Organic cacao chain for development: the case of the Talamanca Small-Farmers Association
Costa Rica and Panama both produce only small volumes of organic cacao. Some cocoa producers started production of organic banana. APPTA has to cope with market instability due to excess supply and with low local production due to biological threats. APPTA has to find a reliable buyer and either to increase the volume of cacao or to pool its production with the production realized by COCABO in Panama. This latter option will lead to a number of associated challenges such as harmonization of quality, organizing logistics, tracking and tracing, elaborating contracts between cooperatives etc. Developing new commercialization channels towards Europe reveals three options: APPTA sells beans directly to a Dutch buyer; APPTA sells beans to a Costa Rican processor who in turn exports semi-manufactured products to Dutch producers; or beans are processed by Costa Rican industry and APPTA commits to selling semimanufactured products to Dutch producers. Each of these three options has different repercussions on labelling, quality, environmental impact and profits. Additional options to improve livelihood of cacao farmers consist of diversification of the production at farm level and developing alternative sources of income, such as eco-tourism. The real challenge facing APPTA is to determine how to bring stakeholders with different interests and competencies together in an effective way to improve chain performance and to enhance farmers’ livelihoods.
Organic Agriculture and Food Availability
Introduction 
Food availability, access, stability and utilization are all part of the multi-dimensional nature of food security. The “availability” aspect, discussed here, refers to the availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or inputs. 
Productivity is usually considered the ultimate benchmark when comparing the performance of agricultural systems. For example, those involved in agricultural research and development want to know how much yield would be reduced if conventional agriculture were converted to organic agriculture. While rigorous research has been done in developed countries to address this question, scientific evidence from developing countries is rare. This paper compiles the information available on productivity of organic systems and draws on current experiences to make assumptions. 
 
However, measurement of productivity alone is not sufficient to evaluate the performance of an agricultural system. When natural resources are limited and production decisions are made on the basis of the economic resources available, resource efficiency is as important a criterion as productivity for evaluating a system’s performance. Thus, this paper discusses adapted technologies considers the achievements of organic agriculture in terms of both productivity and resource efficiency. 
 
Specific attention also is given to peri-urban agriculture. In terms of the high and rapidly increasing population density in urban areas, peri-urban agriculture has the potential to minimize transportation of food products and organic waste, yet supply food to a large part of the population. 
Finally, the paper discusses how organic agriculture makes diverse food available at 
household, community, national and international levels. Furthermore, a summary of the organic food market is provided with most recent figures on market size and available organic food.
The Vascular Theory of Migraine‐Resuscitated or More Moribund?
Your decision to publish an important paper on cerebral blood flow (CBF) in migraine1 as the first in Headache for 1989 is to be applauded. But does it clarify or cloud the issue? After 20 years of CBF studies in migraine the results show 1) a reduction of at least 25 30% in classical migraine1, 2) an average increase of 31% in common and classical migraine2, 3) or no change in common migraine3. Now we learn that the measurements need modifying by 40% to allow for scattering of radiation the Compton scatter effect which has led to "an unbalanced interpretation of the data"1 So the results are as contradictory as they can be, the measurements require adjustment, and the interpretation is therefore doubly doubtful. From the clinical point of view the neurological aura, the enlarging scotoma, the scintillations, the migration of the paraesthesiae up the arm or visual disturbances across the visual field, have not been seen in cerebrovascular disease.4 The headache is throbbing in only 47% of 750 patients questioned during a migraine5; but even when the pain is pulsatlie, it throbs for only a portion of the time at the maximum of the headache (Blau unpublished observations). The evidence for a neurological aetiology has been examined6: the most potent argument against a vascular cause is that the common triggers stress, light and hunger go direct to the nervous system, not via blood vessels. No one denies that vascular changes occur in migraine but are they primary or secondary to a neurological disturbance? Sokoloff7 concluded that the stimulated rat and monkey cortex showed increased glucose uptake, and that the increased local blood flow occurred "in response (my italics) to changes in local functional activity". The evidence, therefore, points to an underlying neurological basis with secondary vascular responses. The vascular theory may need resuscitation but who is going to give it the kiss of life?