Improving the lives of rural populations: better nutrition & agriculture productivity

The Beating Pulse of Food Security in Africa

By Busani Bafana
Elizabeth Mpofu is a fighter. She is one of a select group of farmers who equate food security with the war against hunger and shun poor agricultural practices which destroy the environment and impoverish farmers, especially women.

Low Food Prices: Good for Your Pocket, Bad for Small Farmers

By Baher Kamal
What would be your reaction if you were told that food prices are steadily declining worldwide? Good, very good news, you may say. But do the 600 million small, family farmers, those who produce up to 80 per cent of food in some regions, think the same way? Definitely not at all.

Coffee Producers in Costa Rica Use Science to Tackle Climate Change

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
“Our coffee production per hectare has dropped due to early ripening of the fruit and diseases,” Maritza Cal[related_articles][related_articles] coffee farmer in the mountains in southern Costa Rica, told IPS.

Canals Save Cambodian Farmers in Times of Drought

By Amy Fallon
In Kampong Speu province, when the wet weather doesn't come, as in other parts of Cambodia, it can affect whether food goes on the dinner table.

Fish Farming, a Challenge and Opportunity for Small Farmers in Brazil’s Amazon

By Mario Osava
Domingo Mendes da Silva has lost track of how many visitors he has received at his 10-hectare farm in northwest Brazil. He estimates “more than 500,” including aquaculture technicians, government officials, peasant farmers, journalists and other people interested in fish farming.

Entrepreneurship, Job Creation Take Centre Stage at NEPAD Meet

By Charles Mkoka
The two-day Second Africa Rural Development Forum concluded Friday with renewed calls to economically empower young people, many of whom are leaving the resource-rich continent and migrating to places like Europe under very risky circumstances.

Believe It or Not, Pulses Reduce Gas Emissions!

By Baher Kamal
Lentils, beans, chick peas, and other pulses often produce negative “collateral social effects" on people hanging around, just a couple of hours after eating them. But, believe it or not, they contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. How come?

Livestock – Opportunity and Threat for a Sustainable Latin America

By Orlando Milesi
Stockbreeding generates enormous profits in Latin America, but it also has a broad and varied impact on the environment, which means it must urgently be turned into a sustainable, green-friendly, socially accepted and profitable activity.

Asia, Looking Beyond the Green Revolution

By IPS Correspondents
More than 2.2 billion people in Asia rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, but the Asian Development Bank warns that stagnant and declining yields of major crops such as rice and wheat can be ultimately linked to declining investments in agriculture. Public investments in agriculture in India, for instance, have been roughly the same since 2004.

Nurturing African Agriculture

By IPS Correspondents
While agriculture could be the driving force to lift millions of Africans out of poverty and alleviate hunger, its full potential remains untapped. For example, only between five and seven percent of the continent’s cultivated land is irrigated, leaving farmers vulnerable to climate shocks like the devastating El Nino-driven drought in southern Africa. That's why international agencies like the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are forging key partnerships to enhance agricultural production, sustainable natural resource management and increased market access.

Native Plants Boost Local Diets in El Salvador

By Edgardo Ayala
Juana Morales is cooking one of the most popular dishes in El Salvador: pupusas, corn tortillas with different fillings. But hers are unique: they are not made with the traditional corn tortillas, but use Maya nuts, a highly nutritional seed that has fallen out of use but whose consumption is being encouraged in rural communities.

Climate-Smart Agriculture for Drought-Stricken Madagascar

By Miriam Gathigah
Mirantsoa Faniry Rakotomalala is different from most farmers in the Greater South of Madagascar, who are devastated after losing an estimated 80 percent of their crops during the recent May/June harvesting season to the ongoing drought here, said to be the most severe in 35 years.

New Alliance to Shore Up Food Security Launched in Africa

By Desmond Latham
As over 20 million sub-Saharan Africans face a shortage of food because of drought and development issues, representatives of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Pan African Parliament (PAP) met in Johannesburg to forge a new parliamentary alliance focusing on food and nutritional security.

Chronic Hunger Lingers in the Midst of Plenty

By Neeta Lal
In a fraught global economic environment, exacerbated by climate change and shrinking resources, ensuring food and nutrition security is a daunting challenge for many nations. India, Asia's third largest economy and the world's second most populous nation after China with 1.3 billion people, is no exception.

Forests and Crops Make Friendly Neighbors in Costa Rica

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
While Latin America keeps expanding its agricultural frontier by converting large areas of forest, one country, Costa Rica, has taken a different path and is now a role model for a peaceful coexistence between food production and sustainable forestry.

Fertilizer Access Grows Farmers, Food and Finance

By Busani Bafana
Brightly coloured cans, bags of fertilizer and packets containing all types of seeds catch the eye upon entering Nancy Khorommbi’s agro dealer shop tucked at the corner of a roadside service station.

‘Monster’ El Niño Subsides, La Niña Hitting Soon

By Baher Kamal
As if human-made armed conflicts, wickedness, rights abuse, gender violence, cruel inequality and climate catastrophes were not enough, now the saying “God Always Forgives, Men Sometimes, Nature Never” appear to be more true than ever. See what happens.

Indigenous Villages in Honduras Overcome Hunger at Schools

By Thelma Mejía
Barely 11 years old and in the sixth grade of primary school, this student dreams of becoming a farmer in order to produce food so that the children in his community never have to go hungry. Josué Orlando Torres of the indigenous Lenca people lives in a remote corner of the west of Honduras.

Seaweed gains ground as a pillar of food security in South America

By Orlando Milesi
Seaweed, a nutrient-rich foodstuff that was a regular part of the diet of several South American indigenous peoples, is emerging as a new pillar of food security in Latin America and is providing a livelihood for thousands of people in the region’s coastal areas. 

Drought Prompts Debate on Cuba’s Irrigation Problems

By Ivet González
Five gargantuan modern irrigation machines water the state farm of La Yuraguana covering 138 hectares in the northeastern province of Holguín, the third largest province in Cuba. However, “sometimes they cannot even be switched on, due to the low water level,” said farm manager Edilberto Pupo.

Can Better Technology Lure Asia’s Youth Back to Farming?

By Diana G Mendoza
Farming and agriculture may not seem cool to young people, but if they can learn the thrill of nurturing plants to produce food, and are provided with their favorite apps and communications software on agriculture, food insecurity will not be an issue, food and agriculture experts said during the Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s Food Security Forum from June 22 to 24 at the ADB headquarters here.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*