More Women Owning Agricultural Land in Africa Means Increased Food Security and Nutrition

Despite women being key figures in agriculture and food security, gender inequality is holding back progress towards ending hunger, poverty, and creating sustainable food systems. 

Without Food Security, There Is No Peace

Reversing years of progress, global hunger is on the rise once again and one of the culprits is clear: conflict.

India Uses Tech to Power its New Battle Against Malnutrition

Kanaklata Raula from Kaptipada village in India’s Mayurbhanj District is on duty 24x7. The 52-year-old community health worker from Odisha state rides a bicycle for hours each day, visiting community members who need nutrition and reproductive healthcare.

How Filling in the Agricultural Data Gap Will Fill Empty Plates

Each year as hundreds of billions of dollars are invested and critical decisions are made in agriculture, there is often little evidence or research to back these choices. 

Development of ICT Innovation Expected to Help in Fight Against Banana Disease in Rwanda

When Telesphore Ruzigamanzi, a smallholder banana farmer from a remote village in Eastern Rwanda, discovered a peculiar yellowish hue on his crop before it started to dry up, he did not give it the due consideration it deserved.

Recognising the Debilitating Nature Conflict Has on Food Security

Nyalen Kuong and her daughters fled to safety after an attack on their village in South Sudan in which Kuong's husband and two sons where killed and the family’s cattle lost. Kuong, her daughters and other families from their village fled to islands surrounded by swamp land. There, she had little to eat. And soon began suffering from diarrhoea, brought on by acute malnutrition.

In the Race to Achieve Zero Hunger and Mitigate Climate Change, We Must Look Down — to the Soil

Recently, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva urged countries, scientists, policymakers and stakeholders invested in building an equitable, sustainable, and thriving planet to pay attention to the soil. He further noted that the future of the planet depends on how healthy the soils of today are.

Africa Needs Strong Political Will to Transform Agriculture and Spur Economic Growth

Africa needs strong political commitment to accelerate the transformation of its agricultural sector. According to the 2018 Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR), Catalyzing State Capacity to Drive Agriculture Transformation, released this September by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), African states need political will to boost production and income on the millions of small, family farms that grow most of Africa’s food.

Climate Change Becomes a Reality Check for the North

“This season, the month of May was particularly hot and dry,” says Leo De Jong, a commercial farmer in Zeewolde, in Flevopolder, the Netherlands. Flevopolder is in the province of Flevoland, the largest site of land reclamation in the world. Here a hectare of land costs up to 100,000 Euros. “At the moment, we are spending between 20,000 and 25,000 Euros per week on irrigation.”

China-Africa Cooperation a Vibrant Partnership for Sustainable Development

This Forum on China-Africa Cooperation is an embodiment of two major priorities of the United Nations: to pursue fair globalization and to promote development that leaves no one behind in the context of a rules-based system of international relations supported by strong multilateral institutions.

How Accurate Information About the Weather is Yielding Resilience for Zambia’s Smallholders

Just having better information about when and for how long it will rain is proving the difference between success and failure among smallholder farmers in southern Zambia. Empowered with timely information about the weather ahead of the 2017/18 farming season, 56-year-old Fainess Muzyamba of Pemba district ditched her traditional maize crop for sweet potatoes.

Fledgling Venture Aims to Make Money from Cutting Food and Packaging Waste

To tackle food waste, Nicholas Lim did not simply spread the word among his friends and family. In an experiment to see if he could make a viable business out of the problem, he co-founded an online platform that allows individuals, eateries and voluntary welfare organisations to order discounted groceries that would otherwise be thrown away.

How Ghana’s Rapid Population Growth Could Become an Emergency and Outpace Both Food Production and Economic Growth

Paul Ayormah and his fellow farmers make their way home after hours spent manually weeding a friend’s one-acre maize farm in Ghana’s Eastern Region. “Tomorrow it will be the turn of my maize farm,” he tells IPS.

How the Lack of Affordable Vegetables is Creating a Billion-Dollar Obesity Epidemic in South Africa

Every Sunday afternoon, Thembi Majola* cooks a meal of chicken and rice for her mother and herself in their home in Alexandra, an informal settlement adjacent to South Africa’s wealthy economic hub, Sandton.

Transforming Food Systems: Today’s Realities and Tomorrow’s Challenges

The world’s food systems face two immense challenges today. One, to produce enough food to nourish a global population of seven billion people without harming the environment. Two, to make sure food systems deliver nutrition to everyone, particularly the world’s poorest, many of whom suffer from chronic under-nutrition.

Sustainable Agriculture To End World Hunger

Significantly more investment is needed to lift hundreds of millions rural poor out of poverty and make agriculture environmentally sustainable, according to Rob Vos, director of the markets, trade and institutions division at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Food Sustainability, Migration, Nutrition and Women

We worry about how we can continue to put food on our tables; and yet one-third of food is never eaten, instead being lost or wasted. We worry about eating properly, and yet in many countries, poor nutrition, obesity and micronutrient deficiencies are increasingly common. This trend is taking place in the Americas, Oceania, Asia, Africa and in Europe.

Brazil’s Agricultural Heavyweight Status Undermines Food Supply

Brazil is one of the world's largest agricultural producers and exporters, but its food supply has become seriously deficient due to food insecurity, unsustainability and poor nutrition, according to a number of studies.

You Are More Powerful than You Think!

Are you overwhelmed by the depressing news coming at you daily? Conflict, forced migrants, famine, floods, hurricanes, extinction of species, climate change, threats of war … a seemingly endless list. It might surprise you, but you can really make a difference on many of these issues.

Greece: SDGs a Way to End Economic Crisis?

Seven years after being on the verge of a financial collapse, Greece is now seeing better times. Its economic accounts have clearly improved but what is not under the spotlight is how the Greek people are still paying for the effects of the crisis.

Food Security and Growth in Asia

A disquieting finding of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017, Building resilience for peace and food security, or (SFSN2017), Rome, is that, in 2016, the number of chronically undernourished people in the world increased to 815 million, up from777 million in 2015 although still lower than about 900 million in 2000. Similarly, while the prevalence of undernourishment rose to 11 percent in 2016, this is still well below thelevel attaineda decade ago. Whether this recent rise inhunger and food-insecurity levels signals thebeginning of an upward trend, or whether itreflects an acute transient situation calls for a close scrutiny.