Climate-Friendly Food and Agriculture

 https://www.theearthneedslove.com/2024/01/climate-friendly-food-and-agriculture.html

 

CLIMATE-FRIENDLY FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

Abrar Hussan

International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, University of Karachi, Karachi-75270 Pakistan (abrarhussain0307@gmail.com)

Introduction

Any long term change in temperature and weather of an area is known as climate change. The causes of climate changes may be natural or man-made. In the beginning of 19^th century rapid industrialization take place which besides other activities also affect the climate of an area. For instance, burning of coal, fossil fuels and gases etc. can cause the climate change most probably by interrupting the air and change its composition. These sources i.e. burning of fossil fuels etc. can aid the green house effects which ultimately change the climate.

The potential of climate change is measure in term of their negative effects on all forms of lives. The disruption of balance ecosystem, change in weather patterns, increase in temperature, extensive flooding, melting of glaciers, and increase in the eruption of volcanic are the key consequences of climate change. All the aforementioned effects can lead to the negatively effects the human and other animal’s lives, enhance the death ratio, increase non-communicable diseases, and create the emergence of health issues. Agriculture sector is also at high risk from climate changes due to temperature changes, flooding, irregular rainfall, and longer or shorter drought seasons. All these situations can lead to affect the foods that are produced in that particular area.

Agriculture is one of the main sources of income in many countries around the globe. (In Pakistan 60% of the land is considered as agriculture land). They aid to the countries assets and improve the quality of life of the residents. Proper and fresh foods availability, verities of food items, and labour working etc. all are the benefits of agriculture sector. But unfortunately, some negative aspects like their contribution in climate change (production of different gases i.e. CO₂, CH₄, NO₂ etc.), acidification of rain, eutrophication, residual of fertilizers, and waste of residual etc. are also associated with this sector. These problems are more emerged currently due to the use of advance agriculture techniques, which on one side enhance the productivity and required less time but on the other hand produce poisonous gases, and disrupt the ecosystem.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) for the Asia region declared that the geographical location of a country a can also associated with the climate change. Besides geographical location other factors like socioeconomic development, rapid industrialization, and lack of proper resources also contribute to the climate change.

Currently, the matter of climate change is of global concern different international and national organization are working for the prevention or to overcome the drastic effects of climate change, but there are more to be done. Therefore, the present article aimed to describe various environmental friendly methods that can help to reduce the climate change, but the demand of agriculture substances is not affected.

Eco-friendly system

The activities or products that cause limited destruction in the environment and have a sustainable factor are referring as eco-friendly substances or actions. The factor of sustainability and presentation of the available resources for future generation is the key property of eco-friendly and hence, it is separated from the term environmental friendly. Eco-friendly system is crucial for balancing of ecological, social, and economic value of any population. It also accounts for waste reduction, renewable energy, and sustainability of the long-term environmental factors.   

Sustainability and food system

Sustainability is a multidimensional concern, to which our food systems also attribute. The nature of clean and safe food is the basic right of any human and it is also our responsibility to save the food for future. The food conservation in the environments and its safe storage for future is the concern of global association and collaboration. Food system is comprised of a chain of steps ranging from cultivation in the fields to processes food on the table. As looking sample and linear chains, the food system is considered a complex and multifactorial process that required time, care, and patients. For any society it is necessary that there will be a steady and sustainability in the food chain, but this may also vary from place to place and also changes with time. Food chains indicate the overall status of an area in term of field potential, the agriculture land, and the socioeconomic status. Sustainable food can provide a healthy and fresh food for the consumers.

 

        Figure 1: Graphical illustration showing the pillars of sustainability

Agricultural impact on environment and climate

Agriculture is the important part of our life which helps to generate new crops and aid to the economic value of any country. Besides the importance and crucial part in our daily life, the agriculture sector also impact negative on our environment, mostly due to the operation and process associated with agriculture. Rigorous agricultural processes can harm the environment through fertilisation, irrigation, machinery and plant protection chemicals. Similarly, the agriculture waste and animal manure on burning can aid to the air pollution. Recently the impact of agriculture on climate change is recognized and got full attention. Different parts and constituents of agriculture can badly impact the climate. For instance, the soil ‘type, irrigation, chemicals, etc. can badly impact our surrounding. 

Importance of sustainable food

The aim of food is to remove the hunger and vanished the poverty. The sustainable foods have both of these properties with additional benefits of its safe nature to the environments. It also not affects the biodiversity of the area and covers the all aspects of the foods. Sustainable foods also help in the restoration of forest as they required less area for cultivation. The increasing in multiple diseases also provide a way to use sustainable foods as they provide more choices. The sustainable foods and agriculture must meet the required criteria for present and future generation, while ensuring the environmental protection. The basics of food security like access, availability, utilization and stability must be present in a food which are claimed to be sustainable. 

Examples of sustainable foods

Different foods are used as sustainable foods. Each food has its own importance that collectively helps to reduce their environmental impact. Food with good nutritional values and improved health like, cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and olive oil etc. have the least environmental effect. Some of the important sustainable foods are listed below.

Mushroom

Mushrooms belong to saprophytes that can help to decompose the remaining of an organism and obtained their energy. These also live in different association with their host and generally no chemical or pesticides etc. are used for their cultivation, and hence aid to the safe nature of the environments.

Corn
corn is extensively used in feed industries and considered as a sustainable food. Its demand is more in developing countries as they produce more feeds supplements. Their industrial applications make them parallel with petroleum and its demand is gradually increasing. Here, its importance is in term of environmental protection. It is identified that organic corns can produce less carbon footprint then non-organic. They also lack the production of pesticides and widely distributed in different soils.

Conclusion

The agriculture sector contributes huge to the socio-economic value of a country. Due to the current situations of climate changes, which effect the agriculture sector a lot, is of issue of interest. Following the green ways of agriculture by promoting the concept of sustainable foods, can reduce the effects on the land. Various types of foods are grown which have all the required properties of a foods, and also have the factor of sustainability. Such foods required less area and give more products. In conclusion, promoting the climate friendly or environmental friendly agriculture not only help to reduce the burden of negative complications but also help to give more products.

Holistic Parenting -Children-Parent Relationship

 https://edutarbiyah.com/holistic-parenting-children-parent-relationship/ 

Holistic Parenting -Children-Parent Relationship

Abrar Hussain

Department of Science Education, Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad, Pakistan.

Email: abrarhussain0307@gmail.com

Introduction

Social interaction is one of the prime important factor that enable the children to grow smoothly and gradually. This social interaction is achieved by living together, in the form of family. Family is the group of people in which social interaction starts from birth to death. In this unit of people all the resident can share their thoughts, expressions, and activities with each other and can create a huge opportunities for their proper grooming. In family the relationships are maintain among all the individual and thus, enable them to understand each other and share their opinions, that ultimately helps the children to learn in easy and accessible way. Parents are consider the key pillar in the building of their children, they provide all things to their children s they need [1].

Children, below the puberty periods are very needy for different life activities to their interactive peoples. It’s the time in which someone can change the mind, behavior, religion, ethics, etc. of the children and can mold to their own way. In family the closer and more time giver to the children are their parents, which can sacrifices their single joy for the betternes of their child. It’s very obvious that some natural disaster are happen, unexpectedly and unintentionally [2]. During disaster like, floods, pandemic diseases, earth quick, etc.  the responsibilities of parents become more and its important to take care of their children in very polite and supportive ways. But unfortunately, during disaster it is observed that the parents are fail to give  a proper care to their children due to multiple reason like, the financial status of the family, the availability of less resources etc. such compromised parenting behavior were recently observed in COVID-19 scenario.

For the continuity of children-parent social interaction it is important that the family provide all those substances, sources which keep them alive. It’s the family which help a lot in the socialization of a child, as life experiences and family relations play key role in a healthy children development [2].  The interaction of children in their family become more important when the children is in their pre-school age as this age is considered the key and crucial developmental stage of children growth. It is also reported that this association of children in their family can affect the child’s personality either positive or negative [3, 4]. Parents, children and siblings combine to make a family. Every member in this system is dependent on other, especially when the individual is in their early sage. The individual can help in improving psychological, social development and personality development of each other, but can also provide shelter and protect them [5, 6].   In summary the children-parent relationship is a unique and dominant relationship formed during the interaction of children with their parents [13].

Holistic Parenting Approaches 

Holistic parenting in a broad sense is the mutual engaging between children and their parents to fulfill the basic needs, enhance the three Cs, and socialized their children [14]. This holistic approach is considered the utmost important approach to achieve the proper development of a child and make them more creative.

Needs of children

Needs of children are those things which are required for their proper growth, socialization and character building. The prime responsibility of parents for their children is the development of three Cs, in their children. These include the development of Confidence, Creativity and Characters. These three basics needs are achieved by different approaches. Top among them is the fulfilling’s of the developmental needs of a children. The developmental needs of a children are categorized into physical needs, social needs, intellectual needs and emotional needs.  All these types have their own characteristics and properties. These needs and their properties are summarized in figure 1.

                  Figure 1. Illustration of the developmental needs of children.

Parent’s responsibility

Responsibility of the parents is not only restricted to fulfill the physical needs of their children, but they must take care of all the needs and trying to fulfill on time. To provide basic education to their children is also the parent’s responsibility. Parents can educate their children directly by teaching themselves or granting admission in schools or indirectly by various methods like to provide open space for learning, give them time for playing to learn from their friends etc. one of the most influential and best way to educate the children, parents can ask questions from them like, what is this thing? If we do this work, how it will help us? Why you do this? etc. [7].  The beginning five years of children development, is very crucial for their personality and social development, therefore proper communication and relations with family or elders are the determining factor of this development [8]. Various kinds of psychological disorders may be produced in those children which are not given enough love, care and family attention [9]. Such emotional problems may determine by the superiority of the contact of child experiences in the early age. Parental characteristics like sensitivity, responsivty, pointing, success-oriented, good relationship and loving personality can support children’s growth [10].  

Children developing in a healthy, cooperative and joyful family setting will make them to understand the things well, similarly those children who don’t have such friendly and healthy environment will face problem during their adaptation and development [11]. In the family, members are sit together and trying to find the possible way of every problems which they face, this gathering can also affect the social, psychological, emotional and physiological behavior of the child. Unexpected changes and astonishing programmed taught by the family during their social life, unable children to analyze critical situation. The family may suffer from various life threatening situations and may destroy their family balance, but this situation may also give a positive and dynamic solution to the existing problems and learned by their children [12].   

Strategies to enhance parent-children relationship

Parent-children relationships are enhanced by various methods. These methods are ranging from small to large in term of scope and from natural to artificial ways. The best way to strengthen this bond is to give time to the children which can exponentially enhance this bond. The top strategies that can help to strengthen this relationships are describe below.  

Time spending

It is well-known that children can learn more by observation and by doing then by teaching or listening. If the parents can spend more time with their children they will help them to learn more positive characters.

Love your children

It’s the love which can change everything. If the parents treat their children with love and polite way they will create and develop a caring potential in the children.

Give value to your children

It is reported that to give value to your children can make them more creative and help them to develop the act of responsibility. This is very easy strategy and can easily achieved.

Give your children free time

If the parents provide some free time (time other than study etc.) to their children in which they can do what the children wants. Such opportunity enable them to learn openly from their friends and society.

Opportunity of exercising  

 Children are more devoted to learn from some physical activities and from their friends. Let them to play and spend time with their friends that can help them to complete their physical needs.

                Figure 2: Strategies to develop the bond of children-parent relationship.

Conclusion

In conclusion the parent-children relationship is the bidirectional interactions that are developed for the proper growth, personality development and to creativity development of the children. Strong the relationship can lead to more profound results and enable the children to learn more and improve their intrinsic characteristics. Time spending, care, love, attention, giving value and trust are the top agents that are consider to strengthen this relationship. 

Food Waste Reduction: A road map of gradually loss of foodstuffs

https://www.theearthneedslove.com/2023/10/food-waste-reduction-road-map-of.html 

Food Waste Reduction: A road map of gradually loss of foodstuffs

Abrar Hussain

International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, University of Karachi, Karachi Pakistan

Email: abrarhussain0307@gmail.com

Introduction

Food is considered one of the basic needs of life and is essential for every individual, including humans, animals, and microorganisms, etc. Every individual has their own choice of food and can utilize a certain amount of food daily or at one time. Fulfill the need of food for the residence of any country is among the top priorities of the government. Every person spends enough percent of their money to remove the hunger and get satiated. It is also the United Nation’s sustainable development goal to remove hunger. At one edge the rich people can enjoy different varieties and types of food and waste a large amount of their remaining, and at the other sides, the poor people can pick these waste foods from different places and quench their hunger, thus creating a huge imbalance and disparities in the society.

The terms “food loss” and “food waste” are sometimes used interchangeably but there is a difference between the two. The farmer word describes the loss during production, storage, processing, and reaching the consumers, while the later term explain loss of food after reaching to the consumers i.e. after the cooking and eating of food [6] [10].  

According to a previous report [1], in U.S 30-40% of their foods are wasted each year that is equal to $161 billion. Food waste also waste agriculture water as much as 24% per year [3]. Unfortunately, food loss is occur at every step, initially from production to the consumption, comprising the processing, packing, and delivery steps. Food is not only wasted because of human involvement, as it is also lost by animals and microbes and aid to the economic losses. Food wastage is considered a potential threat for every sector like health, agriculture, manufacturer, researchers, officials, and all other domains of one health. A positive spark in this field is still exist if use the food wisely, eating according to need, preparing as required and distributing according to the requirement.

Food wastage checkpoints

Food wastage is very possible and easy to implement. Food is saved from wastage by multiples approaches and methods. Controlling food waste is essential in many ways like the population increasing, and agriculture land are reduced etc. According to a United Nation report [2] about 13% of produced food are lost between harvest and retail and approximately 17% of total food waste occur in the household. There are multiple points in which the food stuffs are lost due to multiple reasons, these checkpoints are illustrated in Figure 1.

•      Agriculture

•      Harvesting

•      Transport

•      Industry

•      Restaurants

•      Individual

                                Figure 1: Important food wastage checkpoints

1-      Agriculture

It is the first entry of food and a large amount of food is wasted at this point. Food agriculture waste means how we can reduce food wastage at this level. This level ranges from seeding to complete fruit formation. At this stage, the wastage is almost equally contributed by humans and other animals, as the former don’t take care properly, while the later can cause harm by eating, transferring of pathogens and other disease causing agents. Wastage at this point is reduced by proper handling, use of insecticides, and proper caring.

2-      Harvesting of food

At this stage, most of the food is lost due to human’s carelessness. The farmers don’t take proper care of the foodstuffs and thus waste a lot at this stage. Proper handling, care, and proper protection for forecast etc. are the protective measures.

3-      Transportation of food

It is important to carry the un-processed foodstuffs to different industries to convert them into their finalized shapes. During this transport and loading and unloading of foodstuffs cause a wastage of it. This is overcome by proper handling, care, and smooth transport or making more industries which shorten the transport distance.

4-      Industrial food processing

Once the foodstuffs are reached to industries, it is the place in which multiple products are prepared according to the demand and type of industry. A huge amount of foodstuffs are wasted at this stage. It is an important point of food wastage control as more and more unnecessary products are prepared. Proper check and balance, manufacturing according to demand, and good handling can reduce wastage at this point.

5-      Food preparation at restaurants

Once the food substances are prepared, they are transferred to their utilization, i.e. restaurants, hotels and homes. This is the most crucial, potential, and important point of food wastage. Every day tons of food substances are prepared and then wasted. Millions of restaurants can prepare different varieties of foodstuffs for their consumers and the majority of these prepared food is wasted due to multiples factors. At this stage, the food waste is control at the maximum capacity.

6-      Individual level

The end users of this series are the human. At the individual level every person, irrespective of gender, age, caste, etc. can make their own choice of food substances and as he/she is fed up the remaining food is thrown into waste boxes. At this level food wastage is controled by eating at the proper time, eating as the capacity and storage of the remaining food for next time, are the recommended points. 

The best way to reduce food wastage is to follow the Islamic principle obediently. There are multiple verses and Hadith are present which teach us to don’t waste the food [11].

Food wastage reduction tips  

There are multiple ways through which we can reduce the food wastage. At every point mentioned above, certain level of food waste are reduced. The important tips for food waste reduction are summarized in figure 2.

            Figure 2: Important food waste reduction tips

Food waste reduction approaches

There are multiple ways through which food waste is reduced. At different places and different locations, the waste are reduces. At home, a huge amount of food waste is reduced as it is reported that more than 90% of food waste at home is found in the sewers [5][8].  

The important places and their food waste reduction methods are described below [1].

1-      Shopping and selection of food

To buy foodstuff, use a smart shopping approach i.e. buy according to your need not for your satisfaction [4] [6] [7]. To avoid extra shopping and purchasing extra food stuffs use the following rules.

i-                   Avoid frequent visit to shops

ii-                 Make a purchase list

iii-               Buy for a few days instead of bulk purchasing

iv-               Take those stuff that have a long shelf life

v-                  Keep in mind the nutritional value of food

 

2-      Storage, preservation, and saving of food

It is important to properly store the purchased foodstuffs. Knowing good preservation methods one can store their food for a longer time and remain safe from spoilage. According to Natural Resource Defense Council, in the UK, two-thirds of household waste is due to food spoilage [4] [5] [7]. During the storage and preservation keep in mind the following

i-                   Store at the proper place and accessible location

ii-                 Separate food from each so each stuff will remain safe

iii-               Use different preservation methods like pickling, drying, canning, etc. for food

iv-               Avoid spoilage by properly organizing the fridge stuff

v-                  Used first-in first-out approach while keeping foods in the fridge for storage.

3-      Cooking and eating

The kitchen is an important place for waste reduction. The kitchen location is not restricted to home as it is located in hotels and restaurants and become the instant place of food waste [6]. At this place food waste is reduced by

a-      Prepared food as required

b-      Make the food tasty so everyone should eat

c-      Clean the environment so food loss will not occur

d-      Keep a record of what and how much is prepared

e-      Develop a meal plan for daily or weekly consumption.

f-       Save the left-over food wisely

g-      Use the stored food next time.

Benefits of preventing food wastage

According to a report [9] worldwide 40% of all produced food are wasted by human which can lead to a great loss in the economy. Hence it is important to reduce food wastage at every possible point and place which not only saves the food but can also aid to multiple benefits. These benefits are summarized in the following figure 3.

                    Figure 3. Benefits of preventing food substances from wastage.

Conclusion

Food is the basic need of every individual but unfortunately due to various reasons we lose a large amount of our food both before utilization (food loss) and after consumption (food waste). There are multiple checkpoints for instance from agriculture production to transport and processing, and from shopping to eating, a good proportion of food is wasted which accounts for 40% globally. Important tips like shopping wisely and frequently, proper storage, preparation as required, and use the leftover food again, can overcome food wastage. By saving the food today we can save it for our coming generations.