Food & Agriculture

Biotechnology Part of the Solution to Africa’s Food Insecurity, Scientists Say

By Miriam Gathigah
A growing number of African countries are increasingly becoming food insecure as delayed and insufficient rainfall, as well as crop damaging pests such as the ongoing outbreak of the fall armyworm, cause the most severe maize crisis in the last decade.

Fixing the Food System to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges

By Elwyn Grainger-Jones
We are at a moment of huge opportunity in the world’s food system. We can continue on our current trajectory of consuming too little, too much, or the wrong type of food at an unsustainable cost to the environment, health care and political stability. Or we can change course. Fixing the food system will help solve humanity’s greatest challenges – creating jobs, reducing emissions, and improving health.

Ending Hunger by 2030? This is Possible

By Rod Brooks
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently announced that the number of hungry people in the world has increased by 38 million in the past year due to climate change, conflict and slow economic growth. Given this setback, can we, in fact, end hunger in our lifetime? The answer is a resounding, Yes, we can. The first step is simply wrapping our minds around the reality that—yes—ending hunger is possible.

Hydropower Dams Invade Brazil’s Agricultural Economy

By Mario Osava
“After being displaced for the third time,” Daniel Schlindewein became an activist struggling for the rights of people affected by dams in Brazil, and is so combative that the legal authorities banned him from going near the installations of the Sinop hydroelectric dam, which is in the final stages of construction.

World Food Day 2017 – Change the future of migration. Invest in food security and rural development

By IPS World Desk
Large movements of people is one of the most complex challenges the world faces today. In recent years there has been a huge increase in the number of people migrating around the world. Why is this happening and do they have a choice of staying in their own homes ?

How to Eradicate Rural Poverty, End Urban Malnutrition – A New Approach

By Baher Kamal
Population growth, increasing urbanisation, modern technologies, and climate change are transforming the world at a fast pace. But what direction are these transformations headed in? Are they benefitting the poor and the food insecure? And will the food systems of the future be able to feed and employ the millions of young people poised to enter labour markets in the decades to come?

Ghana Aims to Regain Top Spot in Cocoa Production

By Kwaku Botwe
Ghana is home to the world’s favourite cocoa beans. They’re bigger in size, have a higher butter content and superior flavour – all qualities which make Ghana’s cocoa the world standard against which all cocoa is measured.

Rainwater Harvesting Improves Lives in El Salvador

By Edgardo Ayala
Filling a jug with water to supply her household needs used to be an ordeal for Salvadoran villager Corina Canjura, because it meant walking several kilometers to the river, which took up a great deal of time, or else paying for water.

Malawi’s Communal Fight Against Deadly Avian Disease

By Charles Mkoka
Lydia Katengeza, a community vaccinator with the Nathenje Community Vaccination Association (NCVA), wakes up as early as 5 a.m., ready with her I-2 vaccine vial in a storage container in her hand. She moves from one house to another, visiting each poultry farmer. All of them are alerted a day in advance so that they don’t release their free-range chickens in the morning.

The Urbanization of Malnutrition

By Manipadma Jena
Rapid urbanization is increasingly shifting the impacts of malnutrition from rural to urban areas. One in three stunted under-five children out of 155 million across the world now lives in cities and towns.

Poor Orphan Crops…So Valuable, So Neglected

By Baher Kamal
When ‘think-tankers’ in the mid-1990s formulated their famous “think global, act local” slogan, they probably did not expect humankind to require a couple of decades to implement such practical advice.

Bangladesh Needs to Shore up Its Flood Defence

By Mahfuzur Rahman
Bangladesh is a disaster-prone country with floods hitting almost every year, leaving a trail of destruction despite having early warning systems. Now experts say it is time for the delta nation to think more seriously about how to deal with the recurring onslaughts of floods more effectively by strengthening its flood defence.

Small Farmers in Brazil’s Amazon Region Seek Sustainability

By Mario Osava
The deforestation caused by the expansion of livestock farming and soy monoculture appears unstoppable in the Amazon rainforest in the west-central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. But small-scale farmers are trying to reverse that trend.

World Hunger on the Rise Again

By Baher Kamal
Exacerbated by climate-related shocks, increasing conflicts have been a key driver of severe food crisis and recently re-emerged famines, a major United Nations joint report has just revealed.

Fisheries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific – Immense Opportunities, Critical Challenges

By Viwanou Gnassounou
Fish is big business. The latest figures show that more than 165 million tonnes of fish are either captured or harvested in a year, with each person consuming more than 20kg of fish annually, according to the world average. Roughly US$ 140 billion worth of fish is traded globally per annum, with millions of people relying on jobs in fishing and fish-farming, not to mention the seafood industry which involves processing, transport, retail and restaurants.

Alert: Nature, on the Verge of Bankruptcy

By Baher Kamal
Pressures on global land resources are now greater than ever, as a rapidly increasing population coupled with rising levels of consumption is placing ever-larger demands on the world’s land-based natural capital, warns a new United Nations report.

Improved Fish Processing Brings Dramatic Gains for Women

By Friday Phiri
Fishing is the capture of aquatic organisms in marine, coastal and inland areas. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), marine and inland fisheries, together with aquaculture, provide food, nutrition and a source of income to 820 million people around the world, from harvesting, processing, marketing and distribution. For many, it also forms part of their traditional cultural identity.

Latin America in Search of Sustainable Food Systems

By Edgardo Ayala
A paradigm shift is needed regarding how food is produced, consumed and marketed in Latin America and the Caribbean, in order to curb health problems related to poor nutrition.

Floods, Hurricanes, Droughts… When Climate Sets the Agenda

By Baher Kamal
When officials and experts from all over the world started the first-ever environmental summit hosted by China, they were already aware that climate and weather-related disasters were already seriously beginning to set the international agenda – unprecedented floods in South Asia, strongest ever hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and catastrophic droughts striking the Horn of Africa, among the most impacting recent events.

How Aid in Cash, Not Goods, Averted a Famine in Somalia

By Roshni Majumdar
In February, when the government of Somalia sounded an alarm to the UN about risks of a famine in the country, the UN’s Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), besides quickly shuffling a response team, was acting from a steep sense of history. The Office, instead of sending out massive aid packages, distributed cash vouchers to families who could spend it to buy goods according to their needs.

Europe, New Border of Africa’s ‘Great Desert’ – The Sahara

By Baher Kamal
With the highest temperatures on record and unprecedented heat waves hitting Europe this year, Africa’s ‘Great Desert’, the Sahara, is set continue its relentless march on the Southern European countries until it occupies more than 30 per cent of Spain just three decades from now.
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