efforts in Liberia is to figure out what works best on the ground. When it came to the machinery used in its manufacturing partner’s plant, Quinn wanted a mixing machine made in Liberia that can work without electricity. He found a local manufacturer who made the machines for about $800 and can come by to do repairs if needed.  

 

When the power first went out during production, the workers switched to hand cranking the mixture. “After a few minutes of hand cranking, it was perfect,” Quinn said.

 

Expanding to bigger markets

 

The true proof of Power Gari’s success will be if Liberians buy it. The company says it looked to Liberia as a test case before thinking about expanding to bigger markets such as Nigeria or Kenya.

 

The goal, according to company founder Josh Tetrick, is nothing less than solving the world’s unjust food system.

 

“Why are we not approaching this with the kind of ferocity that high growth companies bring to their own operations?” he asked.

 

“We want to end micronutrient deficiency in the world. We’re starting with Liberia,” he added. “And the potential to do it is quicker than a lot of people realize. It is right in front of us.”

Just has raised more than $200 million from investors and is valued at over $1 billion. It has revamped its board recently to add directors with international business, agriculture and sustainability experience.
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A new super-material — stronger, lighter and cheaper than steel — has emerged from scientists’ labs. It’s not a high-tech nano-polymer or some new alloy. It’s wood. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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Around the world, one in three people suffer from something known as “hidden hunger.” Their bellies may be full, but the food they are eating is not nutritious. A San Francisco food technology firm is working in Liberia to see if it can make a popular Liberian dish more nutritious. Michelle Quinn reports.
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