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The University of Alberta has partnered with New Zealand’s University of Auckland to develop a major international food for health initiative.

“This is a commitment by the two institutions to build a world-class food for health research and outreach program,” said John Kennelly, dean of the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences, who spearheaded UAlberta’s efforts that led to a Memorandum of Understanding between the two institutions. “We’ll build the program primarily through grad student exchanges, professor exchanges and, of course, a top notch research program.” Kennelly said that food for health is a key strategy for Alberta, Canada and around the world to transform disease-based health care models into more sustainable

Faculty signs on major international food for health initiative

prevention-based models. Kennelly added the partnership fits very well into the University of Alberta’s vision of transforming the Alberta Institute for Human

Nutrition into the Centre for Nutrition and Health. A key responsibility of the new director of the centre (a search is expected to begin soon) will be to build this initiative. “This is not about two profes-sors going to visit each other. It’s a significant project,” said Kennelly. Indeed, the University of Auckland recently hired a new chair to oversee the program on their end as well as two senior administrative officers to run the program. “We would like to see food for health built as a University of

Alberta area of excellence and this partnership is a key step in moving forward. We believe the U of A is uniquely positioned to be a leader in this area,” said Kennelly.

Adamowicz to lead research efforts at Alberta Land Institute Faculty of ALES researcher Vic Adamowicz, an environmental economist and Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, will head the Alberta Land Institute’s research program. The institute, recently established at the U of A, has already undertaken some signifi-cant baseline research and established immedi-ate research priorities to identify solutions to Alberta’s key land-use challenges. The priorities include supporting economic and social viability of agriculture while increasing environmental performance on the land, includ-ing a focus on irrigation, supporting more ef-ficient planning of infrastructure, and identifying enhancements to the governance and regulatory framework within Alberta and Canada. The institute will also support a research program on property rights issues arising in Al-berta based on current land-use regulations—a topic of considerable discussion in recent months—and host an International Land Use Symposium in Edmonton with land-use experts from around the world in late 2013.

UAlberta provost Carl Amrhein exchanges gifts with University of Auckland’s deputy vice-chancellor Jenny Dixon during the signing of the MOU .

2 Confident beginning key to happy marriage

2 Making frost issues a thing of the past for canola farmers

2 Income levels relevant to carbon policy

3 Putting poultry in a bind

3 Waters impacted by wildfire

4 Canadians willing to pay for increased traceability of meat

4 Family care taking toll on workplace

4 New tool developed to find rare Alberta species

R e s e a r c h n e w s a n d i n f o r m a t i o n f r o m t h e

R E S E A R C H H I G H L I G H T S

Winter 2013 • Vol. 6, No.1

discoveries • winter 2013

R E S E A R C H H I G H L I G H T S

Making September frost issues a thing of the past for canola farmers

New research suggests that couples about to tie the knot shouldn’t ignore any nagging doubts about getting married. “If you are having doubts about the relationship, just ignoring them may make a difference years down the road,” said ALES researcher Matthew Johnson, from the Depart-ment of Human Ecology. The study, published recently in the journal Family Process, showed that couples who were more confident as they exchanged vows also spent more time together 18 months into the marriage, and were still happy sharing life with their spouses at the three-year mark. Johnson co-wrote the study using existing research data to weigh the marital confidence of 610 newlywed couples over a period of four years. Those who were most confident at the outset of matrimony were still showing their happiness by sticking together as a couple long after the honeymoon was over. New to the faculty, Johnson’s research involves the dynamics of couple relationships, including dating and marriage, and he plans on deepening his scope of studies as he grows as a professor and researcher.

Matthew Johnson

Habibur Rahman examines canola with two of his grad students

Confident beginning key to happy marriage

The introduction of genes from cabbage and cauliflower type plant species into canola has produced early flowering and enabled farmers to avoid early frosts. ALES researcher Habibur Rahman of the De-partment of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science and his team have achieved flowering about one week earlier than usual. “The timing is important because early frost damage can not only decrease crop yield, it can also damage seed oil quality,” he explained. “If we maintain the yield and make the

crop mature earlier then there’s no risk of crop loss. So (I’m) not increasing yield but securing the crop production. This is a part of genetic diversity in canola,” he said. Early flowering is only one part of Rahman’s research, and he is exploring other aspects of the genetic diversity of canola. As the gene pool in canola broadens, crop scientists will be able to increase yields through breeding. Rahman predicts that yield increases from this broadening of the gene pool could be up to 10 to 20 per cent over five to 10 years, based on his experiences with other cases.

Policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from consumers need to take into account income disparity if they are to be effec-tive and fair. In a new study, environmental sociologist Emily Huddart-Kennedy looked at direct green-house gas emissions – energy consumption, ground transportation, air travel and household waste – from Alberta households. “We looked at it from (income) quintiles,” said the ALES researcher with the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology. She found that households with

Income disparity should be key component of carbon policy making

the highest incomes emit 17.9 tonnes per year while those with the lowest incomes emit 8.2 tonnes per year. The fact that income drives the carbon footprint is not new but very little research has been conducted so far on how the relationship between income and the carbon footprint actu-ally works. Much too often, policy makers have not looked at this relationship and have created poli-cies based on data of CO2 emitted by the aver-age household, which is 12.2 tonnes in Alberta. Not taking into account income disparity has led to the creation of policies that produce a disproportionate financial burden on people who can least afford it and who have contrib-uted the least to the problem, she said.

discoveries • winter 2013

R E S E A R C H H I G H L I G H T S

Putting poultry in a bind An ALES researcher has created a new, non-petroleum based adhesive that he is in the process of commercializing. Jianping Wu of the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science created the protein-based adhesive using the protein of canola meal left over after oil extraction, usually used as a feed additive or fertilizer, and spent hens that would otherwise be disposed of in landfills. While most adhesives on the market remain petroleum-based, the industry has been slowly moving away from using oil over the last 10-20 years due to the fluctuating cost and potential health concerns. “Petroleum-based adhesives are not sustainable or environmentally friendly so I think the industry is looking for sustainable and renewable options,” said Wu. A popular protein-based adhesive made from soy beans is being sold in the United States but Wu contends his product, meant for interior application on items like doors and furniture, is more robust, although not quite yet on par with synthetic adhesives. “Our research to date (has shown that) the property we have made is very comparable to the other adhesive made from soy beans,” said Wu. “We have a relatively better performance than their adhesive.” Headwaters impacted by wildfire

The 2003 Lost Creek wildfire in the southern Rockies had a significant impact on the quality and quantity of water produced in the area, according to Uldis Silins and his research team. The team observed a 50 to 300 per cent increase in the snow pack in the burned area, a 30 to 50 per cent increase in water flows coming off the front range of the Rockies, and an eight to tenfold increase in sediment. In addition, many of the usually clean mountain streams were choked with algae after the fire, leading to more insects and larger fish.

“The whole trophic saw an elevation after that burn,” explained Silins, who added that in the areas where salvage logging took place, the impacts on the water were almost twice as big.

The next step for Silins and his team is to examine the impact of tree harvesting and compare it to the impacts of wildfire. It will study three small watersheds by using different types of harvesting techniques to de-termine how water quantity, water quality and stream ecosystem health are affected by logging. Calgary, Red Deer and Lethbridge are some of the downstream communi-ties that depend on water supplies from Alberta’s Eastern Slopes.

Uldis Silins

Jianping Wu holds the raw material to make the glue that Nandika Bandara demonstrates.

discoveries • winter 2013

R E S E A R C H H I G H L I G H T S

Canadians willing to pay for increased traceability of meat products

Ellen Goddard

New tool developed to find rare Alberta species A new tool to predict and map where rare species are likely to be found has been developed by ALES researcher Scott Nielsen of the Department of Renewable Resources. The Alberta Species Conservation At-las capitalizes on data from the Alberta Conservation Information Management System, which collects its data from expert observers across the province. It is then pooled together with models of climate, topography and moisture regimes to predict where habitat for rare species is likely to occur. The tool can be applied to identify priority sites for conservation offsets, avoidance and restoration. Such information is invaluable for companies looking to map critical habitat on leases, conservation groups that are looking to ensure representation of habitat in con-servation areas or government planners seeking to implement the conservation goals of Alberta’s Land-use Framework. The tool currently capitalizes on data from more than 300 species of plants and butterflies. Plans are in place to expand the tool to include more than 500 species of plants, vertebrates and invertebrates.

Despite having a “reasonably high level of confidence” in the safety of food in Canada, an increasing number of Canadian consumers are asking for better traceability of meat products. In a study conducted in Canada, Japan and the United States by ALES researcher Ellen God-dard of the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology before the XL Foods beef recall in September 2012, more than 50 per cent of people surveyed said they would be willing to pay more for a beef product if it could be traced back to its farm of origin. In Canada, traceability of food products is only done from the farm to the slaugh-ter house. Goddard says the Canadian and provincial governments have come a long way in terms of enhancing traceability but cost and the need for extensive record keeping have pre-vented a system from being fully implemented. She believes that this could soon change as the

government begins to realize the importance of traceability in places like Japan, an important market for Canadian meat exports. Goddard is currently studying the use of animal DNA characteristics to track meat, which could potentially create a cheaper way of tracking meat as it travels through the system.

An average 1.5 million workdays per month are being missed by middle-aged workers to provide care for an elderly relative or friend with chronic health issues or disabilities, said ALES researcher Janet Fast of the Department of Human Ecology. The study, based on the latest Statistics Canada survey on later-life families, shows that “work-care conflict is a serious problem for many Canadians,” Fast noted. “There’s been an enormous loss of productivity to employers and to the economy in general—the equivalent of 157,000 full-time employees annually.” Fast is collaborating with aca-demic, government and community partners on the project, which is measuring the societal challenges that accompany an aging popula-tion. They have begun sharing their findings with the federal government, employer groups and at some international conferences. “This is going to become an increasingly common experience

for Canadians. This is already happening in the workplace and it is not too soon to figure out how we are going to cope with it.” Employers with leave and flexible working policies may also have to consider broadening their understanding of flexibility, Fast added. “Absenteeism and turnover are costly to employers. The main message we want employers to hear is that these are avoidable costs.”

Family care taking toll on workplace

Janet FastScott Nielsen