In today's world, food security is an important issue. Food shortages push prices up, impacting upon the health and well-being of hundreds of millions of rural poor across the globe. One way to increase food security is to decrease the amount of yield lost to pests. This encyclopedia provides a comprehensive overview of the fight against pests, covering chemical pesticides, biocontrol agents an...

Many developing nations, especially the least developed countries, are subjected to recurrent spells of food insecurity. In order to understand food insecurity in these countries it is necessary to consider not only immediate or trigger-causes of food crises, but also its underlying or systemic causes. This paper argues that the agricultural support measures of advanced countries may act as a s...

Maize is widely grown in Africa including in drier areas where alternate crops will often perform better. Although maize will fail in drought years, it produces substantially higher yields than alternates, such as sorghum and millet, in wet years. Although people tend to select which crops to grow based on recent experience with crop harvests and prices, there is a widespread preference for mai...

Accurate measurement of household food security is essential to generate adequate information on the proportion of households experiencing food insecurity, especially in areas or regions vulnerable to food shortages and famine. This manuscript offers a methodological examination of three commonly used indicators of household food security - experience of hunger, dietary diversity, and coping st...

In 2005, few would have predicted the current revolution in global agriculture that is being driven by a sudden rise in the price of petroleum and a rapid expansion of global biofuel production from grain, sugar, and oilseed crops. The result has been a convergence of valuation between petroleum and agricultural commodities such that food prices are likely to rise substantially. While countries...

Food, like water, is in short supply in the desert. We report a specialized mechanism used by a desert mouse for surviving prolonged food shortages. The key element of this adaptation is a large reduction in resting metabolism. After about 2 weeks of restricted food intake (50% of normal), the desert mouse "switched down" its resting metabolism and was able to survive and maintain its weight in...

     The effectiveness of any drug supply systems in providing a trustworthy supply of essential drugs is a critical issue. To evaluate this effectiveness, it is necessary to watch over the status of the essential medicines in any country impartially and continuously. Some countries and also the World Health Organization (WHO) have codified a list of minimum medicines needed for a basic health ...

Climate change poses threats to human health, safety, and survival via weather extremes and climatic impacts on food yields, fresh water, infectious diseases, conflict, and displacement. Paradoxically, these risks to health are neither widely nor fully recognized. Historical experiences of diverse societies experiencing climatic changes, spanning multicentury to single-year duration, provide in...

Kenya experienced a severe drought and temporary food shortage during a study on mild malnutrition. Effects of the temporary food shortage on energy intake, weight, and behaviors were evaluated in schoolchildren and in toddlers and their mothers. Schoolchildren were seriously affected, showing significant declines in their energy intake, age-corrected weight, activity on the playground, and cla...