FAO’s Director General recently called for “adequate and predictable funding” to combat the food crisis in the Horn of Africa. Other organizations have also devoted attention to the issue of aid dollars going towards the drought and famine in Africa. USAID has set up a Famine, War, Drought (FWD) relief website to facilitate donations. The ONE campaign took an infographics approach to analyzing national contributions to the aid effort.
Graphics of crisis
Submitted by Rachel Friedman on September 30, 2011
Water for food
Submitted by Rachel Friedman on September 26, 2011The Society for International Development’s Food Security and Agriculture Workgroup held a seminar last Tuesday that addressed the intersection between water resources and food security. The panel of three experts discussed the state of water resources, how to stimulate farmer innovation in water management, and technologies and practices that can achieve necessary water savings.
Robert Winterbottom, director of ecosystem services at the World Resources Institute, painted an optimistic picture of the future of water management and food security. He advocated for a landscape approach, saying
“We are not going to make progress in terms of long-term food security unless we start dealing with the water resource management issues as well, and how they relate to the overall agroecosystem. I think that was one of the big missing pieces in the early efforts.”
The International Water Management Institute and United Nations Environment Programme also stressed this message in a recent report.
A reel fight against childhood hunger
Submitted by Rachel Friedman on September 25, 2011Let the cameras roll! The Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is inviting students to submit videos about fighting childhood hunger. With over 16 million children in the U.S. living in food-insecure households in 2010, this is no small undertaking. The videos should address the key question: what are you doing to end childhood hunger in your community?
Enter the Ending Childhood Hunger Video Contest by October 21.
Summit on Horn of Africa crisis
Submitted by Teresa Buerkle on September 24, 2011World leaders will meet today at a summit in New York on the Horn of Africa crisis. The meeting will address how to improve assistance to more than 13 million people suffering from drought and famine, and build long-term resilience to prevent similar future crises. Watch live from 10:00 am New York time: http://bit.ly/oVXXbp.
From deserts to oases?
Submitted by Rachel Friedman on September 23, 2011This spring, the USDA released a mapping tool to locate “food deserts”, usually characterized as areas lacking access to healthy food. One solution that has been offered to address the abundance of junk foods and lack of fresh fruits and vegetables is to bring in “big-box” stores with grocery facilities. But a recent study by two researchers at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health indicates that greater supermarket availability does not necessarily correspond to improved diets and health.
Dr. Janne Boone-Heinonen, one of the study’s authors, will present her research and the implications for healthy food access for underserved populations at a webinar hosted by Healthy Food Action, a project of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, on Tuesday, September 26, at 1pm EDT.
ONE: “Drought is inevitable. Famine is not.”
Submitted by Teresa Buerkle on September 22, 2011The anti-poverty advocacy group ONE today announced a new campaign to address the famine in Somalia and the wider crisis in the Horn of Africa.
The new campaign, “Drought is Inevitable. Famine is Not,” will feature grassroots organizing, social media tactics, innovative marketing products and political lobbying to increase awareness of the crisis and press G8, G20 and African governments to immediately meet their share of the $1 billion gap in emergency funding and invest in long-term agriculture development programmes to boost farm productivity and better prepare farmers in poor countries to withstand natural shocks, such as droughts.
ONE also announced today that a group of prominent African artists, musicians and business people have called on world leaders to take urgent action to prevent further suffering and loss of life in the Horn of Africa, ahead of a UN mini-summit on the crisis in New York this Saturday.
Celebrating forest policies and forest food
Submitted by Teresa Buerkle on September 22, 2011At the 2011 Future Policy Award Ceremony, forest policies were on the agenda and forest food on the menu.
Carl Lewis samples a moth caterpillar:
“Alice in Wonderland” (a caterpillar and wild mushroom dish) was a hit:
Rwanda, US and Gambia win forest policy awards
Submitted by Teresa Buerkle on September 21, 2011Forest policies from Rwanda, the United States and Gambia took the top honors in the 2011 Future Policy Award.
Rwanda’s National Forest Policy was crowned best in the world, with silver medals going to the US Lacey Act amendment of 2008, which prohibits all trade in illegally sourced wood and plant products, and Gambia’s FAO-supported Community Forestry Policy, the first in Africa to provide local populations with secure and permanent forest ownership rights.
The awards ceremony was held at the Central Park Zoo in New York, sponsored by the World Future Council in collaboration with FAO and other UN and environmental partners.
“I kind of know about awards, I’ve had a few myself and I think it’s much more important that we talk about this award because it affects everyone,” said FAO Goodwill Ambassador Carl Lewis at a press conference at UN headquarters in New York earlier in the day. In his athletic career, Lewis won 10 Olympic medals, nine of them gold.
Read more on the awards and watch the announcement.
Eating for health
Submitted by Rachel Friedman on September 20, 2011Monday’s UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) highlighted the importance of linking agriculture, nutrition and the chronic diseases that plague millions. Annually responsible for 63% of deaths worldwide, NCDs such as heart disease, lung disease, cancer and diabetes are prevalent not only in affluent countries but also in a growing number of middle- and low-income nations. One of the motivations for pursuing a food- and agriculture-based approach to confronting NCDs is the sheer cost of treating them. Between now and 2030, it is estimated that $30 trillion will be needed to treat patients with these diseases.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has published a new report that examines how agriculture and food policy can prevent chronic disease. Bringing Agriculture to the Table calls for action at the local, national and international levels to ensure that affordable, diverse and healthy food is produced and available to consumers.
Read the press release for more details.
Leveling the ploughing field for women
Submitted by Teresa Buerkle on September 19, 2011US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today that the US government will allocate $5 million this year to fund innovative approaches to promoting gender equality in agriculture.
Speaking in New York during a panel discussion on women and agriculture convened on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary Clinton said the funds would be used “to expand our knowledge base.”
“We know that women farmers represent a major untapped resource, but we don’t know nearly enough about which approaches will change that. We need concentrated research about the obstacles facing women farmers worldwide so that we know how to remove them so women can contribute even more.”
“If all farmers, men and women, had access to the same resources we could increase agricultural output by 20-30 percent,” Clinton said, echoing the conclusions of FAO’s latest State of Food and Agriculture report, which found that if women had the same access to productive resources as men, women could increase yields on their farms by 20-30 percent. “That would feed an additional 150 million people every year.”
Calling for research proposals and programs to support women farmers, Clinton said:
“When we liberate the economic potential of women we elevate the economic performance of communities, nations and the world.”
The panel, which was moderated by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, included FAO Director-General elect Jose Graziano da Silva, who shared his experiences with Brazil’s “Zero Hunger” programme, which he coordinated as Brazilian Extraordinary Minister of Food Security and the Fight Against Hunger.
Graziano cited the important role of women not only in food production, but also with regard to food access and distribution. “Mothers ensure that ‘food first’ is not a slogan,” he said.
“You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to do good things,” Graziano added, saying that the cash transfers implemented in Brazil as part of Zero Hunger were modeled on the U.S. food stamp programme.
Other panelists included President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania; Rajiv Shah, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development; Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever; Kathy Spahn, President and CEO of Helen Keller International; and Reema Nanavaty, Director of the Economic and Rural Development for the Self-employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India.
View the full panel discussion below or read the complete transcript on the U.S. State Department website.