Friday, January 15, 2021
News and Views from the Global South
Food Sustainability
A Pakistani Farmer is Using Technology to Stop Agricultural Exploitation
Anas Shaikh is a Pakistani farmer on a mission to bring solutions to the many difficulties small and medium-scale farmer’s face in making a sustainable living.
Can Agricultural Apps Bring Indonesia’s Farmers Back to the Fields?
When his friends prodded him to use an agricultural app in July, rice farmer Mustafa reluctantly downloaded RiTx Bertani into his smart phone. Four months later, he feels happy to have given the technology a try.
La Niña Weather Phenomenon Could Endanger Colombia’s Food Security
After ten years without a strong La Niña weather phenomenon in Colombia, the climate pattern, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, could create a vacuum in food production and supply. Multilateral organizations, along with the Colombian government, are trying to implement measures to reduce malnutrition risk. Still, the population is already overwhelmed by a year of struggles that have deepened socio-economic differences.
Fixing the Food System to Produce Healthy Diets
As the world accelerates towards achieving the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, it is time to replace the current broken food system. With only a decade left to reach the deadline, evidence shows that the way food is produced, processed and transported is not only destructive to the environment but it is also leaving millions behind.
How to Reap the Benefits of Food as Medicine
COVID-19 has magnified global food insecurity and is driving unhealthy eating and worsening malnutrition, food experts say. They have called for deliberate global investment in food as medicine on the back of growing diet-related illnesses.
Digitisation Could Transform African Agriculture
Placing an online order for farming inputs saves Velebantfu Dlamini about USD12 in transport fees for a round trip of about 320 kilometres. The 26-year-old vegetable farmer from Nkhungwini in the Shiselweni Region, south of Eswatini, uses a portal to order from the National Agriculture Marketing Board (NAMBoard) Farm Store. NAMBoard then delivers his order leaving Dlamini with time to stay in the field and look after his crops.
COVID-19 an Opportunity to Build Resilience around Food Systems
The Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) has appealed to the United Nations to educate citizens to use their roles as consumers to create a momentum for change. This was ahead of the 2021 Food Systems Summit which the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, will host on November 25 next year.
Securing Freedom to Eat
For Zimbabwean organic farmer, Elizabeth Mpofu, access to healthy food is liberation.Millions of people across the world go to bed hungry. Scores do not have access to nutritious food owing to an inequitable global food system focused on industrial mass food production. The food from this system is less nutritious, more expensive and less friendly to the environment.
Q&A: Next Decade Sufficient Time for a Food Revolution
In March, after the World Health Organisation first declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations activated a global corporate emergency mechanism for the first time. It had already written to all donor countries asking for $1.9 billion in front-loaded funding, and had begun emergency procurement. Its priority was to sustain life-saving assistance first.
Q&A: Vote with your Fork for a World Free from Hunger
A world free from hunger is possible but only if we change how we grow and eat food. And resetting the food system — including all aspects of production, processing, marketing, distribution and the consumption and nutrition of food — is key to securing a sustainable food future post COVID-19.
UN Warns of an Impending Famine With Millions in Danger of Starvation
The numbers are staggering— as reflected in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has triggered a new round of food shortages, famine and starvation.
Sustainable Measures Help Farmers Script a Positive Story Amid COVID-19 Uncertainty
As India continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic and a growing number of deaths, farmers here have been fighting a battle of their own against volatile pricing, uncertain demand and lack of access to the market. But in the midst of all this uncertainty, one farming couple in a village near Hyderabad are working towards a food-secure future for themselves using eco-friendly farming techniques. 
Food as Prevention – Rising to Nutritional Challenges
The risks factors contributing to the dramatic rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in recent decades have been known for a long time but the Covid-19 pandemic has brutally exposed our collective failure to deal with them.
Farmers Will (Again) Feed the World
Wealthier countries struggling to contain the widening COVID-19 pandemic amid protests over lockdowns and restrictions risk ignoring an even greater danger out there – a looming global food emergency.
Using Traditional and Indigenous Food Resources to Combat Years of Successive Drought
For Zimbabwean farmer Sinikiwe Sibanda, planting more sorghum and millet than maize has paid off. As the coronavirus pandemic has led to decreased incomes and increased food prices across the southern African nation -- it is estimated that more than 8 million Zimbabweans will need food aid until the next harvest season in March -- Sibanda's utilisation of traditional and indigenous food resources could provide a solution to food security here.
Can Agroecology Feed the World?
Producing food and ensuring nutrition security, protecting the environment and restoring biodiversity, building sustainable and fair food systems: That’s the promise of agroecology.
‘The Sahel – a Microcosm of Cascading Global Risks Converging in One Region’
The European Commission this week pledged $27.8 million in humanitarian support to the Sahel region as floods and the coronavirus pandemic exacerbate the stability in a region deeply in conflict. While the figure is less than 2 percent of the $2.4 billion that the United Nations has appealed for, Amnesty International researcher Ousmane Diallo told IPS that despite past donations from international development partners to Sahelian countries, the situation hasn’t improved over the years.
Why Food System Transformation Needs Water
The impact of Covid-19 on supply chains and food security has dealt a blow to the already faltering global development ambition of ending hunger.
NESFAS Partner Communities Celebrate World Food Day
World Food Day, a day dedicated to tackle world hunger, is annually celebrated on October 16, 2020 globally. To commemorate this day, the North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS) along with its partner organisations — Society for Urban and Rural Empowerment (SURE) and North East Network (NEN), Nagaland — hosted several programmes across 27 communities in Meghalaya and Nagaland. It may be mentioned here that all government SOPs and measures were followed during the events.
Q&A: Food Systems need to Mimic Nature
Despite the World Food Programme (WFP) being awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in addressing global hunger, sustainable food systems expert Emile Frison believes a lot more needs to be done. This includes the rethinking of approaches to agricultural production, establishing deeper relationships between consumers and producers, and taking a wholistic approach towards socio-economic factors.
Nobel Peace Prize to World Food Programme Delivering Life-Saving Sustenance to Millions Worldwide
With the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize bestowed on the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations and its affiliated agencies continue to hold a monopoly of one of the world’s most prestigious annual awards.Next Page »
In 2017, 124 million people in 51 countries faced acute food insecurity — 11 million more than in 2016, and the number of people living on the edge of starvation and hunger remains at 815 million worldwide. The 2017 increase is largely attributable to new or intensified conflicts and insecurity and prolonged drought conditions have also triggered poor harvests in countries already facing high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition. The United Nations seems determined to work towards its targeted goal of Zero Hunger by 2030. But how feasible is this?
