Food & Agriculture

People’s Leader: A Dalit Woman Becomes The Voice of Farmers In India

By Sania Farooqui
On 12 January this year, somewhere in the outskirts of the capital, New Delhi, 24 year old Dalit activist Nodeep Kaur was arrested by the Haryana police for protesting outside a factory. During the lockdown in 2020, Nodeep joined a local workers’ rights organization called Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan (MAS) in the Kundli Industrial Area in Haryana. In January Nodeep was accused of allegedly manhandling management and staff of an industrial area during a protest and also assaulting the police team.

Ecological Cookstoves Help Preserve El Salvador’s Coastal Mangroves

By Edgardo Ayala
A score of coastal communities in El Salvador are staking their bets on sustainable development as a form of life that does not overexploit natural resources diminished by years of government neglect and a lack of environmental awareness, using instruments ranging from ecological cookstoves to mangrove reforestation.

New Report Calls for Improved Eating Habits in a World of Extremes

By Ignatius Banda
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.

Barilla Foundation Brings Health and Climate Together in New Double Pyramid

By Alison Kentish
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.

Farmers in Brazil Benefit as Biogas Replaces Firewood

By Mario Osava
"Biogas is worth gold to us, we can no longer live without it," Claudete Volkswey, a poultry farmer in the municipality of Toledo, in the southwestern state of Paraná, Brazil, said enthusiastically about the new source of energy that has allowed her to get a good night’s sleep again, because she no longer has to get up to stoke the fire every two hours.

Helping Youth Agribusiness Keep Pace with Fast Growing Africa

By Nteranya Sanginga, Aline Mugisho and Seyi Makinde
From small towns to big cities, sub-Saharan Africa has the fastest urban growth rate in the world. The continent’s population is expected to double by 2050 with the youth representing 60% of the overall population. The UN Department of Global Communication, for example, projects that for the next 15 years urban growth is set to double for several African cities: Dar es Salaam will reach over 13 million inhabitants and Kampala will exceed seven million.

Transforming Global Food Systems
Jose Graziano da Silva on the Path to Zero Hunger

By Timothy A. Wise
The battle for the future of food has grown contentious, and José Graziano da Silva has become a lightning rod for criticism. In 2014, as Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), he presided over the institution’s first International Agroecology Symposium, opening what he called “a new window in the Cathedral of the Green Revolution.” The FAO has since then formalized support for “Scaling Up Agroecology” while continuing to promote the kinds of chemical-intensive agriculture associated with the Green Revolution.

Pandemic Accentuates Need for Caribbean Countries to Improve Food and Nutrition Security

By Kate Chappell
Last year, Jaxine Scott was off work as a caregiver at a primary school as a result of the pandemic. One day, she noticed a green shoot emerging from some garlic in her fridge. She decided to plant it, and to her surprise, it thrived. “I thought ‘It looks like I have a green thumb, let me plant something else,’” Scott says. She now has a backyard garden, including cucumber, pumpkin, melon, callaloo, cantaloupe, pak choy and tomatoes. “It makes me feel good,” she says. “I can help my family members and neighbours. It has saved me money. I’m not going to stop, I’m going to continue,” she says.

Farming-Specific Loans Help Tanzania’s Smallholders Increase Productivity

By Isaiah Esipisu
Small agricultural loans, disbursed through mobile phones and targeting specific farming activities at different phases of production, have more than doubled food productivity among thousands of smallholder farmers in southern and central parts of Tanzania over the past three years, improving their livelihoods.

Recipes with a Taste of Sustainable Development on the Coast of El Salvador

By Edgardo Ayala
Salvadoran villager Maria Luz Rodriguez placed the cheese on top of the lasagna she was cooking outdoors, put the pan in her solar oven and glanced at the midday sun to be sure there was enough energy for cooking.

Bangladesh Welcomes a New High Yielding Biofortified Zinc Rice

By Nuhara Syeda
The Bangladesh National Seed Board has approved the release of the newest biofortified zinc rice variety in the country: the BRRI dhan100. This latest zinc rice variety was developed by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI). HarvestPlus assists BRRI in crop development and breeder seed production of biofortified zinc rice.

Tech Savvy Youth with High Social-Emotional Skills Succeed in Agriculture – Study Shows

By Abdulrahman Olagunju
Saheed Babajide, a young animal production graduate and a manager at a national milk production company in Iseyin, Nigeria, is a beneficiary of the government's youth agriculture intervention programme. But he feels he received almost no training during the three years he participated. 

The UN Food Systems Summit: How Not to Respond to the Urgency of Reform

By Michael Fakhri, Hilal Elver and Olivier De Schutter
Global food systems have been failing most people for a long time, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made a critical situation even worse. 265 million people are threatened by famine, up 50% on last year; 700 million suffer from chronic hunger; and 2 billion more from malnutrition, with obesity and associated diet-related diseases increasing in all world regions.

Policy Inconsistencies and Poor Research Slow Young Farmers in Africa

By Ignatius Banda
It is not everyday that a young farmer registers success in his enterprise and vows this is what he will do for the rest of his life. Yet this is the story of Lihle Moyo, a 27-year-old farmer from Gwanda, about 160km south of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city.

Peace & Security in Armed Conflicts Mean Presence of Food & Absence of Gunfire

By Gabriela Bucher *
In 1941, the people of Greece were facing a horrific winter. The Axis powers had plundered local supplies and introduced an extortionate tax on Greek citizens. Allied forces imposed a cruel blockade, cutting off imports. Prices skyrocketed. Hundreds of thousands of civilians perished.

Malawian Youth Wipe Away Unemployment Tears with Agribusiness

By Esmie Komwa Eneya
After getting tired of searching for employment for seven years, Feston Zale from Chileka area in Malawi’s Southern Region decided to venture into agribusiness.

What Africa Expects of New WTO Chief Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

By Lansana Gberie
When on 15 February the chair of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) General Council, Ambassador David Walker of New Zealand, announced that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala would be the new Director-General, the mood among delegates was of relief.

The Ethics of AI to Ensure Food Security and Development

By Mario Lubetkin
One year after the call for a group of international and religious organizations and important multinational companies to incorporate ethics into the design of artificial intelligence (AI), Pope Francis said in a tweet: “I hope that more and more people of good will cooperate in the promotion of the common good, the protection of those lagging behind and the development of a shared algor-ethics”.

International Women’s Day, 2021
Women Are the Future of Africa’s COVID-19 Recovery

By Sabdiyo Dido
The COVID-19 pandemic is arguably one of the biggest disruptors to modern day life as we know it. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating; millions of people have lost their lives, tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty and nearly half of the global work force is at risk of losing their livelihoods. Africa is facing its first economic recession in 25 years due to the impact of the pandemic.

How Households Increased Food Waste is Feeding Climate Change

By Samira Sadeque
Twenty percent of all food bought by households, retailers, restaurants and other food services in 54 countries around the world was thrown away in 2019 -- contributing to some 931 million tonnes of food waste and feeding climate change.

International Women’s Day, 2021
Removing Barriers to Women’s Leading Role in African Agriculture

By Nteranya Sanginga
Africa’s population will double by 2050 if growth rates continue their trajectory, but the creation of jobs is not keeping pace, with up to five times more young people seeking employment each year as there are new posts to fill. And, on top of this, the COVID pandemic is plunging Africa into its first recession in 25 years.
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