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Free Malaysia Today
10-06-2025
- Science
- Free Malaysia Today
Only 1 country fully self-sufficient without global food trade
Researchers are assessing food self-sufficiency of countries around the world if food imports and exports between countries suddenly stopped. (Envato Elements pic) PARIS : What would happen if food imports and exports between countries suddenly stopped? Researchers have looked at this hypothetical situation to assess the food self-sufficiency of countries around the world. According to their estimates, only one nation would be able to feed its population in seven food categories if this catastrophic scenario were to occur. Published in the journal Nature Food, the study was conducted by researchers from the University of Göttingen (Germany) and the University of Edinburgh (Scotland). They used data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) to assess the ability of 186 countries to supply themselves with legumes, nuts and seeds, vegetables, fruit, starchy foods, dairy products, meat, and fish. Taking these seven major food categories into account, only one country on the list would be capable of self-sufficiency, ie, capable of providing food for its inhabitants across all seven categories without depending on other countries. This is Guyana, a South American country with a population of around 800,000. Next come China and Vietnam, which would be able to supply themselves with six out of seven food categories. Out of 186 countries, 154 can meet the requirements of two to five of the seven food groups. But overall, the picture is worrying. Only one country in seven is self-sufficient in five or more food groups. Most of these nations are located in Europe and South America. The other countries have low production and depend almost exclusively on a single trading partner for more than half of their imports. 'Low self-sufficiency and overdependence on a few countries for imports threaten their capability to respond to global shocks, particularly for small states,' the report stated. Worse still, some countries are unable to achieve self-sufficiency in any of the food groups studied. This is the case in Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Macao, Qatar, and Yemen. Establishing more resilient supply chains This finding is all the more alarming given the recent restrictions imposed by the United States since Donald Trump returned to power in January 2025. 'International food trade and cooperation is essential for healthy and sustainable diets. However, heavy reliance on imports from single countries can leave nations vulnerable. 'Building resilient food supply chains is imperative for ensuring public health,' cautioned the study's first author, Jonas Stehl, a researcher at the University of Göttingen, quoted in a news release. The need for nations to be self-sufficient is also crucial in tackling the climate crisis. While a large majority of European countries overproduce meat and dairy products, demand for these foods is very low in African countries. Less than half of countries produce enough foods such as beans and peas, as well as nuts and seeds, while only a quarter produce enough vegetables to meet domestic demand. 'Climate shocks are reshaping the agriculture sector and will continue to intensify. Open trade and innovation are essential to secure healthy, low-carbon diets,' said study co-author, Alexander Vonderschmidt, PhD researcher at the University of Edinburgh's Division of Global Agriculture and Food Systems.
India.com
06-06-2025
- General
- India.com
World's only nation that grows 100 percent of its own food; not US, India, Japan, India, Canada, China, Pakistan, Turkey, the country is...
Representational Image Food self-sufficiency: Food security is one of the primary necessities of any modern nation, as food self-sufficiency would essentially prevent a major disaster in the country in wake of a war or if global trade is halted. But is there any country on the planet that has achieved complete self-sufficiency in food? No, the answer is not any major world power like United States, Japan, Russia, China, India, Canada, Pakistan, or Turkey? The only country which is completely self-sufficient in all seven food groups is Guyana, a tiny South American country with a population of just 800,000 (8 lakh). World's only food self-sufficient country? A small nation located in South America, Guyana is the only country which has achieved complete self-sufficiency in a in all seven food groups- grains, pulses, fruits, vegetables, milk, meat and fish. Guyana's secret lies in its highly-planned agriculture, and balancing of resources, which are so efficiently distributed that the country has the ability to feed its own people, even if every border is closed and the Guyana is cut off from global trade. According to a joint research conducted by the University of Göttingen (Germany) and the University of Edinburgh (UK), Guyana is only country in the world with complete self-sufficiency in food. What about other countries? The study, published in the Nature FoodIt journal, examined food-production capacity of 186 countries worldwide and found that Guyana was only one that achieved self-sufficiency in all seven food groups, while China and Vietnam are almost self-sufficient in six food group. As per the study, only 1 in 7 countries (around 14 percent), have achieved self-sufficiency in five or more groups, while over 1/3 of countries are self-sufficient in only two or fewer food groups. In contrast, several countries do not even have self-sufficiency in a single food group. The countries include, Iraq, Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, Macau, Qatar, Yemen, among other. Economic unions lag behind in food self-reliance While many might believe that a group of nations could perform better together, the study reveals otherwise. As per the data collected by the study, major economic unions are not faring any better, with Gulf Cooperation Council being self-sufficient only in meat, while West Africa and Caribbean Union have become self-reliant in a few groups. No economic grouping has achieved self-sufficiency in vegetables, according to the study. Food self-sufficiency in India and United States Despite being a giant agriculture-based economy, India has yet to achieve self-sufficiency in every food group, and is heavily dependent upon food imports, especially cooking oil, pulses, and fruit to meet its food requirements. This is primarily due to India's growing population and climate. Similarly, while the US uses advanced technology to augment its agriculture, yet self-sufficient in every food group due to lack of diet diversity, and depends upon imports for many essential commodities like seafood or tropical fruits.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Just One Nation Produces Enough Food For Itself, Scientists Reveal
Global politics don't feel particularly cooperative at the moment, but which countries could actually feed themselves independently if all international food trade shut down? Just one, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Göttingen in Germany and the University of Edinburgh analyzed food production data from 186 countries. The findings revealed that Guyana is the only country that can be entirely self-sufficient in all seven key food groups that the study focused on. China and Vietnam were the runners-up, producing enough food to meet their populations' needs in six out of the seven categories. Just one in seven countries hits the quota in five or more food groups, while more than a third are self-sufficient in two or fewer groups. Six countries – Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Macau, Qatar, and Yemen – were unable to meet self-sufficiency in any food group. Even zooming out a little, economic unions made up of multiple countries showed similar patterns. The Gulf Cooperation Council in the Middle East, for example, achieves self-sufficiency only in meat, while unions in West Africa and the Caribbean only hit the mark for two groups. No economic union produces enough vegetables to feed its entire population. To fill the gaps and meet the dietary needs of their populations, most countries rely on trade. However, many still depend on a single trade partner for over half their imports, which leaves them especially susceptible to market shocks. Maintaining diverse trade networks between countries and regions is crucial for future food supplies, the team says. Tit-for-tat tariffs probably aren't helping. "International food trade and cooperation is essential for healthy and sustainable diets. However, heavy reliance on imports from single countries can leave nations vulnerable," says Jonas Stehl, developmental economist at the University of Göttingen. "Building resilient food supply chains is imperative for ensuring public health." The research was published in the journal Nature Food. Harvard Paid $27 For a 'Copy' of The Magna Carta. It Turned Out to Be The Real Thing. We're Still Slowly Learning How Polynesian Voyagers Navigated Entire Oceans World's Richest 10% Caused Two-Thirds of Global Heating, Study Finds
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Hawaii's volcanic rocks offer proof that Earth's core is leaking gold, study finds
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Gold and other precious metals are leaking from Earth's core into the layers above, eventually making their way up to the surface during the formation of volcanic islands like Hawaii, a new study suggests. The theory results from a three-year analysis of Hawaii's basaltic rocks, which originally formed from plumes of magma, or molten rock, rising from the ocean floor. Clues in the form of heavy metals found in the volcanic rocks could confirm a suspicion long held by geologists — that Earth's molten core is not isolated but likely bleeds into the rocky mantle, the layer between the planet's thin crust and the core. 'About 40 years ago, people first came up with the theory that maybe the core is losing some material into the mantle, but the signals we got so far were really ambiguous,' said Nils Messling, a geochemist at the University of Göttingen in Germany and lead author of the report, published May 21 in the journal Nature. 'Now, in my opinion, we have the first very strong evidence that some of the core is actually ending up in the mantle.' Scientists already knew that most of the gold on the planet — more than 99.95%, according to Messling — lies hidden in the molten core, along with other heavy elements such as platinum. As meteorites bombarded one another in Earth's early history, a reservoir of these precious metals developed when the core formed about 4.5 billion years ago. But this study suggests that at least a tiny amount of that gold has escaped to the surface, raising the fascinating prospect that, if the leaking continues, more and more of this precious metal could travel from the center of Earth to the crust in the future. 'Our findings not only show that the Earth's core is not as isolated as previously assumed. We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material — several hundreds of quadrillion metric tonnes of rock — originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii,' said study coauthor Matthias Willbold, a professor at the University of Göttingen, in a statement. To find evidence of this core-mantle interaction, Messling and his coauthors obtained some samples of Hawaiian volcanic rocks form the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. 'Some were taken by a submarine, from a deep sea volcano, but (otherwise) it's basically just very ordinary-looking basaltic rock, very unassuming, that you would find anywhere on Hawaii,' he said. 'We started with half a kilogram (1.1 pounds) of rock, we crushed it into a powder, and then we melted it in the oven with some different chemicals, to end up with a sample in liquid form.' From that sample, the team extracted all the elements in the platinum group, which includes platinum itself as well as the lesser-known rhodium, palladium, iridium, osmium and ruthenium. The scientists then focused on ruthenium, a silver-gray metal about as rare in Earth's crust as gold. 'The mantle has almost no ruthenium in it,' Messling said. 'It's one of the rarest elements on Earth. But Earth is basically made of meteorites that crashed together, and meteorites (contain) ruthenium, which went into the core when the core formed. So the mantle has next to no ruthenium, and the core has all of the ruthenium. The same with gold and platinum.' Earth's core has two layers. A hot, solid metal sphere of iron and nickel is roughly 70% the size of the moon, with a radius of about 759 miles (1,221 kilometers). A liquid metal outer core is about 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) thick and extends to about 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) below the surface, or right up to the mantle. In contrast, the mantle, which lies between the planet's outer crust and the molten core, is 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) of mostly solid rock. To determine whether the extracted ruthenium was originally from the core and not the mantle, the team looked at a specific isotope, or type, of ruthenium that was likely more abundant in Earth's early building materials during the time the core formed billions of years ago. 'The vast majority of gold and other precious metals like platinum were likely delivered by massive meteorite impacts during the final stages of Earth's formation — a process known as late accretion,' said Pedro Waterton, an assistant professor of geochemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark who was not involved in the study. The presence of the ruthenium isotope in the basalt samples indicates that at least some of the rock was formed from material coming from the molten metallic core. That's because there is consensus, Messling said, that the material that coalesced during the early stages of Earth's formation does not exist in the meteorite record anymore. He added that the isotope signature in rocks from hotspot volcanoes like the ones in Hawaii is entirely different from any other known rock or meteorite. In other words, the ruthenium isotope Messling found was locked away in the core billions of years ago, so detecting the isotope in volcanic rocks today suggests it comes from the core. 'It's quite a novel and difficult method,' Messling said. 'We managed to measure ruthenium in rocks that have next to no ruthenium in them. In half a kilo (1.1 pounds) of rock, it was less than milligrams — a needle in a planet-sized haystack! That's quite exciting — for a geochemist, at least. It was a long but very exciting process.' So what's the connection with gold? It's chemically similar to ruthenium, Messling said, so if the core is leaking ruthenium, it is also leaking gold in similar quantities. This would be a 'minuscule' amount, however. And even if scientists wanted to extract gold directly from the source, the core-mantle boundary, that's much farther down than current technology could drill. In fact, it's about 236 times deeper than the deepest bore ever drilled — the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia, which reaches a depth of 7.62 miles (12.3 kilometers). Proof that the core isn't isolated is particularly thrilling because the core and the mantle shouldn't interact at all, Messling said. 'Their density is too different, like oil and water, so technically they shouldn't mix. And we still don't have a good mechanism to explain why they do. We don't really know much about the core at all,' he said. The Hawaiian rock samples suggest that the leaking process takes between 500 million and 1 billion years to complete, Messling said. 'It's something that has occurred a while ago, and we suspect that it probably has been going on forever, and it's probably still occurring now,' he explained. According to Messling, if the leaking of precious metals is an ongoing process, it could be that at least some of the gold humans have mined may have come from the core even if the quantity of core material in a single rock is negligible, and that the world's supply of gold seems to be replenishing. 'It's a very interesting idea that, although this process is tiny and has zero effect if you look at just one island, if you scale it up to 4.5 billion years it could be that it changes the composition of the Earth,' he said. Researchers who were not involved in the study expressed positive views on the findings. 'We know that the Earth was built from different generations of meteoritic material that were added progressively to the growing planet, and that precious metals from the earliest generations of meteorite material became concentrated into our planet's core while metals from meteorites added in the final stages of the Earth's growth became stranded in our planet's mantle,' said Helen Williams, a professor of geochemistry and planetary science at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The study, she added, confirms that the mantle plumes — rising jets of molten rock coming from the core-mantle boundary that create hot spots like Hawaii — do indeed contain material somehow derived from Earth's metallic core, said Williams, adding that the result was 'exciting.' Jesse Reimink, an associate professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, agrees. 'This is a very old debate, and new data over the past 10 or so years has reinvigorated the possibility that the core was chemically 'leaking' into the mantle over time,' he said. 'This study really does seem to nail the conclusion — the core does contribute some material to the mantle.' The latest research also strengthens the case made in previous work that some mantle plumes incorporate material from Earth's core, said the University of Copenhagen's Waterton. Does that also mean some of the gold in Earth's crust is originally from the core? 'Yes, but probably only a very small amount,' he said.
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First Post
27-05-2025
- Science
- First Post
Is Earth's core leaking gold and other precious metals to the surface?
A new study in Nature reveals that Earth's core may not be sealed shut after all. German geochemists have discovered traces of core-derived precious metals like ruthenium in volcanic rocks from Hawaii — suggesting gold and other elements may be slowly seeping up from deep within the planet read more A woman and her daughter touch a structural model of the earth's core at Nanjing Geological Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, April 22, 2011. The Chinese characters on the model read "outer core". Representational Image/Reuters Scientists have found robust suggesting that Earth's inner core, long considered completely sealed off, is slowly releasing gold and other precious metals into the layers above. This revelation comes from a detailed isotope study of volcanic rocks, specifically basalt samples from Hawaii, which shows that some of the world's most valuable elements may have originated not just from meteorites or the planet's mantle, but from the very centre of Earth itself. Geochemists from the University of Göttingen in Germany, including Nils Messling and Matthias Willbold, have published their findings in the scientific journal Nature, revealing how specific isotopes act as tracers for material that originated in Earth's metallic core. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD How Earth's core is seen as a hidden reservoir For decades, scientists have known that the overwhelming majority of Earth's gold — along with elements like platinum, palladium, rhodium and ruthenium — is not found in the crust or even the upper mantle, but locked away in the core, buried beneath nearly 3,000 kilometres of dense rock. This concentration of heavy elements occurred during Earth's early years, over 4.5 billion years ago, when the planet's internal structure began to differentiate. Heavier elements sank toward the centre during a process known as the iron catastrophe, leaving the outer layers comparatively depleted. Also Watch: According to estimates, the quantity of gold sequestered in the core is so vast that, if extracted and spread evenly over the land surface, it could cover every continent with a 50-centimetre-thick layer of gold. Yet, until recently, this immense subterranean reserve was believed to be geologically unreachable and completely cut off from the crust. That assumption has now been upended. How scientists tracked core-derived isotopes in volcanic rock The Göttingen researchers focused on analysing isotopic compositions in rocks formed from deep-Earth magmatic activity. They targeted ruthenium, a rare and heavy element that exhibits subtle isotopic differences depending on its source. These differences had previously been too minute to distinguish. But by refining their laboratory techniques, the team was able to detect and compare ruthenium isotopes with unprecedented precision. Using samples from basaltic lava flows in the Hawaiian islands — an area known for volcanic activity stemming from deep mantle plumes — the researchers discovered an elevated concentration of the isotope ruthenium-100. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This variant is consistent with material originating from Earth's core, as opposed to the surface or upper mantle. 'Our data confirmed that material from the core, including gold and other precious metals, is leaking into the Earth's mantle above,' said Nils Messling, one of the lead authors of the study. 'When the first results came in, we realised that we had literally struck gold!' The core-derived signature in the volcanic rock was not limited to ruthenium. It suggests that other siderophile elements — those with an affinity for iron and which bonded with it in the early, molten Earth — may also be part of the upward movement from core to mantle, and eventually, to the crust. How core material reaches the surface The study provides compelling evidence that deep mantle upwellings — also called mantle plumes — transport material from near the core-mantle boundary to the surface. These massive columns of superheated rock rise through the mantle and erupt through oceanic crust to form volcanic islands such as those in Hawaii. 'We can now also prove that huge volumes of superheated mantle material—several hundred quadrillion metric tons of rock—originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii,' said study co-author Matthias Willbold. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Also Watch: The volume and force of this process are immense, although it happens over geological timescales spanning millions of years. The volcanic rocks that emerge during these eruptions carry chemical and isotopic clues from the depths, making them natural record-keepers of Earth's internal dynamics. What this means for future research The discovery opens new avenues for understanding how Earth's internal systems have evolved over billions of years. Prior to this discovery, the prevailing understanding among Earth scientists was that the planet's core, encased beneath the solid silicate mantle and crust, was an isolated and chemically inert reservoir. The new research not only confirms that elements like ruthenium and possibly gold are slowly migrating upward, but it also introduces the use of isotopic 'tracers' to monitor and quantify this migration in future studies. Ruthenium, in particular, may serve as a powerful tool for understanding the interactions between Earth's layers. 'Precious metals such as ruthenium are highly concentrated in the metallic core but extremely depleted in the silicate mantle,' the researchers wrote in their study. While many of Earth's surface metals were believed to have arrived via meteorite bombardment during the early years of the solar system, this study shows that at least some of those metals may have originated from within the planet itself. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Our findings open up an entirely new perspective on the evolution of the inner dynamics of our home planet,' the researchers concluded. While practical access to these deeply buried resources remains impossible with current technology, the scientific insight gained from these findings may influence everything from geochemistry to planetary science. This revelation also has implications beyond Earth. If core leakage of precious metals is possible here, similar processes may occur on other rocky planets. Though no gold rush will result from this research, its value lies in the new understanding it offers about Earth's inner mechanics. Also Watch: With input from agencies
