Willem Colenbrander shares his reflections after attending the World One Health Congress (WOHC) in Cape Town from 20 to 23 September 2024 and reports on his experiences on behalf of Kulima Integrated Development Solutions.
One Health and food systems
I first heard the term “food systems for One Health” when I joined the FoSTA-Health project in February 2023. When looking at food systems and one health as separate entities, defining what they mean is not so difficult. One Health definitions regularly mention animal, human and environmental health – which reflects the origins of the concept in integrating health of humans, animals and the environment to provide opportunities for zoonotic disease detection and prevention. However, having been involved in farming and agro-processing in Africa for almost 50 years, I was surprised to find fewer references to soil and plant health, which are particularly relevant to food systems and One Health. Consultations that we have undertaken over the last 18 months for FoSTA-Health also suggested that stakeholders in Zambia, where I am based, believe that soil and plant health is essential for One Health outcomes within food systems. Yet the definitions do not regularly incorporate these, particularly where soil health is concerned.
World One Health Congress 2024
Recognising this absence, I submitted a proposal to the WOHC on Broadening the One Health concept from animal and human health to soil and plant health. The poster had as its core the following depiction of One Health in a food system:
Source: Author
The WOHC was the 8th one to date. It brought together more than 1.400 participants from 87 countries. There were 400 speakers across 70 sessions, and 599 scientific posters presented over the four days. I undertook a quick analysis of accepted abstracts by searching them to find out how common references to plant and soil health are.
Soil and plant health in World One Health Congress materials
Among the oral presentations, there were 3 that mentioned plant health only. Among the poster presentations there were also three in total, of which one mentioned plant health only, and two mentioned plant and soil health together.
Oral presentations
There are a few salient points from those 3 oral presentations mentioning plant health that are relevant for FoSTA Health.
Wolff’s presentation The importance of plant health within One Health and some examples of key linkages and opportunities highlights the agricultural production and carbon mitigation impacts of plant disease.
Venter furthers this in The effect of plant pests on Africa and how it impacts on human and animal health. He highlights that plant pests affect agricultural production, human and animal health and the ability to obtain market access. In the case of Fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), which has wreaked havoc in southern Africa in recent years, he highlights that the resistance to traditional agrochemicals causes great concern that desperate farmers may use unregistered or dangerous chemicals to try and save their crops, but these chemicals then also affect human and animal health.
In The role of plant health for food security in China and future opportunity in the framework of One Health, Zhou outlines that China has been addressing the problems of crop pests, through simple agricultural intervention measures to current integrated, biologically-based and environment friendly protection measures to effectively prevent and control crop pests.
Poster presentations
There are also relevant points for FoSTA Health from the three posters that mentioned plant health, and soil and plant health together.
In Occurrence of antimicrobial resistant potential pathogenic bacteria throughout the water-soil-plant nexus in smallholder fresh produce farms[1], Viviers et al found that all of the Enterobacterales isolates found in water, soil and fresh produce samples demonstrated AMR. This highlights implications of soil health for what grows in the soil.
In Biological control of invasive alien plants in South Africa – a vital weapon in the armoury to mitigate their impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and human health[2], Zachariades highlights that biocontrol acts as a perpetuating and permanent method to effectively control many weeds species. After the introduction, it requires little to no human intervention and yet has positive implications for ecosystem, agricultural and human health.
And then, as shown above, my poster presented an alternative conceptual diagram for One Health as relevant to food systems which includes, animal, human, environmental, soil and plant health.
Opportunities for including plant and soil health
During the conference I was told by a number of people that this is the first conference where some of the verbal presentations include plant health. During the closing session of the conference, the willingness was shown to broaden the concept of One Health. For now, it looks that plant health will eventually be accepted as belonging to One Health.
It will take longer for soil health to be accepted. It was interesting to see that the only poster (other than mine) on soil and plant health considers healthy soils as being those soils that contain bacteria that still respond to antibiotics (not yet subject to AMR). This is in contrast to others in food systems who consider agricultural soils healthy when the bacteria and fungi are able to break down organic matter to feed crops.
Removing soils (agricultural soils) and plants (crops) from the environment component of One Health and making it explicitly part of One Health is needed to ensure that they get the necessary attention in food systems.
However even food systems itself was not a common theme within the conference. Only one oral presentation was on food systems. Instead it seems that the current One Health community still largely consists of researchers concerned with zoonosis and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).
Acceptance of soil health and plant health by the current One Health community will become easier if food systems are also going to be accepted by the same community. With projects like FoSTA-Health, this is something that we hope to be able to progress over the coming 18 months (the project runs until March 2026).
The author with his poster, at the Congree
[1] Poster 1755: Occurrence of antimicrobial resistant potential pathogenic bacteria throughout the water-soil-plant nexus in smallholder fresh produce farms; Sheldon Viviers, Loandi Richter, Lise Korsten, Department of Science and Innovation-National Research Foundation Centre of Excellence in Food Security, South Africa and Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Pretoria, Hatfield, Pretoria, South Africa, 0001
[2] Biological control of invasive alien plants in South Africa – a vital weapon in the armoury to mitigate their impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and human health; Costas ZACHARIADES, Agricultural Research Council, South Africa
