Milk from cows that test positive for tuberculosis (TB) would be introduced into the human food chain under reforms suggested on Tuesday by government advisers on farming.

More than 200 reforms to existing food safety and environmental regulations governing farmers and food producers have been put forward by the farming regulation taskforce, which reported to ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Tuesday. The group, made up of nine farming and food industry professionals, was set up last July, with the aim of scrapping swaths of legislation put in place over several decades to protect wildlife, the environment and human health. But farmers and food companies say some of the plans represent unfair and costly curbs on their freedom to do business.

Some of the proposed reforms are likely to be controversial, including softer tests on the use of pesticides, fewer inspections of farms, and more weight to be placed on private sector inspectors for the food sector rather than publicly appointed monitors, as well as potential restrictions on rights of way for ramblers.

The prospect of products from potentially TB-infected animals being sold to consumers would represent a marked change from current policy. Not all cows that test positive for TB are carriers of the disease, as other infections can also lead to a positive result, and pasteurisation should kill any TB bacteria that could be present in milk.

Under current rules, however, all animals that test positive are slaughtered and compensation paid, and their milk prevented from reaching the food chain. These rules exist partly because some farmers have attempted to relabel their cattle as TB-free by swapping cows with other herds, and because “raw” or unpasteurised milk can legally be sold in the UK, meaning that raw milk from TB cattle could enter the food chain if the rules are not well enough enforced. But the taskforce has suggested that pasteurised milk from “TB-reactor” cattle could be rendered suitable for some form of consumption.

Other proposed measures include reducing the burden of paperwork for farmers, which can entail presenting the same information several times over for different bureaucratic purposes, and easier planning permission for farm developments.

The taskforce also wants to make it easier for unemployed people to take on much-needed seasonal work on farms, without facing disincentives such as losses to their benefits.

The taskforce said: “The key strategic message from our report is that Defra, its agencies and delivery partners need to establish an entirely new approach to and culture of regulation – otherwise the frustration that we, farmers and food-processing businesses have felt will continue. The essence of this approach is about strengthening the partnership between government and the farming and food-processing industries.”

However, Gareth Morgan, head of countryside policy for the RSPB, said that the report was milder than had been expected. “This is not the bonfire of regulations that we had feared,” he said. “But there are still concerns.”

He pointed in particular to nitrates, which are included in the report. He said the regulation of nitrates entering the water supply could be weakened if the government adopts new rules before the European Union has put forward its proposals.

The government will have to decide which reforms from the report it takes forward and which it abandons, in what is likely to be a fiercely contested battle over the future of countryside regulation.

Agriculture minister Jim Paice said: “This is an impressive piece of work with strong recommendations for reducing the burden that red tape has on the people who produce our food… This was never about a bonfire of regulations but about changing the culture of how we apply and enforce regulation. We will continue to defend our high standards for environmental management, animal welfare and food safety. I am particularly interested in the recommendations to allow industry to earn our trust and reward good practice with less frequent inspections.”

The taskforce made clear that the direction of future policy should be towards lighter regulation, and that farmers should play a key role in determining what rules might be laid down in future. Richard Macdonald, chair of the taskforce, said: “We’ve listened to what farmers and food producers have to say about how regulations and processes could be improved without reducing standards; things like a simpler livestock movements regime, reducing paperwork associated with nitrate regulations and improving bureaucracy around the common agricultural policy. We’ve also looked at the big picture and recommend a new approach to regulation based on trust, responsibility and partnership between government and industry. Our recommendations won’t all be easy but they are credible and, I believe, now is the time for change.”

He added: “The farming and food processing industries need to contribute to economic recovery and produce more food in a sustainable and safe way. To make this happen, the government needs to change the way it deals with them. By accepting our recommendations Defra will show that it is prepared to do this. It is now for Defra, its agencies and delivery partners, and industry to respond to the challenge.”

But Morgan said consumers might not agree with the direction taken. He said: “The taskforce was set up to find ways to deregulate first, and to maintain standards second. But it should have been the other way round – ministers should be asking how can we find a way to do better for society, and if necessary we will regulate to do so. I’m worried about the government’s approach.”

Agriculture, the taskforce noted, accounts for £7bn per year to the UK’s economy and employs 534,000 people, while many more are employed by the wider food sector and the rural economy.

Global warming has already harmed the world’s food production and has driven up food prices by as much as 20% over recent decades, new research has revealed.

The drop in the productivity of crop plants around the world was not caused by changes in rainfall but was because higher temperatures can cause dehydration, prevent pollination and lead to slowed photosynthesis.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, Washington DC, said the findings indicate a turning point: “Agriculture as it exists today evolved over 11,000 years of reasonably stable climate, but that climate system is no more.” Adaptation is difficult because our knowledge of the future is not strong enough to drive new investments, he said, “so we just keep going, hoping for the best.”

The scientists say their work shows how crucial it is to find ways to adapt farming to a warmer world, to ensure that rises in global population are matched by rising food production. “It is vital,” said Wolfram Schlenker, at Columbia University in New York and one of the research team. “If we continue to have the same seed varieties and temperatures continue to rise, then food prices will rise further. [Addressing] that is the big question.”

The new research joins a small number of studies in which the fingerprint of climate change has been separated from natural variations in weather and other factors, demonstrating that the effects of warming have already been felt in the world. Scientists have shown that the chance of the severe heatwave that killed thousands in Europe in 2003 was made twice as likely by global warming, while other work showed that the floods that caused £3.5bn of damage in England in 2000 were made two to three times more likely.

Food prices have reached new record highs this year, and have been implicated as a trigger for unrest in the Middle East and Africa. A rising appetite for meat is a critical factor, said Wolfram. “We actually have enough calories to feed the world quite comfortably, the problem is meat is really inefficient,” as many kilogrammes of grain are needed to produce one kilogramme of meat, he said. “As countries get richer and have a preference for meat, which is more expensive, they price people in poorer countries out of the market.”

“The research provides evidence of big shifts in wheat and maize production,” commented Prof Tim Wheeler at the Walker Institute for Climate System Research, Reading University, UK, who added it had involved “heroic” statistical analysis. But he said that, while long-term climate change impacts were another pressure on food prices, short-term price spikes were linked to extreme weather events, such as the Russian heatwaves and wildfires in 2010.

The study, published in the journal Science, examined how rising temperatures affected the annual crop yields of all major producer nations between 1980 and 2008. Computer models were used to show how much grain would have been harvested in the absence of warming. Overall, yields have been rising over the last decades and the models took this into account. The scientists found that global wheat production was 33m tonnes (5.5%) lower than it would have been without warming and maize production was 23m tonnes (3.8%) lower. Specific countries fared worse than the average, with Russia losing 15% of its potential wheat crop, and Brazil, Mexico and Italy suffering above average losses. Some countries experienced lower production of rice and soybeans, although these drops were offset by gains in other countries.

The losses drove up food prices by as much as 18.9%, the team calculated, although the rise could be as low as 6.4% if the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere strongly boosts plant growth and yields – a factor that is not well understood by scientists.

Global food prices have risen by about 200% in recent years, says Schlenker. Other causes of the rise are the increased demand for meat and the diversion of food into biofuels. Nonetheless, the researchers conclude that the negative impact on crops overall is “likely to be incurring large economic and health costs”.

The US, which has the world’s largest share of overall production, stood out in the analysis because it appears to have lost no production to climate change as yet. Schlenker said this was because the rise in temperature there was very small compared to other parts of the world. This was perhaps due simply to luck with the weather, or the cooling influence of aerosol particles, such as soot, that blocks warming.

“US farmers are having a good time in the sense that their yields have not been impacted much and prices have been pretty high, so for them it has been pretty profitable,” he said. “But most climate models predict that eventually the US will warm.”

Adapting farming to climate change could involved moving to cooler areas as existing areas warm, said Schlenker, but often soils are poorer in the new locations. He highlighted the potential of biotechnology – genetic engineering – to develop new crop varieties that are more resistant to heat, but said the potential remains unproven. “What happens over the next 20 years depends on how optimistic you are about finding those extra ways of adapting.”

Coming shortly after Professor Sir John Beddington, the Government’s chief scientist, published a report showing that globally we need to use 40% less water and produce 40% more food within the next 20 years, scientists at East Malling Research (EMR) believe their latest work could play an important role.

With global population continuing to rise, scientists will be at the forefront of how growers and farmers will be able to produce more food on less land and ensure food security

The EMR scientists are recognised as world exports on water management and their research has found a way to significantly reduce the amount of water used to grow potatoes commercially, after transferring the knowledge from early work with strawberries.

Commenting on Professor Beddington’s report, Will Sibley, Chairman of East Malling Trust, the major funder of EMR, said: “This report, like the many others that have come before it, highlights the scale of the challenges that face the world’s ability to feed itself.

“What we urgently need is not more reports, but for Governments across the world to accept the findings and properly fund scientific research that has the ability to increase the intensity of our food production and ensure our food security through higher yields and lower inputs, of water, fertiliser and energy.”

Currently 75 million tonnes of water, which is a quarter of all the water used each year by the agricultural industries in England and Wales, is applied to potatoes. The intensive irrigation applied by growers helps to reduce the incidence of common scab on the tubers’ skin and to increase yields as the tubers form four to six weeks after planting.

The scale of the water consumption is enormous, accounting for 56% of all the irrigation water used in England and Wales and equivalent to filling 30,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools each year.

Thanks to funding from Defra (Department for Environment, Farming & Rural Affairs), the team at EMR, based in Kent, has now shown that it is possible to produce one tonne of Grade 1 potatoes using just 23 tonnes of water – significantly less than the current 42-60 tonnes industry average for the same yield.

And there’s more good news for potato growers as the EMR team, led by Dr Mark Else, also increased the yield from the industry standard range of 45-50 tonnes per hectare to 78 tonnes per hectare.

Dr Else said: “We have just lifted the 2010 crop and are confident that we will have improved on last year’s yields, and importantly used less water and fertigation (fertilizer delivered via irrigation) while maintaining the yields and quality of the potatoes produced.

“Given that our trial took place on less than one hectare, we recognise that it will be difficult challenging to replicate these results exactly on a commercial scale. However, we have achieved this with our work on strawberry and we believe that the potato se trials, now in their second year, demonstrate that with water scheduling and drip fertigation it is possible to dramatically reduce the amount of water and chemicals applied to potatoes commercially. As well as saving money for the growers, our trials show they can increase revenues thanks to a major increase in yields and maintenance of quality.”

The team is confident that by the end of the three-year trial in 2011, EMR will have produced a set of guidelines and techniques to help growers using drip irrigation to know when and how much water to apply. The guidelines will take into account the actual rainfall and the optimum soil moisture content to deliver the quality and quantity of potatoes expected by growers and supermarkets.

Dr Else added: “There will be a capital investment associated with the techniques, but with good increased yields,, maintained quality and lower costs associated with water and chemicals, we believe there is a commercial advantage for UK growers.”

EMR’s work on potatoes extends the scientists’ previous success in dramatically reducing water consumption in commercial strawberry production. The water management techniques developed for strawberries have now importantly been transferred to potatoes.

Chris Atkinson, Head of Science at EMR, said: “This experiment has major commercial implications for many potato growers, especially those farming in the south and east of the country which, due to less rainfall are more dependent upon irrigation.

“It also impacts on the issue of food security, because with the climate changing, farmers need to have the techniques to grow more while using less. With the population rising and potatoes such a staple part of many people’s diets it is essential we increase yields and reduce our reliance on imports.”

The FSA plans to use more co-ordinated intelligence gathering and horizon scanning, including statistical analysis and intelligent software called Memex patriarch, to make it more effective.

Its existing incident classification system and the National Intelligent Model used by the UK police will then help to rank potential risks.

However, there are serious concerns that this will not guarantee any better early warning of unexpected events, such as Sudan 1 in 2005 or the Melamine incident in 2008.

Speaking at a meeting of the Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF), Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia, School of Medicine Health Policy and Practice, questioned the ability of such systems to ever reliably predict unexpected events.

“We are extraordinarily bad at predicting what the next big thing will be,” he said. “The danger with this system is that you fall into the trap of thinking you have covered everything that is important. You still need lateral thinking.”

FSA systems don’t talk to local authority systems

FSA Board members echoed Hunter’s concerns. Dr David Cameron and Margaret Gilmore also asked why the FSA’s IT systems were not being integrated with those used by local authorities, such as the real-time system used to monitor food imports at Heathrow Airport.

The FSA’s director of food safety Alison Gleadle remarked that while the whole purpose of the programme was to “get ahead of the game”, she accepted “we will not always catch the unknown unknowns”.

And while the Agency was working with the food industry to prevent incidents occurring, she noted that issues of commercial confidence sometimes made the sharing of data difficult.

FSA emerging risks programme

The FSA’s emerging risks programme began in April last year and runs to 2015. It aims to ensure risk-based, targeted checks at ports and local authority monitoring of imports throughout the food chain.

The programme involves the acquisition of intelligence based on historical incident data, research and surveillance programmes as well as intelligence from stakeholders, including the food industry itself and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

It also draws on data provided by the European Commission’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, Food and Drug Administration recall data and World Health Organisation information.

Sodium nitrite (E250) and potassium nitrate (E252) are widely used in cured meats to prevent the growth of pathogens such as clostridium botulinum, the bacterium responsible for botulism, and add flavour and colour to products such as bacon.

But opponents claim nitrates are unsafe, where they form carcinogenic nitrosamines at high temperatures and have been linked with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer; a 2010 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute also linked nitrates to chronic liver disease (CLD).

The EC set a deadline of December 31 2010 to review nitrate use before contemplating removing them from the list of permitted organic food additives under EC Regulation 889/2008, a move opponents claimed could decimate the EU’s organic bacon industry.

Safety and meat colour at stake

Last November, our sister site FoodManufacture.co.uk reported that EU agriculture ministries had returned a questionnaire sent out by the EC, asking them to report on progress in research on the replacement on nitrates and nitrates in organic food.

However, 16 of the 24 member states that replied to the questionnaire said they were not ready to withdraw use of these additives – 2 supported their wholesale withdrawal, 1 reduced levels – citing safety and meat colour as the principle reasons.

As an EC organ, the EU Standing Committee on Organic Farming met on Monday this week to and noted member state concerns, and citing concerns over botulism and listeriosis, colour and taste and the lack of viable alternatives.

For instance, plant extracts rich in nitrates cannot be used for legal and technical reasons, while sea salt (also with high levels) cannot be used because of obvious health concerns surrounding overuse of sodium chloride.

Nonetheless, the EC has proposed to review the future use of nitrates at a future, but as a yet unspecified date, which DEFRA (the UK department department for the environment, food and rural affairs) said would be in around 3-5 years time.

EC forced to back down

Clare Cheney, director general of UK-based Provision Trade Federation (PTF), which represent producers and opposed the ban, told FoodNavigator.com: “The EC was virtually forced to come to this conclusion – it really didn’t have any other option given the extent of Member State opposition.”

“It was a clear choice between having an organic bacon industry or withdrawing nitrates. There’s been extensive discussion and research into alternatives, but there are none.

“Plant extracts can be used instead of E250 and E252, but these are also high in nitrates so you are left with the same problem.”

Organic control body Organic Farmers & Growers said safety concerns had been paramount to it during discussions about nitrate withdrawal over the past 2 years. Chief executive Richard Jacobs said:

”While we prefer to see as few additives as possible in organic products, safety must come first and unless a proven alternative can be found, sodium nitrite and potassium nitrate will have to remain available to those curing organic meat.”

”The most likely outcome of their loss would have been the collapse of the market for organic bacon and related products, as many processors may have come down on the side of caution and abandoned product lines they could not be confident in producing safely.

“Nor does it seem likely that many shoppers would be willing to accept a change to a rather unappetising looking, greyish product.”

Researchers from the Food and Health R&D Laboratories at Japanese company Meiji Seika Kaisha report that cocoa’s potential ability to boost HDL levels is related to a proteins which boost levels of a compound called apolipoprotein A1 (Apo-A1), which is required by the body to produce HDL-cholesterol.

“As cholesterol metabolism is known to be regulated by several different mechanisms, it is possible that cacao polyphenols may act on multiple pathways as a regulatory receptor agonist or ligand, similar to other plant polyphenols,” wrote the researchers in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Cocoa’s benefits

The health benefits of polyphenols from cocoa have been gathering increasing column inches in the national media. To date studies have reported potential benefits for cardiovascular health, skin health, and even brain health.

The majority of science into the potential benefits of cocoa have revolved around cardiovascular benefits of the flavanols (also known as flavan-3-ols or catechins), and particularly the monomeric flavanol (-)epicatechin.

Recently, however, scientists from the University of Reading in England and Mars reported that cocoa may also affect gut microflora and possess prebiotic potential.

The new study takes us back to the health benefit with the strongest supporting science: Cardiovascular health. While it is known that consumption of cocoa polyphenols may boost HDL cholesterol levels, and decrease LDL cholesterol levels, the Japanese researchers state that “the mechanisms responsible for these effects of cocoa on cholesterol metabolism have yet to be fully elucidated”.

Study details

In an attempt to fill this knowledge gap, the Japanese researchers examined the effects of cacao polyphenols such as (−)-epicatechin, (+)-catechin, and procyanidin B2 and C1 in human intestinal cells.

Results showed that the polyphenols increased apo A1 protein levels, while levels of alipoprotein B, the main alipoprotein responsible for carrying LDL cholesterol to cells.

Digging deeper into the potential mechanism, the researchers add that the cocoa compounds were also associated with an increase in sterol regulatory element binding proteins (SREBPs).

“SREBP is primarily responsible for the regulation of genes involved in cholesterol biosynthesis and metabolism,” explained the researchers. “Therefore, these results suggest that cacao polyphenols participate in cholesterol metabolism.”

“These results elucidate a novel mechanism by which HDL cholesterol levels become elevated with daily cocoa intake,” they concluded.

Source: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1021/jf103820b
“Cacao Polyphenols Influence the Regulation of Apolipoprotein in HepG2 and Caco2 Cells.”
Authors: A. Yasuda, M. Natsume, N. Osakabe, K. Kawahata, J. Koga