HOUSING PIGS IN STYLE!!!

Pigs housed in beautiful and conducive environment,grow faster, better and are less prone to diseases. The role of housing in production can not be over emphasized,look at how pigs are housed for better productivity; look at the Cavite pig city; Read more here;http://www.pigprogress.net/Growing-Finishing/General/2015/9/Cavite-Pig-City-A-city-within-a-city-2673896W/

Grass-fed beef has the lowest red meat cancer risk

Grass-fed beef has the lowest red meat cancer risk

Vietnam raises bird flu alert as dangerous strain detected

Vietnam raises bird flu alert as dangerous strain detected

Global value of processed poultry tipped to rise

Global value of processed poultry tipped to rise The demand for poultry is on the increase thus more revenue is to be generated from the industry.The areas of processing, packaging,transportation and innovative products all make the industry a viable one.

HYDROPONICS AND FOOD SECURITY.

Benefits of hydroponics. 1) There is no need for soil means more food can be grown on less land,this is ideal for a growing, urbanizing global population. 2) Yields can be up to 10 times more than from open field agriculture. 3) The water used can be recycled. 4) Farms can be anywhere, from skyscrapers to shipping containers. 5)Pollution from pesticides and herbicides can be prevented. 6)Local production reduces food miles and transportation costs. , A tech firm Fujitsu , at its Aizu Wakamatsu factory in central Japan is applying cloud-based data analytic s to the production of low-potassium lettuce and spinach.The operation takes place in a dust-free "clean-room" formerly used for semiconductor production. Fujitsu's cloud platform - Akisai - stores and analyses data from lots of sensors in the greenhouses, and enables heating units, ventilation fans and other equipment to be operated remotely."In terms of quality, we have applied the same industrial perspective from semiconductor manufacturing to vegetable cultivation," a Fujitsu spokesman tells the BBC. "Having a control structure that keeps product specifications - the weight and nutrient constituent-parts of lettuce - within a defined range, makes for effective high added-value vegetable production." The company sells the lettuce it produces to hospitals, supermarkets, and hotels - as well as online - and says its cloud service is collecting valuable data that is leading to improved quality and higher yields. Fujitsu's insights and efficiency improvements could also encourage more producers to enter the market and "lead to an increase in younger generations getting into agriculture", the spokesman adds. Story credit;BBC news.

MERS VACCINE !!!

An effective vaccine to protect against the Mers virus is a step closer,european scientists genetically modified a version of the smallpox vaccine to display Mers virus protein on its surface. The vaccine was able to protect camels - the animal reservoir for the virus - from developing Mers virus symptoms. Experts hope the vaccine might stop the virus spreading in camels and may also protect humans at risk from infection. Infections have been reported in 26 countries around the world with the outbreak epi-centre located in the Arabian Peninsula.There are no treatments for Mers but scientists are trying to develop an effective vaccine. One such scientist is Prof Bart Haagmans, who is based at the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands. He has been busy developing and testing vaccines in camels. A team of scientists drawn from the Netherlands, Spain and Germany, genetically engineered a pox virus called Modified Vaccinia Ankara -MVA - to display Mers virus spike protein on its surface. MVA, related to the virus used to eradicate smallpox, was used to eradicate smallpox and is currently being used to develop vaccines to a variety of viruses like influenza, Ebola and hepatitis C. Importantly it can produce antibodies and killer cells.The Mers spike protein is thought to be a major target for the immune response. The team hoped that by cloaking MVA with this spike they would train the immune system to recognize and kill Mers. The team took the engineered MVA, sprayed it up the noses of camels and injected it into their muscle, and then four weeks later they repeated the vaccination again. When the team exposed the vaccinated animals to the Mers virus the camels developed very mild symptoms. Crucially they didn't develop a runny nose and the amount of virus they produced was very low. Camels that hadn't received the vaccine produced very large amounts of virus and suffered a very runny nose. This indicates that even though the vaccine didn't prevent infection it did reduce the amount of virus that the vaccinated camels produced. story credit BBC news.

CAMELS AND MERS VIRUS.

Camels, which are bred and raised for their milk and meat and for racing, are thought to be the initial source of human outbreaks. The virus is particularly prevalent in juvenile camels, where infection results in symptoms that are similar to a common cold. The virus is thought to pass to humans when they have contact with an infected camel's body fluids. Circulation of Mers in camels poses a serious risk to human health and many scientists are worried that the virus might mutate to become better adapted to human spread. That's why scientists are trying to develop vaccines - to stop the virus infecting humans and also to reduce the amount of virus circulating in camels. Vaccination is aimed at protection;Vaccines train our immune response to recognize a virus and to wipe it out before it can infect us or before it can do any harm.The vaccine acts in 2 forms;there are two arms to this protection - antibodies and killer cells. Antibodies are proteins found in human blood and in body fluids like mucus and saliva and these attach to the virus and stop it infecting. The Killer cells, , track down virus infected cells and kill the cell before new virus is released. Some vaccines raise antibodies, some produce killer cells and some raise both. The MERS infection of humans was first described in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and Since then there have been more than 1,600 reported cases. One third of reported infections have resulted in death. Individuals with other illnesses - such as diabetes, long term lung disease or kidney failure - are particularly prone to developing life-threatening symptoms. Virus spread is limited to people who have close contact with those who are infected, such as family members and healthcare workers. There are no treatments for Mers but scientists are trying to develop an effective vaccine.