Rahab Munene’s shoe selling business crumbled at the height of COVID-19 in 2020. She traded the enterprise for a mobile grocery along the Thika Superhighway, Kiambu County.
Food spoilage forced smallholder farmers out of pocket and out of business – until an entrepreneur came up with a cool idea.
When Bonolo Monthe’s neighbours discarded bucketsful of fallen ripe morula fruit from their backyard, she saw food and fortune going to waste.
Balance is the absolute key, says Alia Chughtai, a journalist who started a catering service with filmmaker Akhlaque Mahesar, by the name of Aur Chaawal (And Rice), two years ago.
For the last ten years, Angeline Wanjira’s food stall at Kirigiti Market in Kiambu County has featured the same foods, cabbages, potatoes and carrots, keeping with the community’s most preferred food types.
During the COVID-19 lockdown in Uganda, a breastfeeding mother struggled to improve the health of her malnourished child. With the closure of her local health centre, she worried the child could die without urgent medical treatment.
Pascaline Chemutai’s five acres of land located in the country’s breadbasket region of Rift Valley recently produced 115 bags of maize, each weighing 90 kilograms. She tells IPS that of these, 110 bags will be transported to traders in Nairobi and neighbouring Kiambu County at a negotiated price of $23 per bag.
The global food system needs a massive overhaul – this was clear before the Covid pandemic and it is even more true today.
Feeding the world in a sustainable and healthy way is entirely possible but it is also inextricably linked to tackling the climate crisis by reaching net zero emissions, and to halting the dizzying decline in bio-diversity which is currently threatening the survival of one million plant and animal species.
September 23, 2021 is the first-ever UN Food Systems Summit, convened to mobilize the highest-priority transformations needed to end hunger through the sustainable production and distribution of food. Transforming food systems to ensure food security for all has never been so urgent.
Dubbed ‘the People’s Summit, the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) hopes to put the world back on a path to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, through food systems overhauling. From the tempered to the extremely optimistic, experts in various food system sectors share their expectations of transformation.
Women, key contributors to agriculture production, are missing at the decision table, with alarming consequences, says Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg in an exclusive interview with IPS.
In the backdrop of rising hunger, half of the world’s population living on unhealthy diets, a third of agricultural produce lost to postharvest events, and waste, poverty in farming communities, a pandemic that laid bare the vulnerability of food systems to external shocks and unsustainable food production, the Barilla Foundation for Food and Nutrition has published a report which introduces guidelines for the private sector to fulfil its role in transforming global food systems.
When 33-year-old Kimani Mwaniki, an Irish potato farmer in Elburgon, Nakuru County in Kenya’s Rift Valley, heard about a farmer’s virtual school, he didn’t hesitate to enrol. He was keen to learn how the programme will enable him to get higher crop yields for his market in the capital city Nairobi and elsewhere.
The world has been put on notice that there is no time to waste in achieving the goal of food systems transformation.
Rwanda is trying to reduce post-harvest loss by relying on new technologies to increase the amount of food available for consumption and help smallholder farmers confront some challenges caused by the overproduction of staple crops.
With its political and economic clout, the G20 should lead in delivering sustainable food systems as the world grapples with rising hunger, malnutrition and inequality.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic upended every sphere of life, the world was lagging on a goal to
end hunger by 2030. According to the United Nations, more than 820 million people had already been categorised as food insecure, meaning they lacked access to reliable and sufficient amounts of affordable, healthy food.
In three weeks, the United Nations will bring together farmers, scientists, policymakers and civil society for the last major event ahead of the September UN Food Systems Summit.
It is an uncommon occurrence to see farms with flourishing healthy crops in Kenya’s semi-arid Makueni County. But in Kithiani village, Justus Kimeu’s two-acre piece of land stands out from the rest. After embracing the regenerative agriculture (RA) technique, the 52-year-old farmer is looking forward to a bumper harvest of maize as all his neighbours count their losses following this year’s failed season.
With the two extremes of global hunger and obesity on the increase, a new report suggests a radical reset for food and nutrition to ensure the long-term sustainability of livelihoods and the environment.
Following an extensive scientific review, the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition Foundation (BCFN) is preparing to launch a new food systems model which incorporates nutrition and climate.