Cheap or Adequate and Accessible to Everyone?

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed some lesser-known realities, or some we had not wanted to think about, and exposed its consequences for the right of people to feed themselves in dignity.

Q&A: Understanding COVID-19’s Impact on Food Security and Nutrition

While it is too early to assess the full impact of the global COVID-19 lockdowns, at least 83 million to 132 million more people may go hungry this year -- 690 million people were classified as hungry in 2019 -- as the pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities and inadequacies of global food systems. 

India’s Fisheries: Past, Present, and Future

Fisheries and aquaculture are an important source of food production, nutritional security, employment, and income in India. The fisheries sector is a direct source of livelihoods for more than 20 million fishers and fish farmers; contributes INR 1.75 trillion annually to the gross value added to India’s economy; and is a major export earner, with fish being one of the most important agricultural commodities to be exported from India.

Digital Agriculture Linking Indian Farmers to Consumers Can Impact Food Security

Digital technologies in agriculture are helping address the twin problems of food security and supply chain disruptions triggered by COVID-19 in India, while augmenting the income of smallholder farmers. Leveraging technology to match supply and demand of resources and food is key to overcoming the issues of starvation and food supply interruptions, Anshul Sushil, CEO and co-founder at Wizikey, a software that allows businesses to reach media directly, eliminating the middlemen, tells IPS.

Building Back Greener in Africa

COVID-19 continues to race across the African continent. People are dying, and even more are being pushed into hunger and poverty, in many cases risking to overturn years of development gains.

Africa’s Post-pandemic Future Needs to Embrace Youth in Agriculture

Warnings at the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic that Africa could be hit by a wave of up to 10 million cases within six months thankfully now seem unfounded, although it is still far too early to be over-confident.

Indigenous Farmers Harvest Water with Small Dams in Peru’s Andes Highlands

A communally built small dam at almost 3,500 meters above sea level supplies water to small-scale farmer Cristina Azpur and her two young daughters in Peru's Andes highlands, where they face water shortages exacerbated by climate change.

Field Connections- How technology is supporting Pacific agriculture

Standing in the middle of a field around a withered plant, the Pacific Community’s Plant Health Doctors conducted their first virtual meeting as they continue their work on the frontline by providing vital support for farmers in Fiji and the region.

Lifting Livelihoods by Lifting Water

While growing up in Lele village in southern Lalitpur, Pratap Thapa watched his parents plant maize on their terrace farm and wait for the rains. He often wondered how much of their drudgery could be reduced if water could be brought up from a nearby river.

The Critical Role of Women in Avoiding a Covid-19 “Food Pandemic” in sub-Saharan Africa

As infections with Covid-19 appear to be intensifying in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), fears of severe food shortages have prompted experts to warn that the region may be “on the brink of a hunger pandemic.” Efforts are intensifying to rally a major global response.

Agriculture: Rooted in Racism

There has been far less social progress in the United States in the last 155 years than many people would like to believe. In 2020, racism still seeps its way into every aspect of life; from unconscious bias and micro-aggressions in everyday interactions to domestic and international policy and enforcement.

The Foundation to Build Back Better: Education

To realize the concept of ‘build back better,’ we need a foundation. That foundation is education. This is an incontestable truth.

Post-harvest Losses Becomes Tanzania’s Loss in Youth Farming

As she says goodbye to a group of her friends, Esther Ishabakaki asks whether any of them knows a good tailor who might be interested in joining her newly-opened clothing business. It’s a venture she started three months ago after quitting her farming venture.

Tanzania: Postharvest innovations key to raising youth involvement in horticulture

Horticulture is a field of agriculture that involves a short growing season averaging three months and offers quick yields and returns on investments despite the high rate of postharvest losses.

Agroecology Strengthens Farmers’ Resilience But Highly Underfunded in Africa

With just a quarter of an acre of land in Kesses near Kenya’s Eldoret town in the Rift Valley region, Samson Tanui is practising agroecology and his permaculture unit has become the centre of attraction for farmers from near and afar amid food shortages during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

From farm to fork: The women championing agricultural transformation in Africa

From Sudan to Mali, Senegal to Mozambique, and Zambia to Mauritania, women are changing the face of agriculture, adapting and innovating to tackle the challenges of climate change, and feeding the continent’s growing population.

Solar Power Fills Gaps in Underserviced Rural Argentina

Rice farmers in the Argentine province of Entre Rios often look like mechanics. "They're always full of grease, because they haul diesel fuel around all the time, for their water pumps," says local farmer Arturo Deymonnaz. He, however, doesn't have that problem, because he uses solar energy to grow his rice.

2nd World Food Safety Day

Few things are as natural and as necessary as eating food. However, if food producers, food processors, food handlers and consumers do not follow good food safety practices, food can become contaminated and rather than nourishing us and bringing us pleasure it can make us sick or even kill us.

Agroecology. The Challenge of Farming for the Future

The COVID-19 outbreak has brought the world back to the essentials: health and food. Fighting the spread of the virus while ensuring access to food has proven to be a challenge in many countries. The loss of income is reducing families’ ability to feed themselves; movement restrictions and lack of labour for planting and harvesting are a strain on the chain that brings food from field to fork. Hundreds of millions of the most vulnerable people are on the brink of acute hunger, and food insecurity is likely to increase globally.

Safeguarding Africa’s Food Security in the Age of COVID-19

Food security in sub-Saharan Africa is under threat. The ability of many Africans to access sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs has been disrupted by successive natural disasters and epidemics. Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, locust outbreaks in eastern Africa, and droughts in southern and eastern Africa are some examples. The COVID-19 pandemic is just the latest catastrophe to have swollen the ranks of 240 million people going hungry in the region. In some countries, over 70 percent of the population has problems accessing food.

The Struggle for Land and Food in the Locked-down Philippines

Landless farmers who produce rice for the landlords of big “haciendas” can’t get more than a little pocket money from their harsh work—not enough to provide diverse and healthy food for their families. Seasonal workers on sugar-cane plantations know that they can count on only six months of earnings. When summer arrives, those whose irrigation facilities have been destroyed by typhoons, or those who never had any, struggle while waiting for the rain.