Nuclear Science and Applicationsfor Food and Agriculture

Qu Liang

Director, Joint FAO/IAEA Division

Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture

Outline

• Overview

• Core Areas for Nuclear Application in Food and Agriculture

• Some Success by Using Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture

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Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy

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• Nuclear science and application for peaceful purposes :

– Nuclear power application

– Non-power Applications

• Non-power Applications

– Food and agriculture

– Human health

– Environmental protection

Competitive advantages of nuclear techniques

Traceability:

Radioactivity:

Measurability:

Accuracy:

Specificity:

Isotopic tracers as marker

Induced genetic variation, sterility, sterilization

Radio and stable isotope measurable

More accurate than conventional methods

Unique sensitivity and specificity

Core Areas for Nuclear Application in Food and Agriculture

• Animal Production and Health

• Food quality and food safety

• Soil and Water Management & Crop Nutrition

• Plant Breeding and Genetics

• Insect Pest Control

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Animal Production and Health

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• Diagnostic tests (early and rapid diagnostic technologies)

Avian influenza, foot-and-mouth disease, Newcastle disease, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, Rift Valley fever, African swine fever, Peste des petits ruminants, Capripoxvirus diseases

• Tracing of transboundary animals and their diseases

Monitoring and tracing migratory pathways of transboundary animal diseases

• Development/evaluation/validation of irradiated vaccines

More effective and broad spectrum of protection

• Improving animal nutrition and local breeds

Increasing animal nutrition by using local animal breeds Improving production traits (more and better milk and meat)

Plant Breeding and Genetics

• Improving crop cultivars by using mutation breeding techniques

• Developing mutant varieties with better adaptation to climate change

• Increasing efficiency of mutation breeding through application of modern biotechnology

• Enhancing biodiversity for crop improvement

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Food and Environmental Protection

• Monitoring and tracing technology

➢ Food forensics --- ‘finger printing’ techniques

➢ Traceability --- tracing contaminants techniques

➢ Authenticity --- food origin determination

• Analytical technology➢ Agrochemical residues analysis

➢ Contaminant analysis

• Food irradiation➢ Food Processing

➢ Phytosanitary Treatments

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Soil and Water Management & Crop Nutrition

• Quantifying soil erosion and land degradation for cost-effective soil conservation at watershed level

• Tracing water and nutrient pathways for improved water and fertilizer use efficiency

• Determining contribution of organic sources to sustainable soil organic carbon sequestration

• Understanding climate change impact in food and agriculture for enhancing climate change adaptation -mitigation

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Insect Pest Control

Using the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT)

– Control of major plant pest

– Control of livestock pest

– Control of mosquitoes

– Development of genetic sexing and other methodologies

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Nuclear Applications for Climate Smart Agriculture

− From understanding to action

• Assessment/evaluation of:

– Impact of climate change on agriculture

– Impact of agricultural practices on climate change

• Development of technologies for adaptation and building resilience to climate change

• Improvement of agriculture practices for potential mitigation of climate change

Success in nuclear application for food and agriculture

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Mutation Breeding

More than 3283 plant mutation varieties in about 220 plant species released

Pakistan：Of the 3.1 million hectares planted with cotton, 15-25% are with mutant varieties, expected to increase to 30–40% in the next few years. The 43 mutant varieties for all crops yielded an estimated economic impact of US$ 6 billion as of April 2018.

Viet Nam: Overall 20 new mutant rice varieties were released in recent years, which are currently grown by more than 300,000 farmers. US$ 374 millions additional income generated within 4 years by the saline-tolerant variety “Khang Dan”

Peru：The mutant barley variety, Centenario II, now covers 18% of the dedicated barley growing area and is estimated to contribute US$ 6.6 million annually to the national economy

Success in nuclear application for food and agriculture

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Sterile Insect Technique

Dominican Republic: Release of irradiated fruit flies helped theDominican Republic eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly that caused$40 million loss in export and put 30,000 jobs at risk, over a shortperiod of time.

Senegal: Sterile Insect Technique contributed to the completesuppression of tsetse flies in the Niayes region, allowing farmers togrow imported cattle (with 20-40 litres of milk a day) instead ofindigenous cattle (with merely 1–2 litres of milk a day).

Thailand: Irradiated fruit flies helped a community of 855 faming families to protect premium export fruits (e.g. mangosteen), boosting fruit production from less than 50 tons/year to 4,000 tons/year.

Success in nuclear application for food and agriculture

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Soil and Water Management & Crop Nutrition

Sudan and Mauritania: Isotopic Techniques Fostered SubsistenceAgriculture and Poverty Alleviation, empowering 6,000 refugeewomen in Sudan and 400 rural women in Mauritania to produce foodto improve nutrition and health and generate additional income.

Morocco and Madagascar: Fallout radionuclides and stable isotopetechnique helped Morocco reduce soil losses by 40% to 60%. Basedon similar results, farmers in Madagascar develop sustainable soilconservation practices, protecting livelihoods of over 75% of thepopulation.

Benin: Isotopic techniques helped 14,000 farmers, in central andnorthern Benin, triple yields and improve livelihoods. They achievedsignificant yield increases for both maize and legume crops such assoybean.

Success in nuclear application for food and agriculture in Asia

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Food Safety

Viet Nam: Irradiation is successfully applied for food processing,which greatly facilitated dragonfruit exports, nearing an annualoutput of 700,000 tons with over 80% of the produce exported to 40countries.

China, Slovenia and Singapore: Stable isotope analyses helped China,Slovenia, Singapore confirm composition and origin of milk, ensuringauthenticity. They helped other nations promote productsauthenticity for cheese, olive, meat, fruit juice, honey, vanilla, etc.

Benin: Enhancing capabilities of Benin’s Central Laboratory of FoodSafety helped farm products meet international food safety standardsfor export to lucrative markets (e.g. European Union). As such, Benin’sbeekeepers enjoy enhanced income from their annual 600 tons ofhoney exports to EU.

Success in nuclear application for food and agriculture

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Animal production and health

African Swine Fever (ASF) – China & South Asia: Recently, early detection and rapidcontainment of ASF - that caused a loss of about 90,000 pigs between December2018 and January 2019 in China alone - protected thousands of smallholder farmersand prevented an economic disaster for the pork industry, not only in China butelsewhere.

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) – Bulgaria & Mongolia: VETLAB’s prompt action,using nuclear-derived techniques helped containing PPR outbreaks in Mongolia(2016) and Bulgaria (2018). Containing the spreading of the PPR is essential tolimiting huge economic losses, currently estimated at US$1.2 to 2.1 billion per year.

Avian Influenza – Asia & Africa: Early diagnosis and rapid control of the outbreak inmany Asian countries protected more than 100 million poultry, and saved morethan 1 billion US$. Similarly, in 2017, early detection and rapid containmentprotected the livelihoods of thousands of poultry farmers in the DemocraticRepublic of Congo.

Thank You

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