Friday, February 21, 2020
News and Views from the Global South
Food Security and Nutrition
Q&A: Africa Must Innovate its Food Systems in Order to Beat Hunger and Poverty
Africa needs to invest in agriculture by putting more resources into innovative research and development that can boost food and nutritional security, according to leading scientist, Nteranya Sanginga.
Vegetables Rot in Food Markets across Zimbabwe While Half the Population Faces Food Insecurity
Piles and piles of rotting vegetables at food markets situated right in Zimbabwe's central business district would elsewhere be viewed as a sign of plenty. But this Southern African nation has not been spared the irony of food wastage at a time of food shortages.
‘Organic is the Future’
Vandana Shiva, a pioneer of organic farming in India, is incensed by the 2019 draft law to compulsorily register all seeds used by farmers. On a wintry afternoon, at her farm Navdanya in the Himalayan foothills, the noted ecologist spoke on the future of the organic farming movement in India. Excerpts:
Climate Change: A Tale of Weather Extremes with Mixed Fortunes for Zambia
It is early Saturday morning and Planeta Hatuleke, a small scale farmer of Pemba District in Southern Zambia, awakens to the comforting sound of rainfall. As the locals say, the “heavens have opened” and it is raining heavily after a prolonged dry spell.
Does Africa’s Food Future Really Lie with Young Farmers?
Africa will starve or survive on expensive food imports because it is not growing new farmers, research shows. And the challenge remains among researchers, policy makers, public and private sector actors to get African youth interested in agriculture on a continent where a growing number of people go to bed hungry every night.
Sustainable Fisheries are Key in Addressing Food Security — and Women can Play an Important Role
Experts gathered in November to discuss the importance of sustainable fisheries and its role in eradicating world hunger at a fisheries symposium in Rome.
Running from the Storm – How Bangladesh’s Climate Migrants are Becoming Food Secure
It was almost a decade ago when Ruma Begum and her family left their home in Bangladesh’s coastal Tazumuddin upazila or sub-district and travelled some 50 km away to start a new life. They had been driven out of their home by an extreme and changing climate that has continued to ravage the district of Bhola.
Net Food Importer Turkey Grapples with Challenges of Food Self-sufficiency
Despite latest research showing Turkey lagging in overall food sustainability, progress in sustainable agriculture appears to be a bright spot in the country’s troubled agriculture industry.
Will Artificial Intelligence Help Resolve the Food Crisis?
When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a global appeal for “zero hunger” on World Food Day last month, he provided some grim statistics rich in irony: more than 820 million people do not have enough to eat, he said, while two billion people are overweight or obese.
Burkina Faso: Climate Change Triggers Rural Exodus
Ibrahim Harouna and his neighbours sit under a tree at his uncle’s house, playing chess and chatting amid the simmering heat of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.
Mother Earth’s Café Dares Climate Crises in India
The sun has barely risen when Phlida Kharshala shakes her 8-year-old grandson awake. He hoists an empty cone-shaped bamboo basket on his back, sets the woven strap flat across his forehead and off they go into the wilderness.
Nutrition – the Best Investment for a Developing Africa
There is evident correlation between countries with high levels of children under five years of age who are stunted or wasted and the existence of political instability and/or frequent exposure to natural calamities, experts say. But current food systems in Africa are not addressing nutrition because of the combination of poor investment in the agriculture value chain, inadequate policies and lack of accountability in addressing malnutrition.
Ghana’s Grains and Groundnuts Face Increasing Contamination Amid Increasing Temperatures
Adwoa Frimpomaah, a smallholder farmer from Dandwa, a farming community in Nkoranza, in Ghana's Bono East Region, and her two children have been consuming insect-infested and discoloured grains produced from their three-acre farm.
‘Salty’ Concern: Tackling High Salt Consumption in China
China’s almost meteoric transition from a being a low income to a middle income country within a span of four decades is often perceived as a miracle analogous to the post Second World War Japanese economic development experience.
How to ‘Fix the Business of Food’ and Save the Planet
With up to one billion undernourished people around the world, and agriculture and land use systems increasingly vulnerable to climate change and land degradation, more companies within the global food industry need to start aligning their operations with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs.
Egypt’s Food Challenge: a Good Effort but Not Enough
“Unfortunately the overall nutritional panorama of Egypt does not look well,” says Dr. Sara Diana Garduno Diaz, an expert concentrating on nutrition and biology at the American University of the Middle East. Diaz’s research focuses on dietary patterns and ethnic-associated risk factors for metabolic syndrome.
U.S. Needs to Shift to More Sustainable Agriculture—As Do All Countries
Water supply has long been a key issue in California. Today it is no less critical, especially given the years of drought that California is experiencing, lending additional impetus to assessing the impact of agriculture on water.
Finding a Way to Food Sustainability
There’s much to think about regarding food this month. April is Reducing Food Waste Month in the United States, as efforts mount here to reduce food loss and waste, while globally Sunday Apr. 7 was World Heath Day.
Safeguarding The Health of People and Planet Through Food
Food sustainability, both in production and consumption, is at the heart of a healthy public and planet. On World Health Day, it is increasingly clear that a radical transformation of the global food system is sorely needed.
More than 820 million people in the world are still hungry today, underscoring the immense challenge of achieving the Zero Hunger target by 2030. Hunger is rising in almost all subregions of Africa and, to a lesser extent, in Latin America and Western Asia. There is great progress seen in Southern Asia in the last five years, but the prevalence of undernourishment in this subregion is still the highest in Asia. A disturbing fact is that about 2 billion people in the world experience moderate or severe food insecurity. The lack of regular access to nutritious and sufficient food that these people experience puts them at greater risk of malnutrition and poor health. Although primarily concentrated in low- and middle-income countries, moderate or severe food insecurity also affects 8 percent of the population in Northern America and Europe.
In every continent, the prevalence rate is slightly higher among women than men.
With regard to nutrition indicators, if current trends continue, the 2030 SDG Target to halve the number of stunted children will not be met nor the 2025 World Health Assembly target to reduce the prevalence of low birthweight by 30 percent. The trends of overweight and obesity are additional reason for concern, as they continue to rise in all regions, particularly among school-age children and adults. The most recent data show that obesity is contributing to 4 million deaths globally and is increasing the risk of morbidity for people in all age groups.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, a joint report by the United Nations agencies, FAO, IFAD, WFP, UNICEF and WHO reaffirms their commitment to working together to overcome emerging challenges and free the world from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. The report shows that the global level of the prevalence of undernourishment has stabilised; however, the absolute number of undernourished people continues to increase, albeit slowly.
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Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
