For decades, poor fishing and farming communities in southern El Salvador have paid the price for the electricity generated by one of the country's five dams, as constant and sometimes extreme rains cause the reservoir to release water that ends up flooding the low-lying area where the families live.
Objections to progressive policies are often based on cost. It would be great to have a fairer, more sustainable world, the argument goes, but where will the money come from to pay for it?
The politics of global food consumption remain contentious, with the upcoming COP28 taking place against the backdrop of worsening food deficits in the Global South.
In a groundbreaking development, indigenous farmer communities are poised to bring the spotlight onto food systems at the upcoming UN Climate Conference (COP28) in Dubai.
The recent
downturn in sales of alternative meat products is only the latest evidence that the world is unlikely to give up animal protein completely in the long run.
Smallholder farmers from the Global South benefit from a grossly disproportionate 0.3% of international climate finance despite producing a third of the world's food and despite holding the key to climate-proofing food systems.
It is crucial to narrow the gaps and ensure that climate finance goes to where people are most vulnerable, says Gernot Laganda, Director of Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)—especially as the most fragile states only receive USD 2.1 per capita while non-fragile states receive USD 161.
The figures published by the latest Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2023 are cause for great concern. The document is clear: hunger continues to significantly affect Latin America and the Caribbean.
For a long time, the agriculture sector has been heralded as a success story for India. Spurred by the Green Revolution, it provided a path-breaking solution to feed the country's burgeoning population starting in the 1960s.
Of the many things one might associate with a modern teenager, passion for wholegrain food is probably not the first that comes to mind. An innovative school-meals project in Rwanda, however, has young people singing its praises.
Of Kashmir’s seven million inhabitants, a staggering one million rely directly on apple farming. The region is pivotal in India’s apple and horticulture production, contributing to over 70 percent of the country’s apple supply. This not only provides income to farmers but also sustains a vast network of laborers, traders, and transporters within the fruit economy.
Although women account for more than three-quarters of the agricultural labour force and manage 40 percent of small-scale farms, historically, they neither owned nor controlled the land because land rights were passed down to male relatives. It is a historic gender injustice whereby women could only access land through close male relatives.
Smallholder agricultural enterprises in Africa face a lot of challenges getting loans from financial institutions like banks due to the stringent requirements they can hardly fulfil. Investor confidence is usually lacking, given the risks involved in this sector of the economy.
A return to nature is the main solution being promoted by communities and municipalities to avoid the water shortage that threatens to leave Santiago, the capital of Chile, home to more than 40 percent of the 19.5 million inhabitants of this South American country, without water.
Last August, 91 UN member states, “in a demonstration of solidarity and commitment”, signed a U.S.-Led Joint Communiqué condemning the Use of Food as a Weapon of War.
Roughly 345 million people – in 79 countries – face acute food insecurity, often caused or exacerbated by armed conflicts, the US said, pointing out that the joint communiqué was born out of the United States’ resolve to once again use its UN Security Council presidency to draw attention to conflict-induced food insecurity.
The lack of water is so severe in Peru's highlands that farming families are forced to sell their livestock because they cannot feed them. "There is no grass or fodder to feed them," says Fermina Quispe, a Quechua farmer from a rural community located at 4,200 meters above sea level.
Water is essential for life on Earth.
It makes up 50% of our human bodies.
It covers about 70% of the planet’s surface.
The effects of El Niño on agriculture in Central America are once again putting pressure on thousands of small farmer families who are feeling more vulnerable economically and in terms of food, as they lose their crops, due to climate change.
Have you ever seen a dried frog? We have, and it’s making us rethink our impact on the environment. Frogs are incredibly sensitive to dry conditions, and they are facing the threat of extinction due to global warming. Amphibians, like frogs, make up a significant portion of endangered species, with 41 percent vulnerable compared to only 25 percent for mammals like polar bears.
Growing up in Sydney, Kalkani Choolburra, a Girramay, Kuku Yalanji, Kalkadoon and Pitta Pitta woman from Far North Queensland, would frequently travel with her family up and down Australia’s eastern seaboard. Her grandfathers and uncles would bring fresh catch of dugong, her favourite bush food, and she would go hunting for the short-necked turtle with her aunties and female cousins.
Combining technologies and innovations to take advantage of solar, wind, hydro and biomass potential has made the Finca del Medio farm an example in Cuba in the use of clean energies, which are the basis of its agroecological and environmental sanitation practices.