Too many still struggling to meet food and nutrition goals

The developing world is lagging badly in the bid to reach global targets related to food and nutrition, and rates of child and maternal mortality are still unacceptably high, says a recently released report by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

by Carol Smith | OurWorld 2.0 | May 2, 2012

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Millions Against Monsanto: The Food Fight of Our Lives

Finally, public opinion around the biotech industry's contamination of our food supply and destruction of our environment has reached the tipping point. We're fighting back

By Ronnie Cummins | AlterNet | April 11, 2012

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Zvonimir Atletic

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Growing Food Demand Strains Energy, Water Supplies

The northern region of Gujarat State in western India (map) is semi-arid and prone to droughts, receiving almost all of its rain during the monsoon season between June and September. But for the past three decades, many crop and dairy farms have remained green—even during the dry season

Jeff Smith | National Geographic News | April 6, 2012

A man irrigates his field with an electric water pump east of Gauhati, in northern India. Excessive water pumping has strained both water and energy supplies in India, China and other hot spots around the world. Photograph by Anupam Nath, Associated Press

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Massive Public Protest Spur France to Ban Plantings of Monsanto's MON810 GMO Corn

Last November, French authorities lifted a longtime ban that prohibited French farmers from planting MON810, a move that spurred nationwide backlash and protest

Jonathan Benson | Nation of Change | 1 April 2012

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Bread and Circuses: The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome

Today marks the much-awaited release of the movie The Hunger Games, based on Suzanne Collins’s enormously popular trilogy of young-adult novels. (You may have seen the film’s stars grace magazine covers well in advance of this week.)

John M. Cunningham | Encyclopedia Britannica Blog | March 23, 2012

Spartacus, 19th-century illustration. Credit: Photos.com/Jupiter Images

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World Water Day Focuses on Food Security

The 2012 edition of World Water Day, which is held every year on 22 March, focused on the theme "water and food security"

Climate Change Policy & Practice | 22 March 2012

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Drought spreads to Brazil, crop yields hit

Drought has spread from Argentina and Paraguay to Brazil and is hitting soy yields at a time of growing concerns that regional growth may suffer as pressures mount on commodity prices

United Press International | March. 20, 2012

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Climate, Food Pressures Require Rethink On Water: U.N

The world's water supply is being strained by climate change and the growing food, energy and sanitary needs of a fast-growing population, according to a United Nations study that calls for a radical rethink of policies to manage competing claims

Gus Trompiz | Planet Ark | 13-Mar-12

Photo: REUTERS

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Stemming rural depopulation in Ethiopia

Fasil Giorghis’ office in the centre of Addis Ababa affords a good view of the Ethiopian capital. There are building sites wherever you look: grey concrete structures with protruding armouring irons, sheathed in scaffolding made from eucalyptus trees

by Samuel Schlaefli | OurWorld 2.0 | March 12, 2012

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Mexico withers under worst drought in 71 years

Some 2.5 million Mexicans are affected by this extreme drought, which could cause widespread hunger for years to come

By Sara Miller Llana | Christian Science Monitor | March 9, 2012

Farmworker Juan Manuel Ramirez in San Luis de la Paz, Mexico, takes a break from irrigating dry land. A drought is affecting agriculture in the state of Guanajuato, one of the biggest growers of produce in the country. Since October 2010, there has been no significant rainfall. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

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Knowledge, technology, and the politics of rice

The current financial crisis in Europe brings out politics as we know it. The political leaders of nation states deliberate lessons from the past and negotiate solutions for a new future

by Harro Matt | Mar 9 2012 by Common Voices in Energy Bulletin | Mar 9 2012

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Water, Energy, Food Security Nexus Conference Publishes Policy Recommendations

The results of the “Bonn2011 Conference: The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus – Solutions for a Green Economy” have been published in the form of a conference synopsis and set of policy recommendations

Climate Change Policy & Practices | 29 February 2012

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The Ooooby Local Economic Model

Ooooby began in December 2008 on Waiheke Island, Auckland, as an online social network of food gardeners. An evolving project, it now also facilitates the distribution of locally grown food

Pete Russell | Fleeing Vesuvius | February 18, 2012

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Large Area of New Guinea Stripped of Protection for Agribusiness

More than 400,000 hectares (1 million acres) of land in Indonesian New Guinea — including 350,000 hectares of carbon-storing peatland — was stripped of its protected status to facilitate the expansion of a government-based agribusiness project, according to a new report

e360 digest | 17 Feb 2012

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Processed food and coronary capitalism

The food industry is characterised by market failures that pass external costs on to consumers and to society

Kenneth Rogoff | Al Jazeera | 11 Feb 2012

More than one in six US children and adolescents are reportedly obese, triple the 1980 rate [GALLO/GETTY]

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Somali famine 'will kill tens of thousands'

The UN in Somalia says tens of thousands of people will have died of starvation by the time the famine in the Horn of Africa ends

BBC News | 15 January 2012

Many Somalis have fled across the border into Ethiopia to seek aid

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Without women there is no food sovereignty

Systems of food production and consumption have always been socially organized, but their organization has varied historically. In the last few decades, under the impact of neoliberal politics, the logic of capitalism has been imposed upon the ways in which food is produced and consumed (Bello, 2009)

by Esther Vivas | Feb 8 2012 by International Viewpoint in Energy Bulletin | Feb 8 2012

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Will REDD benefit Papua’s Indigenous Peoples?

In 2007, Barnabas Suebu, the Governor of Papua, was named as one ofTime magazine’s Heroes of the Environment. “We have to save the forests before it is too late. If we do that, we can help save the planet and alleviate poverty at the same time,” Suebu said

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 8th February 2012

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The future of food

By 2050 there will be another 2.5 billion people on the planet. How to feed them? Science's answer: a diet of algae, insects and meat grown in a lab

John Vidal | The Observer | 22 January 2012

Seaweed harvesting in Bali. From seaweed to slime, algae is the future of food, says Professor Mark Edwards Photograph: Ed Wray/AP

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FAO-EC project to promote climate-smart farming

Malawi, Vietnam and Zambia will benefit from collaborative effort

FAO | 16 January 2012

Farmers participating in an FAO land and water management project in Guthi, India, check a new drip irrigation system

 

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