Food Security and Nutrition

Empowering Africa’s Informal Market Traders To Deliver Safe Food

By Busani Bafana
Local informal food markets feed millions of urbanites in bustling African cities, but the consequences of tainted food could be illness and death for unsuspecting consumers.

Small Farmers Feeling Climate Change Heat Find Little Support From the State

By Zofeen Ebrahim
The over 20 million residents of Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, in Sindh province in particular, have been experiencing brutal heat since May. But they are not the only ones bearing the brunt of high temperatures and humidity. Up to 15,000 cattle died due to scorching heat mixed with high humidity which Shakir Umar Gujjar, president of the Cattle and Dairy Farmers Association, Pakistan, said was “no joke”.

Improving Childhood Health and Development Need Not Be an Olympian Effort

By Afshan Khan and Sania Nishtar
From 11-year-old Chinese skateboarder Zheng Haohao to 16-year-old American gymnast Hezly Rivera, several children have reached the pinnacle of world sport at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Southern African Drought: Extreme Hardship, Hopefully Only in the Short Term

By Kevin Humphrey
Heading into the traditional dry period of winter in southern Africa, there was significant consternation due to the drastically below average rainfall the region has been experiencing since January 2024.

How Climate-Smart Strategies Revitalized Tanzania’s Livestock Sector

By Kizito Makoye
As the sun sets, its golden hues piece through the dusty haze, creating a dazzling display when a herd of livestock lazily roams on the arid landscape as they return home from grazing. Dressed in shiny red robes, the youthful Maasai pastoralists routinely whistle as they steer cattle, goats and sheep to maintain a unified path.

Lebanon’s Deep Healthcare Crisis Exposed through Communicable Diseases

By Randa El Ozeir
This summer is bringing an additional challenge to the public health front in Lebanon, along with higher-than-normal temperatures.

Mayurbhanj Kai Chutney: From Forests to Global Food Tables

By Diwash Gahatraj
On a scorching May morning, Gajendra Madhei, a farmer from Mamudiya village, arrives at the local bazaar in Udula, a town in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district. He displays freshly caught red weaver ants, known locally as kai pimpudi, in the bustling tribal market. Thanks to the recent recognition of Mayurbhanj's Kai chutney, or red weaver ant chutney, with a Geographical Indication (GI) tag awarded in January, his business of selling the raw ants has seen a significant surge in profitability.

Women Warriors Winning Fight to Bring Back Indigenous Food Traditions

By Manipadma Jena
As the school lunch bell goes off, 40 eager little bodies—41 if you count the school dog—burst out onto the veranda. Awaiting them are a stack of steel platters, into which will be ladled a nutritious and delicious lunch, all of it indigenous cuisine.

The World Bank Must Double Its Fund for the Poorest Nations like Mine to Tackle Hunger Crisis

By Simplex Chithyola Banda
After El Niño-induced floods and devastating drought, roughly two in five people in Malawi – a country of some 20 million people – are now facing the looming prospect of acute hunger by the end of the year.

Transforming African Food Systems from the Ground Up

By Inga Jacobs-Mata, Maya Rajasekharan, Namukolo Covic and Moses Odeke
All news is local, they say. The same is true of innovations—those many new technologies, policies, and practices that steadily stream from research to enhance our lives.

Climate Change, Pollution Push Karnaphuli Fishers Out of the Profession

By Rafiqul Islam
Jishuram Das, a sexagenarian who was born in Jelepara, located in Chattogram, has been catching fish from the Karnaphuli River since his childhood. But nowadays, he often sits idle without going to catch fish, as their catches have drastically fallen.

Quiet Revolution Underway as IFAD’s Innovative Solutions Rise to Global Rural Challenges

By Joyce Chimbi
Technology and innovation are at the center of the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s strategy to fulfill its global mission to eradicate poverty and hunger in the developing world, IFAD’s President Alvaro Lario told IPS in an exclusive interview.

Dissenting Voices at Nairobi Soil Health Forum Over Increased Fertilizer Use

By Isaiah Esipisu
As the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit convened in Nairobi to review the progress made in terms of increasing fertilizer use in line with the 2006 Abuja Declaration, experts, practitioners, activists, and even government officials pointed out that accelerated fertilizer use may not be the magic bullet for increased food production in Africa.

Beyond the Fields: Unraveling Zambia’s Drought Crisis and the Urgent Call for Climate-Health Solutions

By Friday Phiri
For most families in Zambia, April is traditionally a month of plenty—it is typically the beginning of a harvest season for various food and cash crops. Both fresh and dried maize, groundnuts, pumpkins, and a whole variety of both traditional and exotic food crops are usually in full supply and readily available for consumption, supporting household food security and nutrition.

Trade Liberalisation Kicked Away African Development Ladder

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Africans have long been promised trade liberalisation would accelerate growth and structural transformation. Instead, it has cut its modest production capacities, industry and food security.

Climate Crisis in Mountains: Borderless Struggle for Frontline Communities

By Tanka Dhakal and Diwash Gahatraj
For the last three years, Sambhunath Guragain has been waking up every morning to a view he doesn't want to see: discarded agricultural land where he and his family used to grow food, including rice, but the flood in 2021 changed everything. “We don’t have any crops now, but we are farmers,” Guragain said in November 2021, while looking towards a quietly flowing Melamchi river. This was six months after the massive flash flood in Helambu-Melamchi in Sindhupalchowk district in Nepal. After three years, the situation hasn’t changed.

Making the Global Financial Architecture Work for Emerging Markets and Developing Countries (EMDEs)

By Hafez Ghanem
The world is facing multiple crises that must be tackled quickly, with innovative approaches and brave decisions. The global financial architecture is an area that needs reform and thinking outside the box. The system created 80 years ago is not able to deal with today’s problems that range from climate change to pandemics, to increasing inequality, to conflict and fragility, to food insecurity and poverty.

Pioneering Digital Initiative Empowers Pacific Islands to Tackle Climate Disasters

By Catherine Wilson
Winning a battle for survival requires understanding the opponent. And, for the peoples of 22 island nations and territories scattered across more than 155 million square kilometres of Pacific Ocean, the volatility and wrath of the climate are their greatest threats.

Food Security and Food Safety in Africa Must Go Hand in Hand

By Monica Musonda
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has restricted international exports and sent food costs soaring – particularly for vulnerable populations still experiencing shocks from the pandemic and who can least afford to pay more to feed their families. Two years on, global food supply chains are still just as susceptible to serious disruptions caused by war, disease, and climate change. Those inevitable disruptions are leaving those on the African continent particularly vulnerable.

Can Preserving Goa’s Khazans Address Climate Threats?

By Neena Bhandari
Growing up in a khazan ecosystem, the traditional agricultural practice followed in the south-western Indian state of Goa, Elsa Fernandes would love sitting in a koddo, a woven bamboo structure for storing paddy. Her family members would pour paddy around her and with the growing pile, she would rise to the top and then jump down with joy.

Food Security Issues in Asia

By Paul Teng
Asia has about 60% of the World’s population but only about a third of the world’s arable land. This region additionally has some of the most economically active countries with increasing urbanisation and a growing middle class. Asia is also home to some of the most affected countries by climate change. For these and other reasons, food security in Asia affects global food security through many inter-links. A new book, “Food Security Issues in Asia”, edited by Paul Teng and with multiple authors, explicates many of the key issues continuing to cause food insecurity in Asia as well as discourses on exciting developments. Through its twenty-seven chapters, the book, published by World Scientific Publishers Singapore was launched on 27 March 2024 in Singapore by Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, former ASEAN Secretary General.
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