Food Security and Nutrition

Smartphone App Helps Fijians to Grow and Eat Healthier Food

By Ivamere Nataro
A smartphone app in Fiji is helping users to not only eat better but to help grow food that will contribute to a more nutritious diet.

Woman Farmer Shows Way as Small Island Developing State Battles Pandemic’s Impacts

By Keni Lesa
A woman farmer in Samoa is using innovation and technology to overcome economic hardship as the Pacific Island nation seeks ways to adapt to the challenges resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

How to Feed the World Without Starving the Planet is a $15 Billion Question

By Ruben G. Echeverría
A population of more than 9 billion people, hotter temperatures, decaying ecosystems and increasingly severe natural disasters. That is what our world is facing by 2050 because of climate change.

Bolstering Food Security in Marshall Islands

Forty schoolteachers and principals in the Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI) completed a five-day workshop last month equipping schools to play a key role in strengthening the food security efforts in the country.

Solar Energy Revitalises Indigenous and Farming Communities in Chile

By Orlando Milesi
Communities in Arica y Parinacota, the region in the extreme north of Chile, are using solar energy and are being empowered by projects for shrimp and trout farming, the production of yarn from camelid wool, the production of tomatoes and cheese, and even the sale of surplus solar power to the national electric grid.

Digitisation Boosts Mechanised Farming Among Kenyan Farmers

By Justus Wanzala
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.

Golden Rice: Triumph for Science

By Paul Teng
After almost two decades, Golden Rice was approved last week by the Philippines authorities for use as food. This together with the approval of the bioengineered Bt eggplant represents a landmark victory of science over misinformation; it will provide consumers with improved nutrition (Golden Rice) and safer food (Bt eggplant).

Protecting Plants Will Protect People and the Planet

By Barbara Wells
Back-to-back droughts followed by plagues of locusts have pushed over a million people in southern Madagascar to the brink of starvation in recent months. In the worst famine in half a century, villagers have sold their possessions and are eating the locusts, raw cactus fruits, and wild leaves to survive.

Beware UN Food Systems Summit Trojan Horse

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Undoubtedly, the world needs to reform existing food systems to better serve humanity and sustainable development. But the United Nations World Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) must be consistent with UN-led multilateralism. For the first time ever, the World Economic Forum (WEF), a partnership of some of the world’s most powerful corporations, is partnering the UN in launching the Summit, now scheduled for September, with its ‘Pre-Summit’ beginning today.

Rwandan Farmers Pin Hopes on New Tech to Tackle Food Losses

By Aimable Twahirwa
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.

The Future of Food is in Our Hands

By Busani Bafana
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.

Striving for Sustainability in Global Food Systems

By Margarita Lysenkova
As the global community gears up for the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit in September, it is significant that preparations are also underway by Global Reporting Initiative to deliver a new sector reporting standard for agriculture, aquaculture, and fishing.

“If Only the Fighting Would Stop “ A Sudanese Woman’s Wish

By Marwa Awad
With her bare hands, Roda clears debris and forages scraps from her wrecked teashop after attackers scorched Gumuruk, a town in the Greater Jonglei region where conflict frequently disrupts daily life and stifles progress.

Q&A: UN Food Systems Summit Opportunity for the World to Unite on Healthy, Fair & Sustainable Food Systems

By Alison Kentish
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.

Agroecology as the Centrepiece of Sustainable Food Systems

By Alison Kentish
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.

UN Food Systems Summit Releases Potential Solutions for Local, Regional and Global Action

The UN Food Systems Summit has revealed the 15 action areas with more than 50 solution clusters that will inspire discussions at the Pre-Summit in Rome from July 26-28.

Weaponizing Science in Global Food Policy

By Maywa Montenegro, Matthew Canfield, and Alastair Iles
In July, the United Nations will convene “Science Days”, a high-profile event in preparation for the UN Food Systems Summit later this year. Over the course of two days, the world will be treated to a parade of Zoom sessions aimed at “highlighting the centrality of science, technology and innovation for food systems transformation.”

Southeast Asia and Food Price Inflation: Double Whammy

By Paul Teng
In 2020, Southeast Asian countries were already facing varied challenges that affected the region’s food supplies and prices. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic later in the year exacerbated the region’s food insecurity and poverty. Southeast Asian countries need to take a hard look at food security, even as the double challenges — climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic — continue to fester.

Preventing Hunger While Building Peace

By Daniel Moss and Amrita Gupta
Acute hunger is expected to soar in over 20 countries in the next few months, warns a recent report on global “hunger hotspots” from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). An estimated 34 million people are “one step away from starvation”, pushed to the brink by climate shocks, conflict, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

From Climate Change to Covid, Are We Ready to Deal with Disasters?

By Bibbi Abruzzini
In the last 20 years, disasters affected over 4 billion people. At global level we witness on average one sweeping disaster a day, the majority of which are floods and storms. From the Covid-19 pandemic to climate change, calamities are taking new shapes and sizes, infiltrating every dimension of society. From the emotional to the political, how do we deal with disasters? How can we create a whole-of-society approach to disaster risk reduction?

Inclusivity Is My Key to Success

By Zoltán Kálmán
In three cycles I spent all together more than 15 years in Rome, at the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and between my last two assignments in Rome my responsibilities in Budapest included FAO related issues. This made it possible for me to witness the development of this organization under the leadership of four Directors-General. Edouard Saouma, Jacques Diouf, Jose Graziano da Silva and Qu Dongyu. This long association and “historic” view of FAO would definitely help me in fulfilling the role of the Independent Chairperson of the Council of FAO (ICC). As conventional wisdom suggests, in order to make good decisions for the future we need to know, understand and learn from the past. The Independent External Evaluation, commissioned by the FAO Council in 2004, was an important milestone in this regard. It was followed by inclusive discussions among FAO Members about the recommendations and finally an Immediate Plan of Action was adopted by the FAO Conference. It was the most significant reform in FAO and I had the privilege to contribute to this process.
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