Information and stories about food security news.

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Canadian Research Fund Fights World Hunger

Canadian Research Fund Fights World HungerTechnology, science and research are integral tools in the fight against world hunger and poverty.  The Canadian government has taken important steps toward funding new efforts to fight global poverty and hunger. Last week the Canadian government announced its contribution to the second phase of the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund, also known as CIFSRF.  This fund is using science and technology partnerships to try to find new solutions to battle the global epidemic of hunger and poverty.

The Canadian government is committed to improving food security for those most in need around the globe. They are using collaborative efforts contributed by universities, businesses, and non-governmental organizations to bring new perspectives to the problem. The Canadian research fund is developing a strategy that many other countries could learn from- the United States included. Canada’s research fund is striving to work with developing country researchers to respond to not only the immediate food needs on the ground but also working towards providing long-term strategies to effectively combat long-lasting poverty problems.

The second phase of the CIFSRF is working towards connecting research results to public and private sector organizations for distribution on a larger scale. Additionally, this stage has called for greater participation by women, a vital step in the eradication of global poverty. A majority of the world’s poor are women, and increased participation in the labor force is an incredibly important step in helping women escape the cycle of poverty.

The ultimate goal of CIFSRF is to provide sustainable results that will create long-term solutions in developing nations. Along with economic benefits, the Canadian organization would like to help bring about positive social change. It is refreshing to see results and improvement. This program has already managed to use nanotechnology to create an innovative packaging system that was able to significantly reduce the post-harvest loss of mangoes for farmers in India and Sri Lanka. It will be exciting to see what the second phase of the program will be able to produce.

– Caitlin Zusy
Source Nano Werk
Photo AP/Aijaz Rahi

Top 4 Ways to Address Food Security

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The UN and other aid organizations are working to address food security in the world’s poorest countries. According to the UN Development Program’s (UNDP) African Human Development Report, food security is key to improving the lives of many of the world’s poorest people.

At the heart of eradicating extreme poverty is addressing the widespread hunger and malnutrition that kills hundreds of children every day. Food production is a determining factor in the achievement of other human development goals such as education and health care. Without adequate nutrition, people lack energy to pursue economic activities.

A productive approach to addressing food security is more complex than simply growing more food. The chief economist for the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa, Pedro Conceicao, argued that economic growth does not necessarily reduce poverty and food insecurity. This suggests that accessibility, empowerment, and purchasing power drive change, and that a strategic, interdisciplinary approach is necessary to address food security. The Report focused on four ways to address food security:

  • Food production: investments in agricultural research, infrastructure, and inputs will increase food production. This will improve food security, especially for agricultural communities.
  • Adequate nutrition: improving food security does not necessarily improve nutrition. Efforts to alleviate malnutrition should be coordinated with developments in sanitation, clean water, and health services.
  • Resilience: building resilience is key to decreasing the need for emergency aid. Systems such as crop insurance and employment guarantees strengthen communities and reduce vulnerability.
  • Empowerment: gender equality, access to good land, technology, and information on good agricultural practices are necessary for achieving food security.

Sustainable progress does not happen overnight. As the Millennium Development Goals demonstrate, long-term coordinated efforts in multiple sectors are needed to improve food security. In order to achieve sustainable rather than short-term food security, development organizations also need to address environmental conservation, natural resource management, and the often opposing influences of big agribusiness and local ecology.

– Kat Henrichs

Source: IRIN News
Photo: Security and Sustainability Forum

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How Bad is the Global Food Crisis?

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A billion people in the world suffer from hunger or malnutrition. While most of the world’s hungry live in places with high rates of extreme poverty, such as Africa and the Middle East, many also live here in the United States. Some consider a billion hungry people the definition of a global food crisis. Others say that things could get much worse. Either way, hundreds of social, agricultural, and humanitarian organizations are working to alleviate hunger and improve food security in the world’s most vulnerable regions.

Over the last five years, droughts, extreme temperatures, and unusual weather in some of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, including the US, have caused prices for wheat, corn, soybeans, and other food staples to increase dramatically. This has led to higher prices for many food products, especially animal products. As usual, the world’s poor have been most affected by the increase in prices. For those who either spend a substantial amount of their income on food or rely on subsistence farming to feed themselves, a certain increase in the price of food directly results in ongoing hunger and food insecurity.

Different crops affect various populations in distinct ways. Rice and wheat are the two major cereal staples in the diets of the world’s poor. Therefore, as long as those prices remain stable, a global food crisis can be averted. While increases in the price of corn will affect gas prices and meat prices, this will not necessarily contribute to a global food crisis. Most corn grown in the US is either manufactured into ethanol or fed to livestock, and the world’s poorest people cannot afford to buy much meat or gasoline in the first place.

However, a low yield of one crop can put pressure on the production and export of other crops. When the corn crop suffered in 2012, this caused an increased demand for wheat as livestock feed. This demand drove up the price of wheat, and reduced the supply of wheat available for export to places such as the Middle East, where much of the population relies on imported wheat for sustenance.

Economists and food experts warn against overreacting to high prices, as panic can create tighter restrictions and more problems. In order to begin to solve the global food crisis, we must focus not on what has gone wrong, but on what can be done to increase agricultural yields, implement sustainable farming methods, improve consumer access to affordable, healthy food, and help more of the world’s poor achieve food security.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has recommended that structural causes of food insecurity be addressed through the complementary techniques of short-term emergency aid and long-term sustainable development and poverty reduction efforts.

– Kat Henrichs

Source: IRIN
Photo: World Bank

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US AID and Nepal Partner to Educate on Agriculture

US AID and Nepal Partner to Educate on Agriculture
Nepal Economic, Agriculture, and Trade Activity (NEAT), a 32-month program funded by USAID, aims to “promote economic growth, reduce poverty, increase food security, and improve lives” throughout Nepal. As part of the program, USAID and Nepal have partnered up through the Nepal Ministry of Agriculture Development to distribute educational materials on agricultural practices in the hopes of improving the production of agriculture in the country.

Through the funding provided by USAID, more than 263,000 pamphlets were handed out detailing specific agricultural instructions, both written in Nepali and as visuals in order to aid those citizens who are illiterate. The pamphlets detail “critical agriculture practice” on 13 types of crops and 3 species of livestock.

The NEAT program has improved the agricultural education of 67,510 households throughout 20 districts of Nepal with a regular lack of access to proper food sources. Thus far, the project has already allowed area farmers to see an increased income of $8.5 million collectively. These farmers and households have had increased access to markets and are better educated on agricultural practices such as pest and disease control, use of fertilizer, improved seed, and “post-harvest handling.”

The Director of USAID’s Social, Environmental, and Economic Development Office, John Stamm, maintained that USAID is dedicated to creating sustainable development solutions, including the NEAT program – which will allow Nepalese citizens greater resources for continuing to improve their lives long after the program ends in August of 2013.

– Christina Kindlon

Source: USAID

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Scientific Breakthrough in Stressed Free Crops

Scientific Breakthrough in Stress: Free CropsThe ability to grow crops in acidic soil environments has, up until recently, been feasible with only a few species of maize. However, current scientific research into the genes responsible for plant tolerance may enable the cultivation of stressed free crops in soils once considered impossible, opening up exciting new frontiers in the field of sustainable farming.

Researchers from Cornell University in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research have been conducting fascinating studies into the high aluminum tolerance of Ethiopian Maize and Brazilian Sorghum. Why aluminum? Well to start, the aluminum present in the clay of soils with a highly acidic pH dissolves, which is toxic when absorbed by nearby root systems. Amazingly, researchers were able to break down the genome of the aluminum tolerant species of maize and identify key gene copies known as MATE1 that were linked to the unusual trait. Moreover, by isolating and identifying the genes that enable crops to thrive in lands regarded as non-arable, stress-free crops can be grown in all types of climates and soil compositions.

In regards to stressed free crops, USDA Director of the Agricultural Research Service Leon Kochian remarked that “Aluminum tolerance in Maize is associated with higher MATE1 gene copy number. This could be a key factor for other traits of agricultural importance.”

The prospect of farmers being able to grow stress-free crops in areas that were once written off as unusable gives pause for optimism in nations that have been plagued with chronic food shortages and low soil efficacy. By unlocking the amazing potential of stressed free crops, remote areas that were once dependent on foreign aid can now reach the goal of sustainable development through aluminum tolerant maize.

– Brian Turner
Source: Science Daily
Photo:Nation Sydication

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Food Insecurity in the United States

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Food insecurity does not just exist in third world countries. In fact, it plagues many people right here in the United States. According to a new research study conducted by Penn Schoen Berland on behalf of Participant Media, 7 out of 10 Americans do not even know what food insecurity means, let alone know that it is something affecting more than 50 million Americans. In fact, more than two-thirds of those polled, who represent the whole of the US population, thought food insecurity was related to obesity.

The research study found that many people think that food insecurity, upon learning its definition,  is a pressing issue that must be addressed in the United States. Yet, addressing this issue often falls behind a long list of other pressing issues, such as economic inequality, the budget crisis, health care and education, in both importance as well as funding. There is much support for eradicating hunger in the United States – more than 90 percent of Americans have made a food donation (either monetary or actual food) to those in need – yet more needs to be done to spread awareness, as well as provide help.

Food insecurity in the United States, as well as in many developing countries, is marked by low socio-economic status and impoverished living conditions. In the push to eradicate global poverty, the struggles facing many American men, women and children should not go ignored. They, too, are the faces and voices that represent the need to end global poverty.

– Angela Hooks

Sources: Huffington Post
Photo: VA Food Bank

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FAO Encourages Food Security in North Korea

FAO Encourages Food Security in North Korea
With their recent posturing and threats of nuclear destruction to both South Korea and the United States, North Korea has been a hot topic of many newspaper headlines and evening news programs. Surprisingly though, little attention has been paid to the chronic lack of food security in North Korea, an issue that the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has been trying to address for years.

The gross human rights violations of Kim Jong-un notwithstanding, North Korean civilians have been the greatest casualty of the failed agricultural and food reapportionment policies of the government. By shutting out much of the international community, including various NGOs and aid workers, progress has been slow in devising a realistic solution to the problem of food security in North Korea. The most recent FAO mission report on food security in North Korea is startling, with both soybean oil and vegetable production down dramatically, raising concerns that were highlighted by mission leader Kisan Gunjal when he remarked that “The country needs to produce more protein-rich foods like soybean and fish and to put more effort into growing two crops a year so a more varied diet is available for everyone.”

However, there were bright spots on the horizon as annual staple food production has been growing over the past couple of years, effectively mitigating the amount of acute malnutrition in the population. Overall, the FAO was satisfied with the improvements their targeted aid has made in specific areas, yet considerable headway still remains in combating children’s vulnerability to shock and pregnant and nursing mothers’ levels of malnutrition. DPRK Country Director Claudia von Roehl commented on the status of food security in North Korea when stating that while harvest figures were optimistic, “the lack of proteins and fats in the diet is alarming” as there are still about two million children in the country who are in need of healthy, balanced diets.

– Brian Turner

Source: FAO News
Photo: Time

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Arab Spatial Tracks Food Security

Arab Spatial Tracks Food SecurityA new web-based tool called Arab Spatial has recently launched and will provide aid workers and researchers access to valuable data relating to food security and malnutrition information throughout the Middle East. Previously, aid workers and activists noticed a lack of data on resources including food and water – data that is typically used in important policy and resource distribution decisions. Even if a country did have relevant information on these issues, the data was not efficiently being shared between countries and regions.

Now, researchers and aid workers can turn to Arab Spatial, an online tool developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) that should house all food security information for the Arab world in one easily-accessible location.

Food security is an enormous issue in the region, where many countries must import many of their basic food staples, and where war and fighting have exacerbated hunger and perpetuated poverty. Abeer Etafa, the representative of the World Food Program, said that “millions of families” throughout the region were having difficulties obtaining food, and with the events surrounding the Arab Spring and other civil unrest and upheaval, have had to face rising instability and lost wages as well.

Although the struggle of millions to obtain the food necessary to survive is known, it has been very difficult for researchers and aid organizations to quantify; IFPRI says that not many countries in the Middle East have poverty figures widely available, and even when they do, it is unclear how accurate said figures are.

To combat this issue, Arab Spatial will aggregate data on food based on national, regional, and local areas, and the data can be used to create maps showing “more than 150 food security and development-related indicators related to poverty, malnutrition, disease, production and prices, public finances, exports and imports.”

IFPRI also asserted that economic development and proper nutrition and food security are vital to each other, and one cannot be successful without the other. It is clear that eradicating the challenges to make food accessible will create sustained economic growth and development throughout the Middle East.

IFPRI hopes that Arab Spatial will be used by government officials, researchers, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists, and most importantly, decision-makers in addressing food security.

– Christina Kindlon

Source: IRIN

Knowledge is Power: Arab Spatial and Food Security in the Middle East

    Arab spatial
    A new tracking tool to measure levels of food security in the Middle East was launched in February. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) created the tool, known as Arab Spatial, with support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

    The Middle East has long struggled with food security, and researchers, officials, and activists have had a difficult time addressing the problem due to a lack of information. Now, humanitarian aid workers and policymakers working to address food security issues in the region can turn to Arab Spatial for the most up-to-date information on malnutrition, rainfall, crop yields, and much more.

    Recent political upheaval has amplified food insecurity in the region. Many Middle Eastern countries depend on foreign imports of staples such as wheat flour. Political and social turmoil has disrupted commerce and economies, leading to lost jobs and even greater struggles for everyday people to put enough food on the table. Statistics on poverty in the Middle East are infrequent and often inaccurate; only about half of the countries provide public access to the numbers.

    But Arab Spatial will contribute to more open communication about how best to meet basic human needs in one of the least stable areas of the globe. Perrhian al-Riffai, a senior research analyst with IFPRI, said of Arab Spatial, “High quality and freely accessible knowledge is power, especially for evidence-based research for effective and efficient policy design and implementation throughout the Arab world.”

    Arab Spatial measures food security at the national, regional, and local level. More than 150 food security indicators, including information related to poverty, malnutrition, climate, crop production and prices, disease, and trade, can be used to create maps and data. This valuable information should give governments, NGOs, and non-profit organizations working to end food insecurity in the region more power to do so.

    – Kat Henrichs

    Source: IRN Middle East
    Photo: IRN

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Celebrity Chefs Participate in Live Below the Line Campaign

Celebrity Chefs Participate in Live Below the Line CampaignThe Australian-based Live Below the Line campaign, sponsored by the Global Poverty Project, is slated to begin its 2013 campaign this April. The campaign, which challenges people worldwide to live on just $1.50 per day for five days, was started in 2009 by Australian Richard Fleming, in an attempt to raise awareness and to fundraise for some 1.4 billion people around the world who live in extreme poverty. Now in its third year, Live Below the Line raised $2 million last year for global poverty.

This year, many of the UK’s most well-known chefs are taking part in the challenge to create meals for $1.50, which is the accepted global figure that defines extreme poverty. Award-winning chef Kevin Tew said, “It really makes you think about waste, you have to make things as simple as possible while making sure you get the right balance.”

Other celebrity chefs, including Gordon Ramsey, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the Fabulous Baker Brothers, Bill Granger and Jean-Christophe Novelli will participate in the campaign and create recipes that will maximize the little amount of food allotted in five days’ time.

Since people find $1.50 is usually not enough money to purchase meat, the chefs will come up with other recipes using cost-effective staples such as rice, oats, beans, and a few vegetables. Besides raising awareness for global poverty and food insecurity, Live Below the Line also hopes to create changes in participant’s everyday lives after completing the 5-day challenge.

The campaign also has other famous supporters, such as actor Hugh Jackman, and this year will be operating in the UK, the United States, Australia, with over 20,000 participants expected.

– Christina Kindlon

Source: 4 News