Op-Ed: Progress in pest prevention offers hope for Africa’s food security
Food and nutrition insecurity is a chronic problem for Africa. Despite decades of humanitarian and development efforts, one in five Africans remain undernourished and a third of Africa’s children are stunted.
One little-known crop that is essential to food security on the continent is amaranth. This leafy green vegetable is one of the most consumed in Africa and accounts for up to 25 per cent of daily protein intake in some countries, making it essential to their health and wellbeing.
What’s more, it is a plant that is quick to grow, thanks to its highly efficient photosynthesis process, and which thrives on degraded land even in hot and dry weather, making it an increasingly important crop to mitigate the impact of climate change on food production.
But one threat that holds back amaranth from making an even greater contribution to Africa’s food security is the amaranthus leaf webber, a species of moth that is commonly found in the tropics. The webber larvae are voracious pests, and a single leaf webber infestation can destroy an entire field of amaranth.
To prevent an infestation and protect their amaranth harvest, farmers rely on pesticides. However, long-term pesticide use comes with challenges, including the development of resistance among leaf webbers.
So, what if farmers had another tool to stop this pest?
More....
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/west-af ... -security/
WORLD FOOD AND WATER CRISIS
Op-Ed: The best hope for solving the global water crisis
The United Nations defines access to safe drinking water as a basic human right, but according to their newest report, three out of ten—or 2.1 billion people—still lack access to it. Water may be life, but unfortunately it’s not free.
Governments and development organizations have spent billions of dollars over the past several decades in an attempt to address this inequity in low- and middle-income countries, but the unfortunate reality is that many of these efforts have fallen flat. The United States, for example, has spent more than $360 million on rural water supply schemes in Africa and other regions that have broken down and no longer work. When outside actors provide communities with resources like wells and water treatment infrastructure, too often no sustainable mechanism exists to maintain them. And even if they don’t break down, donated solutions are inherently unscalable.
So how do you create a solution that sticks? In our research, we’ve found that it starts with innovators and entrepreneurs who create robust markets that serve people who are currently unable to access water. These new markets provide the necessary resources to make safe water not only affordable and accessible, but also financially sustainable since they generate revenue that can then be used to maintain and grow the market. Consider how these two organizations, each with different business models, have created viable, lasting solutions that address the access to water challenge in the regions where they operate.
Drinkwell: Developing technology for safe water
Manila Water: A public-private partnership that works
Details and more....
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/special ... er-crisis/
The United Nations defines access to safe drinking water as a basic human right, but according to their newest report, three out of ten—or 2.1 billion people—still lack access to it. Water may be life, but unfortunately it’s not free.
Governments and development organizations have spent billions of dollars over the past several decades in an attempt to address this inequity in low- and middle-income countries, but the unfortunate reality is that many of these efforts have fallen flat. The United States, for example, has spent more than $360 million on rural water supply schemes in Africa and other regions that have broken down and no longer work. When outside actors provide communities with resources like wells and water treatment infrastructure, too often no sustainable mechanism exists to maintain them. And even if they don’t break down, donated solutions are inherently unscalable.
So how do you create a solution that sticks? In our research, we’ve found that it starts with innovators and entrepreneurs who create robust markets that serve people who are currently unable to access water. These new markets provide the necessary resources to make safe water not only affordable and accessible, but also financially sustainable since they generate revenue that can then be used to maintain and grow the market. Consider how these two organizations, each with different business models, have created viable, lasting solutions that address the access to water challenge in the regions where they operate.
Drinkwell: Developing technology for safe water
Manila Water: A public-private partnership that works
Details and more....
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/special ... er-crisis/
Africa’s farmers need better seeds
But governments are getting in their way
Acentury ago American crop scientists began experimenting with the plant known there as corn, and elsewhere as maize. They discovered that by crossing two inbred strains they could create seeds that would consistently grow better than either of the parent plants. It was the beginning of a seed revolution. By the 1940s American agricultural productivity was shooting up; by the 1960s Asia had joined the race, thanks to improved varieties of rice and wheat.
In most of the world, the green revolution continues. Open an American seed catalogue today and you will see dozens of varieties of each plant, many of them labelled “new” to show that they have been released or improved somehow just in the past year.
But on one continent, it never quite happened. African farmers still tend to use open-pollinated seeds held back from the previous year’s crop or commercial hybrids that were developed years ago. That’s one of the main reasons for the continent’s chronically low productivity. The average field planted with maize—Africa’s most important crop, which supplies 30% of people’s calories in some countries—yields a third as much as a Chinese maize field of the same size and just a fifth as much as an American one.
The problem is not a paucity of science. Although crop research in Africa is not as well funded as it is in rich countries, there is enough public and private investment to ensure a stream of new seeds to suit local soils and climates. Nor is the problem ideology. African governments have mostly ignored the arguments, from some charities, that old-fashioned farming is best and that wicked, profit-seeking seed firms should be barred. They know that modern seeds make farming more productive.
The problem is that government policies prevent farmers from getting good seeds. Many insist on lengthy field trials and obstruct the approval of seeds that have already been certified for planting elsewhere. As a result, those on the market are always several years behind the scientific cutting edge. It need not be so. Zambia has liberalised its certification system, including by allowing seed companies to inspect themselves. In the past two decades, maize productivity there has doubled.
More...
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/ ... a/317820/n
But governments are getting in their way
Acentury ago American crop scientists began experimenting with the plant known there as corn, and elsewhere as maize. They discovered that by crossing two inbred strains they could create seeds that would consistently grow better than either of the parent plants. It was the beginning of a seed revolution. By the 1940s American agricultural productivity was shooting up; by the 1960s Asia had joined the race, thanks to improved varieties of rice and wheat.
In most of the world, the green revolution continues. Open an American seed catalogue today and you will see dozens of varieties of each plant, many of them labelled “new” to show that they have been released or improved somehow just in the past year.
But on one continent, it never quite happened. African farmers still tend to use open-pollinated seeds held back from the previous year’s crop or commercial hybrids that were developed years ago. That’s one of the main reasons for the continent’s chronically low productivity. The average field planted with maize—Africa’s most important crop, which supplies 30% of people’s calories in some countries—yields a third as much as a Chinese maize field of the same size and just a fifth as much as an American one.
The problem is not a paucity of science. Although crop research in Africa is not as well funded as it is in rich countries, there is enough public and private investment to ensure a stream of new seeds to suit local soils and climates. Nor is the problem ideology. African governments have mostly ignored the arguments, from some charities, that old-fashioned farming is best and that wicked, profit-seeking seed firms should be barred. They know that modern seeds make farming more productive.
The problem is that government policies prevent farmers from getting good seeds. Many insist on lengthy field trials and obstruct the approval of seeds that have already been certified for planting elsewhere. As a result, those on the market are always several years behind the scientific cutting edge. It need not be so. Zambia has liberalised its certification system, including by allowing seed companies to inspect themselves. In the past two decades, maize productivity there has doubled.
More...
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/ ... a/317820/n
Why eating bugs is so popular in Congo
The creepy superfood is rich in protein and magnesium
At a market in Goma, a city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, an old woman pulls the wings off live grasshoppers and tosses their wriggling bodies into a bucket. She collected the insects from the airport at 5am that morning, and will go back the next day. Grasshopper season has just begun.
Throughout November dozens of grasshopper-hunters gather at Goma airport most mornings. It is one of the few buildings in the city with constant electricity, and the lights that mark the runway attract swarms of the bug. People stuff them into plastic bottles to take to market. Buyers season them with salt and eat them with rice or cassava.
Selling insects is more lucrative than selling fruit. A small pile of grasshoppers fetches the equivalent of $0.60 (Congo’s gdp per person is $562). Gathering them costs nothing but time. Caterpillars are more valuable still. Once they are boiled and salted, a large handful will sell for $1.20—the same price as ten bananas. Households in Kinshasa, the country’s sprawling capital, consume about 300 grams of caterpillars (about 80, if they are averagely juicy) a week.
The Congolese have been eating bugs for centuries. People say caterpillars, in particular, are not just tasty but healthy. “Our ancestors taught us to eat them to protect us from illnesses,” says Leonie Lukambala, a seller. She believes they can even help people infected with hiv.
Caterpillars are packed with potassium, calcium and magnesium. A hundred grams of them will provide a person with the required daily intake of each of these minerals. They are richer in protein than beef or fish. A handful is packed with about 500 calories, more than are in a fast-food cheeseburger. But that is a boon, not a drawback, in a country that suffers from one of the world’s highest rates of malnutrition.
Others around the world should catch up. Bug farming takes up less land, requires less food and does less damage to the environment than meat or fish farming. Crickets, for example, need 12 times less food than cattle to produce the same amount of protein. Bugs can even be fed farm and kitchen waste, such as rotten fruit and vegetables.
Hunting insects is easy, too. Anyone can wander into the forest—or, indeed, to the airport—and gather caterpillars, ants and grasshoppers. But that can also lead to bad outcomes. The wrong variety of insect can poison consumers. Mrs Lukambala says she knows which caterpillars to pick because her family has gathered them for generations (the safe kind have red heads and fall out of trees). Your correspondent tried a sample: it was brittle and had a smoky taste. Add one more to the 2bn people worldwide who chomp insects.
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-a ... a/344935/n
The creepy superfood is rich in protein and magnesium
At a market in Goma, a city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, an old woman pulls the wings off live grasshoppers and tosses their wriggling bodies into a bucket. She collected the insects from the airport at 5am that morning, and will go back the next day. Grasshopper season has just begun.
Throughout November dozens of grasshopper-hunters gather at Goma airport most mornings. It is one of the few buildings in the city with constant electricity, and the lights that mark the runway attract swarms of the bug. People stuff them into plastic bottles to take to market. Buyers season them with salt and eat them with rice or cassava.
Selling insects is more lucrative than selling fruit. A small pile of grasshoppers fetches the equivalent of $0.60 (Congo’s gdp per person is $562). Gathering them costs nothing but time. Caterpillars are more valuable still. Once they are boiled and salted, a large handful will sell for $1.20—the same price as ten bananas. Households in Kinshasa, the country’s sprawling capital, consume about 300 grams of caterpillars (about 80, if they are averagely juicy) a week.
The Congolese have been eating bugs for centuries. People say caterpillars, in particular, are not just tasty but healthy. “Our ancestors taught us to eat them to protect us from illnesses,” says Leonie Lukambala, a seller. She believes they can even help people infected with hiv.
Caterpillars are packed with potassium, calcium and magnesium. A hundred grams of them will provide a person with the required daily intake of each of these minerals. They are richer in protein than beef or fish. A handful is packed with about 500 calories, more than are in a fast-food cheeseburger. But that is a boon, not a drawback, in a country that suffers from one of the world’s highest rates of malnutrition.
Others around the world should catch up. Bug farming takes up less land, requires less food and does less damage to the environment than meat or fish farming. Crickets, for example, need 12 times less food than cattle to produce the same amount of protein. Bugs can even be fed farm and kitchen waste, such as rotten fruit and vegetables.
Hunting insects is easy, too. Anyone can wander into the forest—or, indeed, to the airport—and gather caterpillars, ants and grasshoppers. But that can also lead to bad outcomes. The wrong variety of insect can poison consumers. Mrs Lukambala says she knows which caterpillars to pick because her family has gathered them for generations (the safe kind have red heads and fall out of trees). Your correspondent tried a sample: it was brittle and had a smoky taste. Add one more to the 2bn people worldwide who chomp insects.
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-a ... a/344935/n
Whatever happened to the water wars?
More of them have happened than most people think
THE FORECAST that future wars will be fought over water has been made long enough for it to become both a platitude and subject to doubt. Demand for water has surged because populations have grown and rising prosperity has enabled them to live more water-intensive lives. But supply of the wet stuff is already coming under ever greater pressure, as climate change, crudely put, makes dry places drier.
Yet the great water-based conflicts that were feared—India v Pakistan, Ethiopia v Egypt, Brazil v Paraguay, China v any of the countries downstream from the Himalayas—have not come to pass. Maybe, argue optimists, the world is better at sharing this resource than is often assumed.
This complacent argument ignores two truths apparent from the latest update to the Water Conflict Chronology, a database of water-related conflicts maintained since the 1980s by the Pacific Institute, a think-tank in Oakland, California. First, for as long as human history has been recorded, water has played a role in conflict, even though it has rarely been the sole cause of it. Second, water-related struggles are becoming far more common. Its database includes over 900 instances, and shows a clear acceleration in recent years.
The institute distinguishes between three types of violence. Sometimes water itself can be used as a weapon, as when the Spartans poisoned the drinking water in Athens in the second year of the Peloponnesian war, in 430BC. Or, just last year, al-Shabaab, a terrorist group, diverted water from the Jubba river in Somalia, causing a flood that forced opposing forces to move to higher ground, where they were ambushed.
Sometimes water is the trigger. Fighting over grazing land in central Mali this year has led to massacres and the displacement of 50,000 people. Ariel Sharon, an Israeli commander in the six-day war of 1967 who went on to become prime minister, wrote that the war really started when Israel was provoked by the diversion of the Jordan river.
Third, water installations can also be the target of military action. The institute notes that the large number of new additions to its chronology results in part from more comprehensive data collection. But it also reflects a big increase in attacks on civilian water systems. Indeed, almost wherever there has been warfare this year, water installations have been in the cross-hairs—in Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, for example.
Most water conflicts are subnational disputes. But a study last year by the Joint Research Centre, a think-tank under the European Commission, used computer modelling to rank the rivers where cross-border water disputes are most likely to flare up. Its scientists listed five: the Colorado, Ganges-Brahmaputra, Indus, Nile and Tigris-Euphrates. In all these instances, downstream nations fear or resent the effect on their waters of the actions of upstream countries.
So, whatever happened to the water wars? The answer is that they continued—and that repeated forecasts did nothing to reduce the risk of bigger conflicts.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... water-wars
More of them have happened than most people think
THE FORECAST that future wars will be fought over water has been made long enough for it to become both a platitude and subject to doubt. Demand for water has surged because populations have grown and rising prosperity has enabled them to live more water-intensive lives. But supply of the wet stuff is already coming under ever greater pressure, as climate change, crudely put, makes dry places drier.
Yet the great water-based conflicts that were feared—India v Pakistan, Ethiopia v Egypt, Brazil v Paraguay, China v any of the countries downstream from the Himalayas—have not come to pass. Maybe, argue optimists, the world is better at sharing this resource than is often assumed.
This complacent argument ignores two truths apparent from the latest update to the Water Conflict Chronology, a database of water-related conflicts maintained since the 1980s by the Pacific Institute, a think-tank in Oakland, California. First, for as long as human history has been recorded, water has played a role in conflict, even though it has rarely been the sole cause of it. Second, water-related struggles are becoming far more common. Its database includes over 900 instances, and shows a clear acceleration in recent years.
The institute distinguishes between three types of violence. Sometimes water itself can be used as a weapon, as when the Spartans poisoned the drinking water in Athens in the second year of the Peloponnesian war, in 430BC. Or, just last year, al-Shabaab, a terrorist group, diverted water from the Jubba river in Somalia, causing a flood that forced opposing forces to move to higher ground, where they were ambushed.
Sometimes water is the trigger. Fighting over grazing land in central Mali this year has led to massacres and the displacement of 50,000 people. Ariel Sharon, an Israeli commander in the six-day war of 1967 who went on to become prime minister, wrote that the war really started when Israel was provoked by the diversion of the Jordan river.
Third, water installations can also be the target of military action. The institute notes that the large number of new additions to its chronology results in part from more comprehensive data collection. But it also reflects a big increase in attacks on civilian water systems. Indeed, almost wherever there has been warfare this year, water installations have been in the cross-hairs—in Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, for example.
Most water conflicts are subnational disputes. But a study last year by the Joint Research Centre, a think-tank under the European Commission, used computer modelling to rank the rivers where cross-border water disputes are most likely to flare up. Its scientists listed five: the Colorado, Ganges-Brahmaputra, Indus, Nile and Tigris-Euphrates. In all these instances, downstream nations fear or resent the effect on their waters of the actions of upstream countries.
So, whatever happened to the water wars? The answer is that they continued—and that repeated forecasts did nothing to reduce the risk of bigger conflicts.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... water-wars
Throughout India, the number of days with very heavy rains has increased over the last century.
At the same time, the dry spells between storms have gotten longer. Showers that reliably penetrate the soil are less common.
For a country that relies on rain for the vast share of its water, that combination is potentially ruinous.
India’s Ominous Future: Too Little Water, or Far Too Much
Decades of short-sighted government policies are leaving millions defenseless in the age of climate disruptions – especially the country’s poor.
THE MONSOON IS CENTRAL TO INDIAN LIFE AND LORE. It turns up in ancient Sanskrit poetry and in Bollywood films. It shapes the fortunes of millions of farmers who rely on the rains to nourish their fields. It governs what you eat. It even has its own music.
Climate change is now messing with the monsoon, making seasonal rains more intense and less predictable. Worse, decades of short-sighted government policies are leaving millions of Indians defenseless in the age of climate disruptions – especially the poor.
After years of drought, a struggling farmer named Fakir Mohammed stares at a field of corn ruined by pests and unseasonably late rains. Rajeshree Chavan, a seamstress in Mumbai, has to sweep the sludge out of her flooded ground floor apartment not once, but twice during this year’s exceptionally fierce monsoon. The lakes that once held the rains in the bursting city of Bangalore are clogged with plastic and sewage. Groundwater is drawn faster than nature can replenish it.
Interactive and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... 3053091126
At the same time, the dry spells between storms have gotten longer. Showers that reliably penetrate the soil are less common.
For a country that relies on rain for the vast share of its water, that combination is potentially ruinous.
India’s Ominous Future: Too Little Water, or Far Too Much
Decades of short-sighted government policies are leaving millions defenseless in the age of climate disruptions – especially the country’s poor.
THE MONSOON IS CENTRAL TO INDIAN LIFE AND LORE. It turns up in ancient Sanskrit poetry and in Bollywood films. It shapes the fortunes of millions of farmers who rely on the rains to nourish their fields. It governs what you eat. It even has its own music.
Climate change is now messing with the monsoon, making seasonal rains more intense and less predictable. Worse, decades of short-sighted government policies are leaving millions of Indians defenseless in the age of climate disruptions – especially the poor.
After years of drought, a struggling farmer named Fakir Mohammed stares at a field of corn ruined by pests and unseasonably late rains. Rajeshree Chavan, a seamstress in Mumbai, has to sweep the sludge out of her flooded ground floor apartment not once, but twice during this year’s exceptionally fierce monsoon. The lakes that once held the rains in the bursting city of Bangalore are clogged with plastic and sewage. Groundwater is drawn faster than nature can replenish it.
Interactive and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... 3053091126
This project in Africa promotes edible insects, here’s why
There is a wealth of indigenous knowledge about capturing and eating insects in sub-Saharan Africa. But the development of edible insects as a food industry has been very slow, despite its many potential benefits.
Sustainability is one. Insects have a small carbon and water footprint. Studies show that insect farming emits less carbon and methane gas than large livestock like cattle and pigs. Much less water is needed to produce the same amount of protein. Insects use feed more efficiently than other sources of animal protein. Farming them could be a new source of jobs and income.
There should be more awareness and promotion of insects as food for humans and as feed for animals, especially at the policy, legislative and business level. In most African nations, edible insects are still viewed as an insignificant source of food and even, in some instances, as food for the poor. There are very few success stories of large-scale insect farming and industrial use in Africa.
More...
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/special ... heres-why/
There is a wealth of indigenous knowledge about capturing and eating insects in sub-Saharan Africa. But the development of edible insects as a food industry has been very slow, despite its many potential benefits.
Sustainability is one. Insects have a small carbon and water footprint. Studies show that insect farming emits less carbon and methane gas than large livestock like cattle and pigs. Much less water is needed to produce the same amount of protein. Insects use feed more efficiently than other sources of animal protein. Farming them could be a new source of jobs and income.
There should be more awareness and promotion of insects as food for humans and as feed for animals, especially at the policy, legislative and business level. In most African nations, edible insects are still viewed as an insignificant source of food and even, in some instances, as food for the poor. There are very few success stories of large-scale insect farming and industrial use in Africa.
More...
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/special ... heres-why/
In the future there will be more rain but less water in the Nile Basin, what can be done?
High resolution satellite image of the Nile River’s delta. Shutterstock/TommoT
The Nile – the world’s longest river – runs through 11 countries in Africa and has a basin that covers about 3 million sq kms, nearly 10% of the continent’s landmass. About 250 million people are reliant on the Nile’s waters in Ethiopia, Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.
Nearly all of the rainfall that feeds the Nile’s two major tributaries – the Blue and White Nile – falls in the upper Nile basin, found in South Sudan, western Ethiopia and Uganda. The lower Nile basin receives very little rainfall and the countries there – Sudan and Egypt – depend heavily on the Nile for water.
Climate projections suggest that, by the end of the century, the amount of rain in the Upper Nile basin could increase by up to 20%. But our new paper shows that, despite more rainfall, devastating hot and dry spells are projected to become more frequent in the Upper Nile basin.
These conditions will occur simultaneously with the region’s rapid population growth, anticipated to double by the middle of this century. This will increase water stress in the region, irrespective of the modest rainfall increases.
At present, around 10% of the basin’s population faces chronic water scarcity due to the region’s seasonal aridity and the highly unequal distribution of water resources. By 2040, according to our research – in a year with average temperatures and rain – the number of people facing water scarcity could reach 35%. That’s more than 80 million people without enough water to function in their daily lives.
What can be done and more....
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/special ... n-be-done/
High resolution satellite image of the Nile River’s delta. Shutterstock/TommoT
The Nile – the world’s longest river – runs through 11 countries in Africa and has a basin that covers about 3 million sq kms, nearly 10% of the continent’s landmass. About 250 million people are reliant on the Nile’s waters in Ethiopia, Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.
Nearly all of the rainfall that feeds the Nile’s two major tributaries – the Blue and White Nile – falls in the upper Nile basin, found in South Sudan, western Ethiopia and Uganda. The lower Nile basin receives very little rainfall and the countries there – Sudan and Egypt – depend heavily on the Nile for water.
Climate projections suggest that, by the end of the century, the amount of rain in the Upper Nile basin could increase by up to 20%. But our new paper shows that, despite more rainfall, devastating hot and dry spells are projected to become more frequent in the Upper Nile basin.
These conditions will occur simultaneously with the region’s rapid population growth, anticipated to double by the middle of this century. This will increase water stress in the region, irrespective of the modest rainfall increases.
At present, around 10% of the basin’s population faces chronic water scarcity due to the region’s seasonal aridity and the highly unequal distribution of water resources. By 2040, according to our research – in a year with average temperatures and rain – the number of people facing water scarcity could reach 35%. That’s more than 80 million people without enough water to function in their daily lives.
What can be done and more....
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/special ... n-be-done/
UN food agency says record 45 million people across Southern Africa face hunger
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 16 (Reuters) – The United Nations World Food Programme said on Thursday that a record 45 million people in the 16-nation Southern African Development Community faced growing hunger following repeated drought, widespread flooding and economic disarray.
Southern Africa is in the grips of a severe drought, as climate change wreaks havoc in impoverished countries already struggling to cope with extreme natural disasters, such as Cyclone Idai which devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in 2019.
Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of southern Africa, is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a decade, marked by soaring inflation and shortages of food, fuel, medicines and electricity.
“This hunger crisis is on a scale we’ve not seen before and the evidence shows it’s going to get worse,” the WFP’s Regional Director for Southern Africa, Lola Castro, said in a statement.
“The annual cyclone season has begun and we simply cannot afford a repeat of the devastation caused by last year’s unprecedented storms.”
The agency plans to provide “lean season” assistance to 8.3 million people grappling with “crisis” or “emergency” levels of hunger in eight of the hardest-hit countries, which include Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini and Malawi.
To date, WFP has secured just $205 million of the $489 million required for this assistance and has been forced to resort heavily to internal borrowing to ensure food reaches those in need, it said.
In December, the United Nations said it was procuring food assistance for 4.1 million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the population of a country where shortages are being exacerbated by runaway inflation and climate-induced drought.
“Zimbabwe is in the throes of its worst hunger emergency in a decade, with 7.7 million people – half the population – seriously food insecure,” the agency said.
In Zambia and drought-stricken Lesotho, 20% of the population faces a food crisis, as do 10% of Namibians.
Castro said that if the agency does not receive the necessary funding, it will have no choice but to assist fewer of those most in need and with less.
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/special ... ce-hunger/
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 16 (Reuters) – The United Nations World Food Programme said on Thursday that a record 45 million people in the 16-nation Southern African Development Community faced growing hunger following repeated drought, widespread flooding and economic disarray.
Southern Africa is in the grips of a severe drought, as climate change wreaks havoc in impoverished countries already struggling to cope with extreme natural disasters, such as Cyclone Idai which devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in 2019.
Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of southern Africa, is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a decade, marked by soaring inflation and shortages of food, fuel, medicines and electricity.
“This hunger crisis is on a scale we’ve not seen before and the evidence shows it’s going to get worse,” the WFP’s Regional Director for Southern Africa, Lola Castro, said in a statement.
“The annual cyclone season has begun and we simply cannot afford a repeat of the devastation caused by last year’s unprecedented storms.”
The agency plans to provide “lean season” assistance to 8.3 million people grappling with “crisis” or “emergency” levels of hunger in eight of the hardest-hit countries, which include Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini and Malawi.
To date, WFP has secured just $205 million of the $489 million required for this assistance and has been forced to resort heavily to internal borrowing to ensure food reaches those in need, it said.
In December, the United Nations said it was procuring food assistance for 4.1 million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the population of a country where shortages are being exacerbated by runaway inflation and climate-induced drought.
“Zimbabwe is in the throes of its worst hunger emergency in a decade, with 7.7 million people – half the population – seriously food insecure,” the agency said.
In Zambia and drought-stricken Lesotho, 20% of the population faces a food crisis, as do 10% of Namibians.
Castro said that if the agency does not receive the necessary funding, it will have no choice but to assist fewer of those most in need and with less.
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/special ... ce-hunger/
Ambuj Ranjan: Using science to quench thirsts in Kilifi, Kenya
Water connects every aspect of life. Access to safe water and sanitation can quickly turn problems into potential – empowering people with time for school and work, and contributing to improved health for women, children and families around the world.
According to Water.org, a nonprofit organisation that aims to bring clean water and sanitation around the world, 41 per cent of the 50 million people in Kenya are continuing to rely on unimproved water sources, such as rivers, ponds and shallow wells. This is mainly seen in rural areas, such as the Junju settlement in Kilifi, Kenya, which caught Ambuj Ranjan’s attention. Through his mother who is researching Junju for her PhD, Ambuj, a Diploma Programme 2 student at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, learnt how the people of Junju were drinking untreated water. This, he said, compelled him to find a solution to support the people in Junju with clean and safe drinking water.
“It was only when I visited the village personally that I understood how challenging the living conditions were” Ambuj said. “I had to do something, even if it was something small-scale.”
Using cost-effective and easily available materials like gravel, stone chips, sand and activated charcoal, Ambuj created a water-filtration system that purifies contaminated water to be drinkable. Tested and declared fit for consumption by in independent laboratory, river water takes four hours to seep through and be made clear when added to the filtration system. Following positive feedback from the people of Junju, Ambuj went on to send four additional filtration systems, which are now being used by roughly 60 people in four dwellings in the area.
“The filtration system is a very new thing to the people of Junju,” Ambuj said. “They’re used to drinking poor quality water that is murky, and when they saw water that was actually transparent, their expression was something that can’t be put into words.”
In a letter of appreciation, the Assistant Chief of Junju thanked Ambuj on behalf of the community who benefited from his 18.5-litre water filters and wished him the best of luck for his future endeavours.
aka-kenya-img_8918_r.jpg
Ambuj Ranjan, a student at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, with a member of the Junju settlement in Kenya and his water filtration system.
AKDN
“The community is thankful for his project and his efforts to the Junju community,” the letter said. “We found this project to be very interesting and wish (Ambuj) all the best.”
Collaborating with his brother and teachers, Ambuj said he hopes to further his research in order to provide sustainable, cost effective and portable versions of this filtration system to the people of Junju. His science teachers and mentors, Charles Gumba and Lucy Mwandawiro, said Ambuj emulates various Aga Khan Academies Learner Profiles, specifically that of a leader and steward.
“I think what is outstanding about Ambuj is the way that he has taken his learning and made it come alive by taking it back to the community,” Lucy said. “This project was just his own initiative – he’s not being assessed anywhere, which is amazing. I guided him to think through the filtration process, such as what kind of filter to use and where to get the water tested so it’s acceptable. I think for him, growing up as a person, he’s very passionate about society and wants to bring change, and he’s going out of his busy schedule to do so.”
In the meantime, Ambuj is tracking the progress of his project with the support of two residents from Junju, who have reported that the systems are being used regularly with proper care. Ambuj said the community has also been trained to harvest rainwater and have been informed about the importance of using water sanitation systems for day-to-day activities. While he is constantly receiving positive feedback about the filtration system, Ambuj said that tackling the issue of water sanitation is only the first step in addressing other problems concerning education, health and overall quality of life.
Ambuj is a student at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, a programme of the Aga Khan Development Network, and was the first school in a network that plans to include 18 Academies across 14 countries around the world. The Aga Khan Academy Mombasa is an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School, offering an IB curriculum that is locally rooted and globally relevant. Admission to the Academy is needs-blind and based upon merit. For further information on the Academy, visit: http://www.agakhanacademies.org/mombasa
https://www.akdn.org/our-stories/ambuj- ... lifi-kenya
Water connects every aspect of life. Access to safe water and sanitation can quickly turn problems into potential – empowering people with time for school and work, and contributing to improved health for women, children and families around the world.
According to Water.org, a nonprofit organisation that aims to bring clean water and sanitation around the world, 41 per cent of the 50 million people in Kenya are continuing to rely on unimproved water sources, such as rivers, ponds and shallow wells. This is mainly seen in rural areas, such as the Junju settlement in Kilifi, Kenya, which caught Ambuj Ranjan’s attention. Through his mother who is researching Junju for her PhD, Ambuj, a Diploma Programme 2 student at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, learnt how the people of Junju were drinking untreated water. This, he said, compelled him to find a solution to support the people in Junju with clean and safe drinking water.
“It was only when I visited the village personally that I understood how challenging the living conditions were” Ambuj said. “I had to do something, even if it was something small-scale.”
Using cost-effective and easily available materials like gravel, stone chips, sand and activated charcoal, Ambuj created a water-filtration system that purifies contaminated water to be drinkable. Tested and declared fit for consumption by in independent laboratory, river water takes four hours to seep through and be made clear when added to the filtration system. Following positive feedback from the people of Junju, Ambuj went on to send four additional filtration systems, which are now being used by roughly 60 people in four dwellings in the area.
“The filtration system is a very new thing to the people of Junju,” Ambuj said. “They’re used to drinking poor quality water that is murky, and when they saw water that was actually transparent, their expression was something that can’t be put into words.”
In a letter of appreciation, the Assistant Chief of Junju thanked Ambuj on behalf of the community who benefited from his 18.5-litre water filters and wished him the best of luck for his future endeavours.
aka-kenya-img_8918_r.jpg
Ambuj Ranjan, a student at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, with a member of the Junju settlement in Kenya and his water filtration system.
AKDN
“The community is thankful for his project and his efforts to the Junju community,” the letter said. “We found this project to be very interesting and wish (Ambuj) all the best.”
Collaborating with his brother and teachers, Ambuj said he hopes to further his research in order to provide sustainable, cost effective and portable versions of this filtration system to the people of Junju. His science teachers and mentors, Charles Gumba and Lucy Mwandawiro, said Ambuj emulates various Aga Khan Academies Learner Profiles, specifically that of a leader and steward.
“I think what is outstanding about Ambuj is the way that he has taken his learning and made it come alive by taking it back to the community,” Lucy said. “This project was just his own initiative – he’s not being assessed anywhere, which is amazing. I guided him to think through the filtration process, such as what kind of filter to use and where to get the water tested so it’s acceptable. I think for him, growing up as a person, he’s very passionate about society and wants to bring change, and he’s going out of his busy schedule to do so.”
In the meantime, Ambuj is tracking the progress of his project with the support of two residents from Junju, who have reported that the systems are being used regularly with proper care. Ambuj said the community has also been trained to harvest rainwater and have been informed about the importance of using water sanitation systems for day-to-day activities. While he is constantly receiving positive feedback about the filtration system, Ambuj said that tackling the issue of water sanitation is only the first step in addressing other problems concerning education, health and overall quality of life.
Ambuj is a student at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, a programme of the Aga Khan Development Network, and was the first school in a network that plans to include 18 Academies across 14 countries around the world. The Aga Khan Academy Mombasa is an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School, offering an IB curriculum that is locally rooted and globally relevant. Admission to the Academy is needs-blind and based upon merit. For further information on the Academy, visit: http://www.agakhanacademies.org/mombasa
https://www.akdn.org/our-stories/ambuj- ... lifi-kenya
Lake Victoria could dry up again like it did 100,000 years ago
Excerpt:
Today about 30 million people in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania rely on the lake for fishing, irrigation and, in Uganda, electricity. Inadequate and conflicting data on long term weather trends make it hard to be conclusive. And we can’t be sure of how climate will change in the future due to human actions without more data. Over the past few decades, the frequency of drought in East Africa has increased but climate models project an overall increase in rainfall over the next century for this area. Previous studies on Lake Victoria’s future water levels have been done, but didn’t have evidence for past changes in rainfall or include orbital forcing. Based on historical and geologic observations, our findings show that Lake Victoria can dry up very quickly with small decreases in annual rainfall. Knowing whether rainfall is going to increase or decrease over the next 100 years becomes very important.
Today about 30 million people in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania rely on the lake for fishing, irrigation, drinking water and, in Uganda, electricity. Lake Victoria is also the source of one of the River Nile’s major tributaries, the White Nile. About 250 million people rely on the Nile in Ethiopia, Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.
Huge population growth is expected in the region. All these people will increasingly rely on the lake because the region is warming and may receive less annual rainfall due to global climate change.
More and slide show:
Related: It's dry out there - drought around the world (Photos)
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topst ... =AAaUqxq|1
Excerpt:
Today about 30 million people in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania rely on the lake for fishing, irrigation and, in Uganda, electricity. Inadequate and conflicting data on long term weather trends make it hard to be conclusive. And we can’t be sure of how climate will change in the future due to human actions without more data. Over the past few decades, the frequency of drought in East Africa has increased but climate models project an overall increase in rainfall over the next century for this area. Previous studies on Lake Victoria’s future water levels have been done, but didn’t have evidence for past changes in rainfall or include orbital forcing. Based on historical and geologic observations, our findings show that Lake Victoria can dry up very quickly with small decreases in annual rainfall. Knowing whether rainfall is going to increase or decrease over the next 100 years becomes very important.
Today about 30 million people in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania rely on the lake for fishing, irrigation, drinking water and, in Uganda, electricity. Lake Victoria is also the source of one of the River Nile’s major tributaries, the White Nile. About 250 million people rely on the Nile in Ethiopia, Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.
Huge population growth is expected in the region. All these people will increasingly rely on the lake because the region is warming and may receive less annual rainfall due to global climate change.
More and slide show:
Related: It's dry out there - drought around the world (Photos)
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topst ... =AAaUqxq|1
40% of food in America ends up in the trash. Is nanopackaging the answer
Consumer habits aren’t enough to curb the impacts of food waste — packaging companies have the opportunity to make a big difference
It’s Sunday night and you decide to make a quick run to the grocery store. You grab five bananas — one for each breakfast of the work week. Then, at home, you immediately throw two of the bananas into the trash.
Who would buy fresh food and throw 40% of it away?
Americans, on average, every day. This 40% represents the overall rate of food waste in the United States. That amount of waste is the same whether you throw the bananas away immediately upon returning from the supermarket or let them brown and attract fruit flies next to the toaster. And the problem isn’t just at the consumer level; farmers, grocers, restaurants, and other businesses where food waste is rampant are huge contributors as well.
In the US, our inability to distribute food appropriately has far-reaching effects. While food spoils regularly during its processing, transportation, and storage, 37 million people — including more than 11 million children — struggle with hunger nationally. That’s 11.5% of all adults in the U.S. facing food insecurity, worrying about how they will afford enough food to get them through to payday or the next set of food stamps. Meanwhile the water, land, and energy invested at every step from seed to grocery shelf is wasted along with the spent food it produced. This food also makes up 15.1% of solid waste in households and therefore represents a significant fraction of the overall burden placed on local municipal waste management programs. Better packaging for certain foods that spoil quickly could save the day.
More...
https://massivesci.com/articles/nanotec ... -plastics/
Consumer habits aren’t enough to curb the impacts of food waste — packaging companies have the opportunity to make a big difference
It’s Sunday night and you decide to make a quick run to the grocery store. You grab five bananas — one for each breakfast of the work week. Then, at home, you immediately throw two of the bananas into the trash.
Who would buy fresh food and throw 40% of it away?
Americans, on average, every day. This 40% represents the overall rate of food waste in the United States. That amount of waste is the same whether you throw the bananas away immediately upon returning from the supermarket or let them brown and attract fruit flies next to the toaster. And the problem isn’t just at the consumer level; farmers, grocers, restaurants, and other businesses where food waste is rampant are huge contributors as well.
In the US, our inability to distribute food appropriately has far-reaching effects. While food spoils regularly during its processing, transportation, and storage, 37 million people — including more than 11 million children — struggle with hunger nationally. That’s 11.5% of all adults in the U.S. facing food insecurity, worrying about how they will afford enough food to get them through to payday or the next set of food stamps. Meanwhile the water, land, and energy invested at every step from seed to grocery shelf is wasted along with the spent food it produced. This food also makes up 15.1% of solid waste in households and therefore represents a significant fraction of the overall burden placed on local municipal waste management programs. Better packaging for certain foods that spoil quickly could save the day.
More...
https://massivesci.com/articles/nanotec ... -plastics/
Without the Nile, there is no Egypt.
Egyptians have been the masters of the river for thousands of years.
But the Nile has never been under such strain. Pollution, climate change and Egypt’s soaring population are taking an immense toll.
Now Egypt is sparring with Ethiopia over a giant dam being built 2,000 miles upriver. Time is running out. Can they find a solution to avoid a wider conflict?
For Thousands of Years, Egypt Controlled the Nile. A New Dam Threatens That.
Ethiopia is staking its hopes on its $4.5 billion hydroelectric dam. Egypt fears it will cut into its water supplies. President Trump is mediating.
MINYA, Egypt — The Egyptian farmer stood in his dust-blown field, lamenting his fortune. A few years ago, wheat and tomato-filled greenhouses carpeted the land. Now the desert was creeping in.
“Look,” he said, gesturing at the sandy soil and abandoned greenhouses. “Barren.”
The farmer, Hamed Jarallah, attributed his woes to dwindling irrigation from the overtaxed Nile, the fabled river at the heart of Egypt’s very identity. Already, the Nile is under assault from pollution, climate change and Egypt’s growing population, which officially hits 100 million people this month.
And now, Mr. Jarallah added, a fresh calamity loomed.
A colossal hydroelectric dam being built on the Nile 2,000 miles upriver, in the lowlands of Ethiopia, threatens to further constrict Egypt’s water supply — and is scheduled to start filling this summer.
“We’re worried,” he said. “Egypt wouldn’t exist without the Nile. Our livelihood is being destroyed, God help us.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... e=Homepage
Egyptians have been the masters of the river for thousands of years.
But the Nile has never been under such strain. Pollution, climate change and Egypt’s soaring population are taking an immense toll.
Now Egypt is sparring with Ethiopia over a giant dam being built 2,000 miles upriver. Time is running out. Can they find a solution to avoid a wider conflict?
For Thousands of Years, Egypt Controlled the Nile. A New Dam Threatens That.
Ethiopia is staking its hopes on its $4.5 billion hydroelectric dam. Egypt fears it will cut into its water supplies. President Trump is mediating.
MINYA, Egypt — The Egyptian farmer stood in his dust-blown field, lamenting his fortune. A few years ago, wheat and tomato-filled greenhouses carpeted the land. Now the desert was creeping in.
“Look,” he said, gesturing at the sandy soil and abandoned greenhouses. “Barren.”
The farmer, Hamed Jarallah, attributed his woes to dwindling irrigation from the overtaxed Nile, the fabled river at the heart of Egypt’s very identity. Already, the Nile is under assault from pollution, climate change and Egypt’s growing population, which officially hits 100 million people this month.
And now, Mr. Jarallah added, a fresh calamity loomed.
A colossal hydroelectric dam being built on the Nile 2,000 miles upriver, in the lowlands of Ethiopia, threatens to further constrict Egypt’s water supply — and is scheduled to start filling this summer.
“We’re worried,” he said. “Egypt wouldn’t exist without the Nile. Our livelihood is being destroyed, God help us.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... e=Homepage
‘Like an Umbrella Had Covered the Sky’: Locust Swarms Despoil Kenya
At first, villagers thought the dark, dense blot in the sky was a harmless cloud. Then came the terrifying realization that the locusts had arrived.
WAMBA, Kenya — When the dense, dark smudge started blocking out the daytime sky, many in a sleepy pastoralist hamlet in northern Kenya imagined it was a cloud ushering in some welcome, cooling rain.
But the hope soon turned to terror when the giant blot revealed itself as a swarm of fast-moving desert locusts, which have been cutting a path of devastation through Kenya since late December.
The sheer size of the swarm stunned the villagers.
“It was like an umbrella had covered the sky,” said Joseph Katone Leparole, who has lived in the hamlet, Wamba, for most of his 68 years.
When the insects descended, the community quickly gathered to try to scare them off, using one arm to beat them with sticks or bang on metal pots, and the other to cover their faces and eyes as the bright, yellow insects teemed around them.
The children in the local school were shouting with fear, and the animals that the hamlet depends on for their livelihood also were panicking.
“The cows and camels couldn’t see where they were going,” Mr. Leparole said. “It really disturbed us.”
Adding to the fear and confusion: There had been no warning the locusts were on their way.
As the hamlet struggled to repel the surprise invasion, Mr. Leparole was reminded of the stories his parents had told him as a child of the ravenous swarms that once moved through this land.
“What was once a story has become real,” he said on a recent morning, shooing away the locusts that still plagued Wamba, more than a week after they arrived.
Kenya is battling its worst desert locust outbreak in 70 years, and the infestation has spread through much of the eastern part of the continent and the Horn of Africa, razing pasture and croplands in Somalia and Ethiopia and sweeping into South Sudan, Djibouti, Uganda and Tanzania.
The highly mobile creatures can travel over 80 miles a day. Their swarms, which can contain as many as 80 million locust adults in each square kilometer, eat the same amount of food daily as about 35,000 people.
Officials say the infestation poses a risk to food security, undermines economic growth and, if not controlled soon, exacerbate communal conflict over grazing land.
In addition to the 12 million people already experiencing acute food shortages in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, the locust crisis now poses a potential threat to the food security of over 20 million others, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, a U.N. agency.
“The magnitude of the problem is just so big,” said Cyril Ferrand, who leads the organization’s resilience team for eastern Africa. “The locusts are a moving target and we are racing against time.”
Photos and more....
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/worl ... ogin-email
At first, villagers thought the dark, dense blot in the sky was a harmless cloud. Then came the terrifying realization that the locusts had arrived.
WAMBA, Kenya — When the dense, dark smudge started blocking out the daytime sky, many in a sleepy pastoralist hamlet in northern Kenya imagined it was a cloud ushering in some welcome, cooling rain.
But the hope soon turned to terror when the giant blot revealed itself as a swarm of fast-moving desert locusts, which have been cutting a path of devastation through Kenya since late December.
The sheer size of the swarm stunned the villagers.
“It was like an umbrella had covered the sky,” said Joseph Katone Leparole, who has lived in the hamlet, Wamba, for most of his 68 years.
When the insects descended, the community quickly gathered to try to scare them off, using one arm to beat them with sticks or bang on metal pots, and the other to cover their faces and eyes as the bright, yellow insects teemed around them.
The children in the local school were shouting with fear, and the animals that the hamlet depends on for their livelihood also were panicking.
“The cows and camels couldn’t see where they were going,” Mr. Leparole said. “It really disturbed us.”
Adding to the fear and confusion: There had been no warning the locusts were on their way.
As the hamlet struggled to repel the surprise invasion, Mr. Leparole was reminded of the stories his parents had told him as a child of the ravenous swarms that once moved through this land.
“What was once a story has become real,” he said on a recent morning, shooing away the locusts that still plagued Wamba, more than a week after they arrived.
Kenya is battling its worst desert locust outbreak in 70 years, and the infestation has spread through much of the eastern part of the continent and the Horn of Africa, razing pasture and croplands in Somalia and Ethiopia and sweeping into South Sudan, Djibouti, Uganda and Tanzania.
The highly mobile creatures can travel over 80 miles a day. Their swarms, which can contain as many as 80 million locust adults in each square kilometer, eat the same amount of food daily as about 35,000 people.
Officials say the infestation poses a risk to food security, undermines economic growth and, if not controlled soon, exacerbate communal conflict over grazing land.
In addition to the 12 million people already experiencing acute food shortages in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, the locust crisis now poses a potential threat to the food security of over 20 million others, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, a U.N. agency.
“The magnitude of the problem is just so big,” said Cyril Ferrand, who leads the organization’s resilience team for eastern Africa. “The locusts are a moving target and we are racing against time.”
Photos and more....
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/worl ... ogin-email
Army of 100,000 Chinese Ducks Ready to Fight Locust Plague
© Zhu Liurong–China News Service/Visual China Group/Getty Images Vendors sell ducks ahead of Zhongyuan Festival, also known as Ghost Festival, at an agriculture wholesale market on Aug. 13, 2019 in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China.
A troop of special Chinese ducks is waiting to be deployed to neighboring Pakistan to fight a swarm of crop-eating pests that threaten regional food security.
At least 100,000 ducks are expected to be sent to Pakistan as early as the second half of this year to combat a desert locust outbreak, according to Lu Lizhi, a senior researcher with the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The ducks are “biological weapons” and can be more effective than pesticide, said Lu, who is in charge of the project in tandem with a university in Pakistan.
“One duck is able to eat more than 200 locusts a day,” Lu said in a telephone interview on Thursday, citing results of experiments to test the ducks’ searching and predation capabilities.
A trial will start in China’s western region of Xinjiang later this year before the ducks are sent to Pakistan, Lu said.
Swarms of desert locusts have been spreading through countries from eastern Africa to South Asia, destroying crops and pastures at a voracious pace. The pest plague, together with unseasonal rain and a scourge of low quality seeds, has hit major crops in Pakistan’s largest producing regions, weighing on its already fragile economy. And it has also migrated into India.
It will be crucial for China, which shares a land border with Pakistan and India, to prevent an invasion. However, China does have some shield in the form of the Himalaya mountains that stand as a barrier between the Indian subcontinent and the Plateau of Tibet.
A group of Chinese agricultural experts visited Pakistan this week to help control the locust outbreaks as the plague moves eastwards, according to a report posted on the website of China’s consulate-general in Karachi.
To gauge how serious a locust attack can be, look to Africa. The cost of fighting desert locusts in the continent’s east has doubled to $128 million, with more countries being affected each day, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said. The situation remains extremely alarming in the Horn of Africa, while there has been a significant movement of swarms over the Arabian Peninsula that reached both sides of the Persian Gulf, the FAO said in its latest locust watch report.
Video at:
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/ar ... ailsignout
© Zhu Liurong–China News Service/Visual China Group/Getty Images Vendors sell ducks ahead of Zhongyuan Festival, also known as Ghost Festival, at an agriculture wholesale market on Aug. 13, 2019 in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China.
A troop of special Chinese ducks is waiting to be deployed to neighboring Pakistan to fight a swarm of crop-eating pests that threaten regional food security.
At least 100,000 ducks are expected to be sent to Pakistan as early as the second half of this year to combat a desert locust outbreak, according to Lu Lizhi, a senior researcher with the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The ducks are “biological weapons” and can be more effective than pesticide, said Lu, who is in charge of the project in tandem with a university in Pakistan.
“One duck is able to eat more than 200 locusts a day,” Lu said in a telephone interview on Thursday, citing results of experiments to test the ducks’ searching and predation capabilities.
A trial will start in China’s western region of Xinjiang later this year before the ducks are sent to Pakistan, Lu said.
Swarms of desert locusts have been spreading through countries from eastern Africa to South Asia, destroying crops and pastures at a voracious pace. The pest plague, together with unseasonal rain and a scourge of low quality seeds, has hit major crops in Pakistan’s largest producing regions, weighing on its already fragile economy. And it has also migrated into India.
It will be crucial for China, which shares a land border with Pakistan and India, to prevent an invasion. However, China does have some shield in the form of the Himalaya mountains that stand as a barrier between the Indian subcontinent and the Plateau of Tibet.
A group of Chinese agricultural experts visited Pakistan this week to help control the locust outbreaks as the plague moves eastwards, according to a report posted on the website of China’s consulate-general in Karachi.
To gauge how serious a locust attack can be, look to Africa. The cost of fighting desert locusts in the continent’s east has doubled to $128 million, with more countries being affected each day, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said. The situation remains extremely alarming in the Horn of Africa, while there has been a significant movement of swarms over the Arabian Peninsula that reached both sides of the Persian Gulf, the FAO said in its latest locust watch report.
Video at:
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/ar ... ailsignout
While coronavirus is on everyone’s mind, another plague – of locusts – threatens Africa
Robert Rotberg is the founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict, a former senior fellow at CIGI and president emeritus of the World Peace Foundation.
Unceasing civil war, pestilence, drought, floods, HIV/AIDS, drug-resistant TB, and now – blotting out the sky and eating all of their crops – a horde of locusts. Swarms of relentless desert locusts in their buzzing billions are eating their way across all of eastern Africa.
At least 20 million people, and potentially 13 million more, are going hungry. Millions will starve because clouds of approximately 80 million desert locusts per square kilometre are voracious. In one day they consume wheat, barley, sorghum, or maize crops that feed 35,000 people. Masses the size of cities can consume 1.8 million metric tons of vegetation every day – enough to feed 81 million people.
What is more, an apocalypse of locusts can travel 150 kilometres a day, consuming as they go and leaving no subsistence crops, no cash crops (not even cotton), and no fodder for grazing animals in their wake. Already 40 per cent of Ethiopia’s grain has been eaten, just as it was ready for harvest. South Sudan, finally recovering from a seven-year civil war that forfeited 2 million civilian lives, is losing what little food remains available to villagers. Somalia, beset by continuing civil war between al-Qaeda-linked Islamist terrorists and a U.S.- and Turkish-backed federal government, is almost completely devoid of grazing for sheep and goats – one of the impoverished country’s few sources of protein.
The locust menace has spread into Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, already the scene of Ebola, outbreaks of measles, and steady civil conflagration. These parts of the world have seen nothing like today’s locust numbers and ferocity for at least 70 years. Before then, two-inch-long desert locusts with their black striped thoraxes and insatiable appetites had periodically threatened the British, Belgian, and Italian colonies that preceded today’s nations. But only rarely did the devastation equal what is now occurring, with much larger and more vulnerable local populations at severe risk.
This year’s locusts originated, as earlier ones did, in the deserts of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Ample rains brought fresh, lush, unusual vegetation. That allowed adults to lay little pink eggs that, after about six weeks, matured into massive munching machines. Cyclonic winds that arrived at just the right moment propelled them out of the desert and across the Red Sea into the Horn of Africa and eastern Africa. The locusts have even gone east, into Iran, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
The warming of the Earth and climatic disturbances that already in the past year have brought massive tropical storms to Zimbabwe and Mozambique and then to Somalia, unusual floods to Kenya and Uganda, and renewed drought to much of the Sahel, Somalia, and Sudan, are largely responsible for the renewed plague of locusts, and for their numbers. Desert locusts develop the wings that they need to swarm across seas and continents with the help of warming temperatures and the right amount of rain to grow the plants that they need for food.
Wherever there is enough to eat, locusts reproduce, on a three-month cycle. That means that billions of locusts are laying eggs again all over the African arena that has been invaded. Soon, with the arrival of seasonal rains, there will be a frenzy of renewed destruction. Eastern African farmers cannot easily escape massive crop losses and the relentless spectre of hunger.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has requested US$138-million to help the affected nations battle the locust infestation. So far only US$52-million has been contributed by wealthy nations, thus limiting what can be done.
The defence against the locust invasion now consists of aerial and ground spraying of insecticides (which harm other insects and small and large fauna, and poison water supplies), setting fire at night to clusters of insects in trees, and going after locusts with sticks and machetes. Somalia is attempting, as well, to stall the locusts with novel biopesticide applications of a deadly fungus. So far, none of those remedial methods has worked well, and 100,000 hectares still needs to be sprayed. Chemical pesticide supplies are low, too, and have run out in northern Kenya.
Given such bleak prognoses, the World Food Programme will soon have another acute African hunger crisis on its hands. Only concerted international action, especially cash to purchase pesticides, can save eastern Africans from becoming casualties of the globe’s failure to reduce global warming.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion ... VgMaFxFnIY
Robert Rotberg is the founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict, a former senior fellow at CIGI and president emeritus of the World Peace Foundation.
Unceasing civil war, pestilence, drought, floods, HIV/AIDS, drug-resistant TB, and now – blotting out the sky and eating all of their crops – a horde of locusts. Swarms of relentless desert locusts in their buzzing billions are eating their way across all of eastern Africa.
At least 20 million people, and potentially 13 million more, are going hungry. Millions will starve because clouds of approximately 80 million desert locusts per square kilometre are voracious. In one day they consume wheat, barley, sorghum, or maize crops that feed 35,000 people. Masses the size of cities can consume 1.8 million metric tons of vegetation every day – enough to feed 81 million people.
What is more, an apocalypse of locusts can travel 150 kilometres a day, consuming as they go and leaving no subsistence crops, no cash crops (not even cotton), and no fodder for grazing animals in their wake. Already 40 per cent of Ethiopia’s grain has been eaten, just as it was ready for harvest. South Sudan, finally recovering from a seven-year civil war that forfeited 2 million civilian lives, is losing what little food remains available to villagers. Somalia, beset by continuing civil war between al-Qaeda-linked Islamist terrorists and a U.S.- and Turkish-backed federal government, is almost completely devoid of grazing for sheep and goats – one of the impoverished country’s few sources of protein.
The locust menace has spread into Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, already the scene of Ebola, outbreaks of measles, and steady civil conflagration. These parts of the world have seen nothing like today’s locust numbers and ferocity for at least 70 years. Before then, two-inch-long desert locusts with their black striped thoraxes and insatiable appetites had periodically threatened the British, Belgian, and Italian colonies that preceded today’s nations. But only rarely did the devastation equal what is now occurring, with much larger and more vulnerable local populations at severe risk.
This year’s locusts originated, as earlier ones did, in the deserts of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Ample rains brought fresh, lush, unusual vegetation. That allowed adults to lay little pink eggs that, after about six weeks, matured into massive munching machines. Cyclonic winds that arrived at just the right moment propelled them out of the desert and across the Red Sea into the Horn of Africa and eastern Africa. The locusts have even gone east, into Iran, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
The warming of the Earth and climatic disturbances that already in the past year have brought massive tropical storms to Zimbabwe and Mozambique and then to Somalia, unusual floods to Kenya and Uganda, and renewed drought to much of the Sahel, Somalia, and Sudan, are largely responsible for the renewed plague of locusts, and for their numbers. Desert locusts develop the wings that they need to swarm across seas and continents with the help of warming temperatures and the right amount of rain to grow the plants that they need for food.
Wherever there is enough to eat, locusts reproduce, on a three-month cycle. That means that billions of locusts are laying eggs again all over the African arena that has been invaded. Soon, with the arrival of seasonal rains, there will be a frenzy of renewed destruction. Eastern African farmers cannot easily escape massive crop losses and the relentless spectre of hunger.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has requested US$138-million to help the affected nations battle the locust infestation. So far only US$52-million has been contributed by wealthy nations, thus limiting what can be done.
The defence against the locust invasion now consists of aerial and ground spraying of insecticides (which harm other insects and small and large fauna, and poison water supplies), setting fire at night to clusters of insects in trees, and going after locusts with sticks and machetes. Somalia is attempting, as well, to stall the locusts with novel biopesticide applications of a deadly fungus. So far, none of those remedial methods has worked well, and 100,000 hectares still needs to be sprayed. Chemical pesticide supplies are low, too, and have run out in northern Kenya.
Given such bleak prognoses, the World Food Programme will soon have another acute African hunger crisis on its hands. Only concerted international action, especially cash to purchase pesticides, can save eastern Africans from becoming casualties of the globe’s failure to reduce global warming.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion ... VgMaFxFnIY
This Pandemic Is Bringing Another With It
More suffering is ahead for the developing world.
Another pandemic is looming on the heels of the coronavirus: a pandemic of starvation, illiteracy and poverty.
“We are not only facing a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe,” David Beasley, a former South Carolina governor who is executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, warned the Security Council this week. “We could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries.”
The world, he said, faces its most serious humanitarian crisis since World War II.
Developing countries have enormous vulnerabilities, such as overcrowded slums and health systems in which doctors are scarce and ventilators almost nonexistent. Ten countries in Africa have no ventilators at all.
We instruct people to protect themselves from the coronavirus by washing their hands with soap and water, but more people worldwide have a cellphone (5 billion) than have the ability to wash their hands at home (4.8 billion). Almost 4 out of 10 people worldwide, a total of 3 billion people, don’t have hand-washing options at home, according to U.N. estimates.
For doctors and nurses in poor countries, the challenge is not just a lack of face masks: More than one-third of health centers in impoverished countries don’t have hand-washing facilities, the U.N. reports.
Horrifying images from Guayaquil, Ecuador, of bodies left to rot in the street underscore the risks in the developing world.
Yet there are also countervailing factors. The virus is particularly likely to kill older people, especially those suffering from pre-existing medical conditions, and that’s where developing countries have a huge advantage. Only 2 percent of people in Angola, Burkina Faso or Kenya are over the age of 65. In Haiti, the figure is 5 percent; in India, 6 percent. In contrast, 23 percent in Italy and 16 percent in the United States are over 65, according to the World Bank.
Likewise, 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, a significant risk factor for the coronavirus. That is a far greater share of the population than in the developing world.
Put that all together and how badly will Covid-19 strike poor countries?
“We just don’t know,” Esther Duflo, an M.I.T. economist who won the Nobel in economic science last year, told me.
Dr. David Nabarro, a veteran U.N. global health expert, put it this way: “We can only have hypotheses, and the hypotheses are vaguely hopeful.”
I share that view: As a purely medical matter, I’m not as pessimistic about the impact on the developing world as some other commentators are. But I greatly fear that the indirect impact will be devastating.
Polio eradication campaigns are being suspended. The same is true of vitamin A distribution, which saves children’s lives and prevents blindness. School feeding programs have often been shut down along with schools.
In Bangladesh, where the economy has been hard hit by the coronavirus, a survey by a respected aid group, Brac, found that household incomes have declined an average of 75 percent. Factory workers saw incomes drop by 79 percent, drivers by 80 percent, city day laborers by 82 percent, maids by 68 percent and rickshaw pullers by 78 percent. Four in 10 respondents had three days’ worth of food at home or less.
Schools are closed in many countries, and some students, especially girls, will probably never return to their studies. When families are desperately short of money and food, they are less likely to pay school fees, particularly for girls. They also cope by marrying off their daughters, even young ones, so that another household has the responsibility of feeding them.
Amartya Sen, a development economist, has noted that the presence of disease kills, and so does the absence of livelihood. People in poor countries have seen their livelihoods shattered by lockdowns, by collapse of tourism and by an end to remittances coming from relatives abroad.
“Covid-19 is potentially catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread,” said Arif Husain, chief economist of the World Food Program. “It is a hammer blow for millions more who can only eat if they earn a wage.”
The World Food Program warns that the pandemic could almost double the number of people suffering from acute hunger. We know that when infants and toddlers are malnourished, their brains don’t grow well, and they may suffer lifelong cognitive deficits. Decades from now, they and their countries will be held back if we cannot address the hunger crisis of 2020.
(I know readers are asking: How can I help? I’ll offer some answers to that question in my next column.)
At a time of great pain and economic stress in the rich world, this will be difficult. Yet aid is essential, in the form of debt relief as well as direct assistance.
“Food is already scarce,” Kennedy Odede, C.E.O. of Shofco, a homegrown Kenyan anti-poverty group, told me. “Many have lost their jobs — and our communities survive by hand-to-mouth. There is no safety net or system. Yesterday, a childhood friend told me, ‘I’d rather die from Covid than from hunger.’”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opin ... 778d3e6de3
*****
‘Instead of Coronavirus, the Hunger Will Kill Us.’ A Global Food Crisis Looms.
The world has never faced a hunger emergency like this, experts say. It could double the number of people facing acute hunger to 265 million by the end of this year.
NAIROBI, Kenya — In the largest slum in Kenya’s capital, people desperate to eat set off a stampede during a recent giveaway of flour and cooking oil, leaving scores injured and two people dead.
In India, thousands of workers are lining up twice a day for bread and fried vegetables to keep hunger at bay.
And across Colombia, poor households are hanging red clothing and flags from their windows and balconies as a sign that they are hungry.
“We don’t have any money, and now we need to survive,” said Pauline Karushi, who lost her job at a jewelry business in Nairobi, and lives in two rooms with her child and four other relatives. “That means not eating much.”
The coronavirus pandemic has brought hunger to millions of people around the world. National lockdowns and social distancing measures are drying up work and incomes, and are likely to disrupt agricultural production and supply routes — leaving millions to worry how they will get enough to eat.
The coronavirus has sometimes been called an equalizer because it has sickened both rich and poor, but when it comes to food, the commonality ends. It is poor people, including large segments of poorer nations, who are now going hungry and facing the prospect of starving.
“The coronavirus has been anything but a great equalizer,” said Asha Jaffar, a volunteer who brought food to families in the Nairobi slum of Kibera after the fatal stampede. “It’s been the great revealer, pulling the curtain back on the class divide and exposing how deeply unequal this country is.”
Already, 135 million people had been facing acute food shortages, but now with the pandemic, 130 million more could go hungry in 2020, said Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Program, a United Nations agency. Altogether, an estimated 265 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by year’s end.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/worl ... 778d3e6de3
More suffering is ahead for the developing world.
Another pandemic is looming on the heels of the coronavirus: a pandemic of starvation, illiteracy and poverty.
“We are not only facing a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe,” David Beasley, a former South Carolina governor who is executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, warned the Security Council this week. “We could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries.”
The world, he said, faces its most serious humanitarian crisis since World War II.
Developing countries have enormous vulnerabilities, such as overcrowded slums and health systems in which doctors are scarce and ventilators almost nonexistent. Ten countries in Africa have no ventilators at all.
We instruct people to protect themselves from the coronavirus by washing their hands with soap and water, but more people worldwide have a cellphone (5 billion) than have the ability to wash their hands at home (4.8 billion). Almost 4 out of 10 people worldwide, a total of 3 billion people, don’t have hand-washing options at home, according to U.N. estimates.
For doctors and nurses in poor countries, the challenge is not just a lack of face masks: More than one-third of health centers in impoverished countries don’t have hand-washing facilities, the U.N. reports.
Horrifying images from Guayaquil, Ecuador, of bodies left to rot in the street underscore the risks in the developing world.
Yet there are also countervailing factors. The virus is particularly likely to kill older people, especially those suffering from pre-existing medical conditions, and that’s where developing countries have a huge advantage. Only 2 percent of people in Angola, Burkina Faso or Kenya are over the age of 65. In Haiti, the figure is 5 percent; in India, 6 percent. In contrast, 23 percent in Italy and 16 percent in the United States are over 65, according to the World Bank.
Likewise, 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, a significant risk factor for the coronavirus. That is a far greater share of the population than in the developing world.
Put that all together and how badly will Covid-19 strike poor countries?
“We just don’t know,” Esther Duflo, an M.I.T. economist who won the Nobel in economic science last year, told me.
Dr. David Nabarro, a veteran U.N. global health expert, put it this way: “We can only have hypotheses, and the hypotheses are vaguely hopeful.”
I share that view: As a purely medical matter, I’m not as pessimistic about the impact on the developing world as some other commentators are. But I greatly fear that the indirect impact will be devastating.
Polio eradication campaigns are being suspended. The same is true of vitamin A distribution, which saves children’s lives and prevents blindness. School feeding programs have often been shut down along with schools.
In Bangladesh, where the economy has been hard hit by the coronavirus, a survey by a respected aid group, Brac, found that household incomes have declined an average of 75 percent. Factory workers saw incomes drop by 79 percent, drivers by 80 percent, city day laborers by 82 percent, maids by 68 percent and rickshaw pullers by 78 percent. Four in 10 respondents had three days’ worth of food at home or less.
Schools are closed in many countries, and some students, especially girls, will probably never return to their studies. When families are desperately short of money and food, they are less likely to pay school fees, particularly for girls. They also cope by marrying off their daughters, even young ones, so that another household has the responsibility of feeding them.
Amartya Sen, a development economist, has noted that the presence of disease kills, and so does the absence of livelihood. People in poor countries have seen their livelihoods shattered by lockdowns, by collapse of tourism and by an end to remittances coming from relatives abroad.
“Covid-19 is potentially catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread,” said Arif Husain, chief economist of the World Food Program. “It is a hammer blow for millions more who can only eat if they earn a wage.”
The World Food Program warns that the pandemic could almost double the number of people suffering from acute hunger. We know that when infants and toddlers are malnourished, their brains don’t grow well, and they may suffer lifelong cognitive deficits. Decades from now, they and their countries will be held back if we cannot address the hunger crisis of 2020.
(I know readers are asking: How can I help? I’ll offer some answers to that question in my next column.)
At a time of great pain and economic stress in the rich world, this will be difficult. Yet aid is essential, in the form of debt relief as well as direct assistance.
“Food is already scarce,” Kennedy Odede, C.E.O. of Shofco, a homegrown Kenyan anti-poverty group, told me. “Many have lost their jobs — and our communities survive by hand-to-mouth. There is no safety net or system. Yesterday, a childhood friend told me, ‘I’d rather die from Covid than from hunger.’”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opin ... 778d3e6de3
*****
‘Instead of Coronavirus, the Hunger Will Kill Us.’ A Global Food Crisis Looms.
The world has never faced a hunger emergency like this, experts say. It could double the number of people facing acute hunger to 265 million by the end of this year.
NAIROBI, Kenya — In the largest slum in Kenya’s capital, people desperate to eat set off a stampede during a recent giveaway of flour and cooking oil, leaving scores injured and two people dead.
In India, thousands of workers are lining up twice a day for bread and fried vegetables to keep hunger at bay.
And across Colombia, poor households are hanging red clothing and flags from their windows and balconies as a sign that they are hungry.
“We don’t have any money, and now we need to survive,” said Pauline Karushi, who lost her job at a jewelry business in Nairobi, and lives in two rooms with her child and four other relatives. “That means not eating much.”
The coronavirus pandemic has brought hunger to millions of people around the world. National lockdowns and social distancing measures are drying up work and incomes, and are likely to disrupt agricultural production and supply routes — leaving millions to worry how they will get enough to eat.
The coronavirus has sometimes been called an equalizer because it has sickened both rich and poor, but when it comes to food, the commonality ends. It is poor people, including large segments of poorer nations, who are now going hungry and facing the prospect of starving.
“The coronavirus has been anything but a great equalizer,” said Asha Jaffar, a volunteer who brought food to families in the Nairobi slum of Kibera after the fatal stampede. “It’s been the great revealer, pulling the curtain back on the class divide and exposing how deeply unequal this country is.”
Already, 135 million people had been facing acute food shortages, but now with the pandemic, 130 million more could go hungry in 2020, said Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Program, a United Nations agency. Altogether, an estimated 265 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by year’s end.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/worl ... 778d3e6de3
The Indus delta is being lost to the sea and we need to do something about it
Maps, illustrations and photos at:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1554715/the-i ... g-about-it
Maps, illustrations and photos at:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1554715/the-i ... g-about-it
After the Pandemic, a Global Hunger Crisis
The loss of income caused by the pandemic could increase the number of people suffering acute hunger to more than quarter a billion by December.
ROME — The coronavirus pandemic and its punitive economic effects are about to set off the next global hunger crisis.
In the last four years, conflicts, climate change and economic instability raised the number of people suffering acute hunger — when the absence of food endangers people’s livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives — from 80 million to 135 million people. The pandemic could drive 130 million more people into that state by December. More than a quarter of a billion people are likely to be acutely hungry in 2020.
Workers employed in the informal economy and in service and manufacturing sectors are particularly vulnerable. Many have already experienced job losses during extended lockdowns: A staggering 94 percent of the global work force live in countries where workplaces have been closed. According to the International Labor Organization, the pandemic will have caused a loss of working hours in April, May and June equivalent to that of 305 million full-time jobs
What’s more, economic contraction and job losses in major economies such as the United States, Russia and the Gulf countries deliver a serious financial blow to numerous countries that rely heavily on overseas remittances — substantially threatening their food security.
Graphical illustrations and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opin ... 778d3e6de3
The loss of income caused by the pandemic could increase the number of people suffering acute hunger to more than quarter a billion by December.
ROME — The coronavirus pandemic and its punitive economic effects are about to set off the next global hunger crisis.
In the last four years, conflicts, climate change and economic instability raised the number of people suffering acute hunger — when the absence of food endangers people’s livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives — from 80 million to 135 million people. The pandemic could drive 130 million more people into that state by December. More than a quarter of a billion people are likely to be acutely hungry in 2020.
Workers employed in the informal economy and in service and manufacturing sectors are particularly vulnerable. Many have already experienced job losses during extended lockdowns: A staggering 94 percent of the global work force live in countries where workplaces have been closed. According to the International Labor Organization, the pandemic will have caused a loss of working hours in April, May and June equivalent to that of 305 million full-time jobs
What’s more, economic contraction and job losses in major economies such as the United States, Russia and the Gulf countries deliver a serious financial blow to numerous countries that rely heavily on overseas remittances — substantially threatening their food security.
Graphical illustrations and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Hi Karim,
Nobody likes wasting food.
But nearly all of us do it — a lot. And I’m not just talking about a few pieces of broccoli left on your plate after supper. Food waste is a massive problem that threatens our climate, air, water, soil, and our ability to grow enough food to feed humanity for future generations. But the good news? There’s a lot you can do about it.
Get the whole story here.
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/how-to- ... ant-2-of-2
Yours for using what we have to get what we want,
Ocean Robbins
P.S. Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year doesn’t get eaten by humans. Most of it turns into garbage that fills up our landfills. But you can take a bite out of food waste — saving money and helping to save the planet at the same time. Find out how here.
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/how-to- ... ant-2-of-2
Nobody likes wasting food.
But nearly all of us do it — a lot. And I’m not just talking about a few pieces of broccoli left on your plate after supper. Food waste is a massive problem that threatens our climate, air, water, soil, and our ability to grow enough food to feed humanity for future generations. But the good news? There’s a lot you can do about it.
Get the whole story here.
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/how-to- ... ant-2-of-2
Yours for using what we have to get what we want,
Ocean Robbins
P.S. Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year doesn’t get eaten by humans. Most of it turns into garbage that fills up our landfills. But you can take a bite out of food waste — saving money and helping to save the planet at the same time. Find out how here.
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/how-to- ... ant-2-of-2
-
swamidada_2
- Posts: 297
- Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 8:18 pm
26 Jun, 2020 15:47 / Updated 8 hours ago
UN says 2.4mn Yemeni children could starve by end of year amid pandemic and aid cuts
Millions of children in Yemen could be severely malnourished by the end of the year due to soaring poverty and a breakdown in public services, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and cuts in foreign aid, the UN children’s agency warned on Friday.
A new UNICEF report entitled “Yemen five years on: Children, conflict and Covid-19” said the number of starving Yemeni children could reach 2.4 million by the end of the year, 20 percent more than the current figure.
“If we do not receive urgent funding, children will be pushed to the brink of starvation and many will die,” AP quoted Sara Beysolow Nyanti, UNICEF’s representative to Yemen, as saying. “The international community will be sending a message that the lives of children… simply do not matter.”
The agency also warned that unless $54.5 million is provided for health and nutrition aid to Yemen by the end of August, more than 23,000 children will be at increased risk of dying from acute malnutrition.
https://www.rt.com/newsline/493050-yeme ... anitarian/
UN says 2.4mn Yemeni children could starve by end of year amid pandemic and aid cuts
Millions of children in Yemen could be severely malnourished by the end of the year due to soaring poverty and a breakdown in public services, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and cuts in foreign aid, the UN children’s agency warned on Friday.
A new UNICEF report entitled “Yemen five years on: Children, conflict and Covid-19” said the number of starving Yemeni children could reach 2.4 million by the end of the year, 20 percent more than the current figure.
“If we do not receive urgent funding, children will be pushed to the brink of starvation and many will die,” AP quoted Sara Beysolow Nyanti, UNICEF’s representative to Yemen, as saying. “The international community will be sending a message that the lives of children… simply do not matter.”
The agency also warned that unless $54.5 million is provided for health and nutrition aid to Yemen by the end of August, more than 23,000 children will be at increased risk of dying from acute malnutrition.
https://www.rt.com/newsline/493050-yeme ... anitarian/
What if We Could Have Meat Without Murder?
We can, if we can agree that it doesn’t need to come from the body of an animal.
What is meat?
That question is unlikely to be asked along with the usual ones — Medium or well-done? Cheese or no cheese? — over grills being fired up all over the United States this summer. (Unless, of course, you invite a philosopher to your barbecue.) But it is a timely one and how we answer it — how we ultimately define the word “meat” — could have a significant impact on the future of our food supply, our health and the health of the planet.
It’s no secret by now that the case against meat keeps getting stronger. The social, environmental and ethical costs of industrial agriculture — exacerbated by a pandemic being traced back to a live animal market, and a vulnerable meat processing industry — have become too obvious and damaging to ignore. Yet Americans on average consume more that 200 pounds of animal flesh each year. And, like it or not, it is still part of how the United States sees itself — cultural icons, from cowboys and ranchers to the Golden Arches, express the country’s long, tragic love affair with meat.
But just as the meaning of American identity has changed over time, so too has the food people eat to celebrate it. Fifty years ago, few barbecues included burgers made of tofu or lentils for the stray vegetarians found in so many families today.
For centuries, the definition of meat was obvious: the edible flesh of an animal. That changed in 2013, when the Dutch scientist Mark Post unveiled the first in vitro hamburger. By bathing animal stem cells with growth serum, Dr. Post and his colleagues were able to grow a hamburger in their lab. Their burger had essentially the same composition as a normal hamburger but a different origin. Although Dr. Post estimated that the first in vitro burger cost about $325,000 to create, the price has come down significantly and his team is one of several groups seeking to commercialize in vitro meat and bring it to market. (Dr. Post’s first burger was grown using fetal bovine serum, a slaughterhouse byproduct; his team and others have sought out animal-free replacements.)
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/opin ... 778d3e6de3
We can, if we can agree that it doesn’t need to come from the body of an animal.
What is meat?
That question is unlikely to be asked along with the usual ones — Medium or well-done? Cheese or no cheese? — over grills being fired up all over the United States this summer. (Unless, of course, you invite a philosopher to your barbecue.) But it is a timely one and how we answer it — how we ultimately define the word “meat” — could have a significant impact on the future of our food supply, our health and the health of the planet.
It’s no secret by now that the case against meat keeps getting stronger. The social, environmental and ethical costs of industrial agriculture — exacerbated by a pandemic being traced back to a live animal market, and a vulnerable meat processing industry — have become too obvious and damaging to ignore. Yet Americans on average consume more that 200 pounds of animal flesh each year. And, like it or not, it is still part of how the United States sees itself — cultural icons, from cowboys and ranchers to the Golden Arches, express the country’s long, tragic love affair with meat.
But just as the meaning of American identity has changed over time, so too has the food people eat to celebrate it. Fifty years ago, few barbecues included burgers made of tofu or lentils for the stray vegetarians found in so many families today.
For centuries, the definition of meat was obvious: the edible flesh of an animal. That changed in 2013, when the Dutch scientist Mark Post unveiled the first in vitro hamburger. By bathing animal stem cells with growth serum, Dr. Post and his colleagues were able to grow a hamburger in their lab. Their burger had essentially the same composition as a normal hamburger but a different origin. Although Dr. Post estimated that the first in vitro burger cost about $325,000 to create, the price has come down significantly and his team is one of several groups seeking to commercialize in vitro meat and bring it to market. (Dr. Post’s first burger was grown using fetal bovine serum, a slaughterhouse byproduct; his team and others have sought out animal-free replacements.)
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Ethiopia starts filling Grand Renaissance dam, minister says
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia has started filling the Grand Renaissance dam, a giant hydroelectric project it is building on the Blue Nile, its water minister said on Wednesday, a day after talks with Sudan and Egypt on the issue became deadlocked.
“The construction of the dam and the filling of the water go hand in hand,” Seleshi Bekele said in comments broadcast on television.
On Tuesday, talks between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan to regulate the flow of water from the hydropower dam on the Blue Nile failed to reach agreement.
The dam is the centrepiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, but it has raised concerns in Cairo that already limited Nile waters, on which its population of more than 100 million people is almost entirely dependent, would be further restricted.
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/financial/20 ... ee9d77dc9f
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia has started filling the Grand Renaissance dam, a giant hydroelectric project it is building on the Blue Nile, its water minister said on Wednesday, a day after talks with Sudan and Egypt on the issue became deadlocked.
“The construction of the dam and the filling of the water go hand in hand,” Seleshi Bekele said in comments broadcast on television.
On Tuesday, talks between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan to regulate the flow of water from the hydropower dam on the Blue Nile failed to reach agreement.
The dam is the centrepiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, but it has raised concerns in Cairo that already limited Nile waters, on which its population of more than 100 million people is almost entirely dependent, would be further restricted.
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/financial/20 ... ee9d77dc9f
-
swamidada_2
- Posts: 297
- Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 8:18 pm
JULY 21, 2020
Population in Pakistan continues to grow rapidly: report
Anwar IqbalUpdated 20 Jul, 2020
WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s total population is estimated at 220.9 million and it is growing rapidly with an annual fertility rate of 3.6 children per couple, says a world population report.
The 2020 World Population Data Sheet — released by the US Population Reference Bureau, Washington — also estimates that the world today has a total of 7.8 billion inhabitants.
Referring to the Covid-19 crisis, the report warns that “population density in urban areas, household size, and population aging contribute to our vulnerability to pandemics”.
The report places South Asia among the fastest growing regions in the world and within the region, it marks Afghanistan and Pakistan as the fastest growing populations. Afghan-istan has a faster growth rate than Pakistan, 4.5 per couple. But because of high death rates and low life expectancy, the country’s total population is still 38.9m.
At Pakistan’s growth rate — 3.6 — a population doubles in 19.4 years. A country needs to bring its growth rate down to 2 per cent a year to reduce its population. The replacement fertility rate is 2.1, the average number of children a couple needs to have to replace themselves.
Bangladesh’s total population in 2020 is estimated at 169.8m, with an annual growth rate of 2.3.
With a total of 1.424bn people, China still has the largest population in the world but has been able to reduce its fertility rate to 1.5. China’s population is projected to decrease by 2050.
With 1.4bn people, India has the second largest population in the world but has reduced its fertility rate to 2.2.
The United States has a total of 329.9m inhabitants and between 2020 and 2050 its population is projected to increase, but at a much slower pace than recent decades. The US has an annual fertility rate of 1.7, which forces it to allow immigrants to strengthen its work force.
In 91 countries and territories — nearly 45 per cent of the world’s population — total fertility rates are below replacement level.
Middle Africa is the youngest region where 46 per cent of the population is under the age of 15 years. Southern Europe is the world’s oldest region with 23 per cent of the population aged 65 or above.
Asia is the world’s most populous region and its overall population is projected to increase by 15 per cent — from 4.6bn in 2020 to 5.3bn in 2050.
However, the pattern of future population change varies within the region from a 3 per cent decline in East Asia to a 38 per cent increase in Western Asia. Asia’s total fertility rate is below replacement level at 2.0.
Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2020
https://www.dawn.com/news/1570070/popul ... dly-report
Population in Pakistan continues to grow rapidly: report
Anwar IqbalUpdated 20 Jul, 2020
WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s total population is estimated at 220.9 million and it is growing rapidly with an annual fertility rate of 3.6 children per couple, says a world population report.
The 2020 World Population Data Sheet — released by the US Population Reference Bureau, Washington — also estimates that the world today has a total of 7.8 billion inhabitants.
Referring to the Covid-19 crisis, the report warns that “population density in urban areas, household size, and population aging contribute to our vulnerability to pandemics”.
The report places South Asia among the fastest growing regions in the world and within the region, it marks Afghanistan and Pakistan as the fastest growing populations. Afghan-istan has a faster growth rate than Pakistan, 4.5 per couple. But because of high death rates and low life expectancy, the country’s total population is still 38.9m.
At Pakistan’s growth rate — 3.6 — a population doubles in 19.4 years. A country needs to bring its growth rate down to 2 per cent a year to reduce its population. The replacement fertility rate is 2.1, the average number of children a couple needs to have to replace themselves.
Bangladesh’s total population in 2020 is estimated at 169.8m, with an annual growth rate of 2.3.
With a total of 1.424bn people, China still has the largest population in the world but has been able to reduce its fertility rate to 1.5. China’s population is projected to decrease by 2050.
With 1.4bn people, India has the second largest population in the world but has reduced its fertility rate to 2.2.
The United States has a total of 329.9m inhabitants and between 2020 and 2050 its population is projected to increase, but at a much slower pace than recent decades. The US has an annual fertility rate of 1.7, which forces it to allow immigrants to strengthen its work force.
In 91 countries and territories — nearly 45 per cent of the world’s population — total fertility rates are below replacement level.
Middle Africa is the youngest region where 46 per cent of the population is under the age of 15 years. Southern Europe is the world’s oldest region with 23 per cent of the population aged 65 or above.
Asia is the world’s most populous region and its overall population is projected to increase by 15 per cent — from 4.6bn in 2020 to 5.3bn in 2050.
However, the pattern of future population change varies within the region from a 3 per cent decline in East Asia to a 38 per cent increase in Western Asia. Asia’s total fertility rate is below replacement level at 2.0.
Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2020
https://www.dawn.com/news/1570070/popul ... dly-report
BOOK
Rethinking Food and Agriculture
1st Edition
Editors: Amir Kassam Laila Kassam
Paperback ISBN: 9780128164105
Imprint: Woodhead Publishing
Published Date: 1st October 2020
Page Count: 444
Description
Given the central role of the food and agriculture system in driving so many of the connected ecological, social and economic threats and challenges we currently face, Rethinking Food and Agriculture reviews, reassesses and reimagines the current food and agriculture system and the narrow paradigm in which it operates.
Rethinking Food and Agriculture explores and uncovers some of the key historical, ethical, economic, social, cultural, political, and structural drivers and root causes of unsustainability, degradation of the agricultural environment, destruction of nature, short-comings in science and knowledge systems, inequality, hunger and food insecurity, and disharmony. It reviews efforts towards ‘sustainable development’, and reassesses whether these efforts have been implemented with adequate responsibility, acceptable societal and environmental costs and optimal engagement to secure sustainability, equity and justice. The book highlights the many ways that farmers and their communities, civil society groups, social movements, development experts, scientists and others have been raising awareness of these issues, implementing solutions and forging ‘new ways forward’, for example towards paradigms of agriculture, natural resource management and human nutrition which are more sustainable and just. View more >
Key Features
- Explores some of the key drivers and root causes of unsustainability , degradation of the agricultural environment and destruction of nature
- Highlights the many ways that different stakeholders have been forging 'new ways forward' towards alternative paradigms of agriculture, human nutrition and political economy, which are more sustainable and just
- Proposes ways to move beyong the current unsustainable exploitation of natural resources towards agroecological sustainability and overall sustainability of the food and agriculture system based on 'inclusive responsibility'
Readership
Students, academics, professionals, researchers, educationalists, activists, service providers and decision-makers in the public, private and civil sectors, extension staff of development agencies, staff of international and national development and technical assistance agencies
Table of Contents
Introduction
Laila Kassam and Amir Kassam
1. Setting innovation free in agriculture
Rupert Sheldrake
2. Agriculture planted the seeds of alienation from nature
Jim Mason and Laila Kassam
3. Political-economy of the global food and agriculture system
Philip McMichael
4. Neo-colonialism and the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition: A gendered analysis of the development consequences for Africa
Mark Langan and Sophia Price
5. The myth of a food crisis
Jonathan Latham
6. Animal Ethics as Critique of Animal Agriculture, Environmentalism, Foodieism, Locavorism, and Clean Meat
Robert C. Jones
7. A food system fit for the future
Tony Juniper
8. Why change the way we grow, process and consume our food?
Hans R. Herren
9. Two paradigms of science - and two models of science-based agriculture
Colin Tudge
10. Paradigms of Agriculture
Amir Kassam and Laila Kassam
11. Soil health and the revolutionary potential of Conservation Agriculture
David R. Montgomery
12. Climate change adaptability and mitigation in Conservation Agriculture
Emilio Gonzalez
13. Will gene-edited and other GM crops fail sustainable food systems?
Allison Wilson
14. Sustaining agricultural biodiversity and heterogeneous seeds for responsible agriculture and food systems
Patrick Mulvany
15. Healthy diets as a guide to responsible food systems
Shireen Kassam, David Jenkins, Doug Bristor and Zahra Kassam
16. Knowledge systems for inclusively responsible food and agriculture
Robert Chambers
17. Social movements in the transformation of food and agriculture systems
Nassim Nobari
18. Alternatives to the global food regime: Steps towards system transformation
Helena Norberg-Hodge
19. Co-creating responsible food and agriculture systems
Vandana Shiva
20. Towards inclusive responsibility
Laila Kassam and Amir Kassam
https://www.elsevier.com/books/rethinki ... 2-816410-5#
Rethinking Food and Agriculture
1st Edition
Editors: Amir Kassam Laila Kassam
Paperback ISBN: 9780128164105
Imprint: Woodhead Publishing
Published Date: 1st October 2020
Page Count: 444
Description
Given the central role of the food and agriculture system in driving so many of the connected ecological, social and economic threats and challenges we currently face, Rethinking Food and Agriculture reviews, reassesses and reimagines the current food and agriculture system and the narrow paradigm in which it operates.
Rethinking Food and Agriculture explores and uncovers some of the key historical, ethical, economic, social, cultural, political, and structural drivers and root causes of unsustainability, degradation of the agricultural environment, destruction of nature, short-comings in science and knowledge systems, inequality, hunger and food insecurity, and disharmony. It reviews efforts towards ‘sustainable development’, and reassesses whether these efforts have been implemented with adequate responsibility, acceptable societal and environmental costs and optimal engagement to secure sustainability, equity and justice. The book highlights the many ways that farmers and their communities, civil society groups, social movements, development experts, scientists and others have been raising awareness of these issues, implementing solutions and forging ‘new ways forward’, for example towards paradigms of agriculture, natural resource management and human nutrition which are more sustainable and just. View more >
Key Features
- Explores some of the key drivers and root causes of unsustainability , degradation of the agricultural environment and destruction of nature
- Highlights the many ways that different stakeholders have been forging 'new ways forward' towards alternative paradigms of agriculture, human nutrition and political economy, which are more sustainable and just
- Proposes ways to move beyong the current unsustainable exploitation of natural resources towards agroecological sustainability and overall sustainability of the food and agriculture system based on 'inclusive responsibility'
Readership
Students, academics, professionals, researchers, educationalists, activists, service providers and decision-makers in the public, private and civil sectors, extension staff of development agencies, staff of international and national development and technical assistance agencies
Table of Contents
Introduction
Laila Kassam and Amir Kassam
1. Setting innovation free in agriculture
Rupert Sheldrake
2. Agriculture planted the seeds of alienation from nature
Jim Mason and Laila Kassam
3. Political-economy of the global food and agriculture system
Philip McMichael
4. Neo-colonialism and the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition: A gendered analysis of the development consequences for Africa
Mark Langan and Sophia Price
5. The myth of a food crisis
Jonathan Latham
6. Animal Ethics as Critique of Animal Agriculture, Environmentalism, Foodieism, Locavorism, and Clean Meat
Robert C. Jones
7. A food system fit for the future
Tony Juniper
8. Why change the way we grow, process and consume our food?
Hans R. Herren
9. Two paradigms of science - and two models of science-based agriculture
Colin Tudge
10. Paradigms of Agriculture
Amir Kassam and Laila Kassam
11. Soil health and the revolutionary potential of Conservation Agriculture
David R. Montgomery
12. Climate change adaptability and mitigation in Conservation Agriculture
Emilio Gonzalez
13. Will gene-edited and other GM crops fail sustainable food systems?
Allison Wilson
14. Sustaining agricultural biodiversity and heterogeneous seeds for responsible agriculture and food systems
Patrick Mulvany
15. Healthy diets as a guide to responsible food systems
Shireen Kassam, David Jenkins, Doug Bristor and Zahra Kassam
16. Knowledge systems for inclusively responsible food and agriculture
Robert Chambers
17. Social movements in the transformation of food and agriculture systems
Nassim Nobari
18. Alternatives to the global food regime: Steps towards system transformation
Helena Norberg-Hodge
19. Co-creating responsible food and agriculture systems
Vandana Shiva
20. Towards inclusive responsibility
Laila Kassam and Amir Kassam
https://www.elsevier.com/books/rethinki ... 2-816410-5#
Xi Declares War on Food Waste, and China Races to Tighten Its Belt
The Communist Party’s “clean plate” campaign targets livestreaming extreme eaters, wasteful diners and others amid concerns about China’s ability to feed its 1.4 billion people.
Chinese regulators are calling out livestreamers who binge-eat for promoting excessive consumption. A school said it would bar students from applying for scholarships if their daily leftovers exceeded a set amount. A restaurant placed electronic scales at its entrance for customers to weigh themselves to avoid ordering too much.
China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has declared a war on the “shocking and distressing” squandering of food, and the nation is racing to respond, with some going to greater extremes than others.
The ruling Communist Party has long sought to portray Mr. Xi as a fighter of excess and gluttony in officialdom, but this new call for gastronomic discipline is aimed at the public and carries a special urgency. When it comes to food security, Mr. Xi said, Chinese citizens should maintain a sense of crisis because of vulnerabilities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Cultivate thrifty habits and foster a social environment where waste is shameful and thriftiness is applaudable,” Mr. Xi said in a directive carried by the official People’s Daily newspaper last week.
Mr. Xi’s edict is part of a broader message from the leadership in recent weeks about the importance of self-reliance in a time of tensions with the United States and other economic partners. The concern is that import disruptions caused by the global geopolitical turmoil, the pandemic and trade tensions with the Trump administration, as well as some of China’s worst floods this year, could cut into food supplies
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/worl ... ogin-email
The Communist Party’s “clean plate” campaign targets livestreaming extreme eaters, wasteful diners and others amid concerns about China’s ability to feed its 1.4 billion people.
Chinese regulators are calling out livestreamers who binge-eat for promoting excessive consumption. A school said it would bar students from applying for scholarships if their daily leftovers exceeded a set amount. A restaurant placed electronic scales at its entrance for customers to weigh themselves to avoid ordering too much.
China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has declared a war on the “shocking and distressing” squandering of food, and the nation is racing to respond, with some going to greater extremes than others.
The ruling Communist Party has long sought to portray Mr. Xi as a fighter of excess and gluttony in officialdom, but this new call for gastronomic discipline is aimed at the public and carries a special urgency. When it comes to food security, Mr. Xi said, Chinese citizens should maintain a sense of crisis because of vulnerabilities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Cultivate thrifty habits and foster a social environment where waste is shameful and thriftiness is applaudable,” Mr. Xi said in a directive carried by the official People’s Daily newspaper last week.
Mr. Xi’s edict is part of a broader message from the leadership in recent weeks about the importance of self-reliance in a time of tensions with the United States and other economic partners. The concern is that import disruptions caused by the global geopolitical turmoil, the pandemic and trade tensions with the Trump administration, as well as some of China’s worst floods this year, could cut into food supplies
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/worl ... ogin-email
‘Agricultural Jihad’: A Hungry Lebanon Returns to Family Farms to Feed Itself
With a tanking economy, and imported food costs soaring, leaders are urging the Lebanese to wage a campaign of self-sufficiency. “I never thought I’d do this in my life, but I have to survive.”
ANTELIAS, Lebanon — The falafel shop owner leaned back and listed the keys to the Lebanese kitchen — the staples that help lend this country its culinary halo:
Sesame seeds for the smoky-silky tahini sauce dolloped over falafel and fried fish — which are imported from Sudan.
Fava beans for the classic breakfast stomach-filler known as ful — imported from Britain and Australia.
And the chickpeas for hummus, that ethereally smooth Lebanese spread? They come from Mexico. Lebanese chickpeas are considered too small and misshapen for anything but animal feed.
“We got spoiled,” said Jad André Lutfi, who helps run Falafel Abou André, his family’s business, a cheap and casual chain. “We’ve imported anything you can think of from around the world.”
So it went for years, until the country’s economy caved in, before the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed what was left of it and an explosion on Aug. 4 demolished businesses and homes across Beirut — to say nothing of the damaged port, through which most of Lebanon’s imports arrive.
The country that boasts of serving the Arab world’s most refined food has begun to go hungry, and its middle class, once able to vacation in Europe and go out for sushi, is finding supermarket shelves and cupboards increasingly bare.
Hence the politicians’ sudden cry: The Lebanese, they urged earlier this year, must grow their own food, waging what Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the militia and political party Hezbollah, has called “agricultural jihad.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/05/worl ... ogin-email
******
America at Hunger’s Edge
A shadow of hunger looms over the United States. In the pandemic economy, nearly one in eight households doesn’t have enough to eat. The lockdown, with its epic lines at food banks, has revealed what was hidden in plain sight: that the struggle to make food last long enough, and to get food that’s healthful — what experts call ‘food insecurity’ — is a persistent one for millions of Americans.
We spent months photographing dozens of families across the country to understand what food insecurity looks like today.
Photos at:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3
With a tanking economy, and imported food costs soaring, leaders are urging the Lebanese to wage a campaign of self-sufficiency. “I never thought I’d do this in my life, but I have to survive.”
ANTELIAS, Lebanon — The falafel shop owner leaned back and listed the keys to the Lebanese kitchen — the staples that help lend this country its culinary halo:
Sesame seeds for the smoky-silky tahini sauce dolloped over falafel and fried fish — which are imported from Sudan.
Fava beans for the classic breakfast stomach-filler known as ful — imported from Britain and Australia.
And the chickpeas for hummus, that ethereally smooth Lebanese spread? They come from Mexico. Lebanese chickpeas are considered too small and misshapen for anything but animal feed.
“We got spoiled,” said Jad André Lutfi, who helps run Falafel Abou André, his family’s business, a cheap and casual chain. “We’ve imported anything you can think of from around the world.”
So it went for years, until the country’s economy caved in, before the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed what was left of it and an explosion on Aug. 4 demolished businesses and homes across Beirut — to say nothing of the damaged port, through which most of Lebanon’s imports arrive.
The country that boasts of serving the Arab world’s most refined food has begun to go hungry, and its middle class, once able to vacation in Europe and go out for sushi, is finding supermarket shelves and cupboards increasingly bare.
Hence the politicians’ sudden cry: The Lebanese, they urged earlier this year, must grow their own food, waging what Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the militia and political party Hezbollah, has called “agricultural jihad.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/05/worl ... ogin-email
******
America at Hunger’s Edge
A shadow of hunger looms over the United States. In the pandemic economy, nearly one in eight households doesn’t have enough to eat. The lockdown, with its epic lines at food banks, has revealed what was hidden in plain sight: that the struggle to make food last long enough, and to get food that’s healthful — what experts call ‘food insecurity’ — is a persistent one for millions of Americans.
We spent months photographing dozens of families across the country to understand what food insecurity looks like today.
Photos at:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3
Podcast
How to Save Farming From Itself
The “quiet emergency” created by industrial agriculture
For decades, we’ve been filling our plates with fruit and vegetables from California’s Central Valley and with meat fattened by the golden fields of the Corn Belt. But the future of almonds and soybeans looks grim. Industrial agriculture yields massive crops, but in the process destroys its own foundations: groundwater and topsoil. In his new book, Perilous Bounty, journalist and former farmer Tom Philpott explores the contradictions in our food supply by narrowing his focus to these agricultural essentials—water and earth. He reveals a “quiet emergency” happening on our fruited plains, profiles the farmers adapting old ways to a new era, and suggests ways we might reimagine not only the future of food, but that of the people who grow, pick, and package it.
Listen to podcast here...
https://theamericanscholar.org/how-to-s ... 11ID2hKgU4
How to Save Farming From Itself
The “quiet emergency” created by industrial agriculture
For decades, we’ve been filling our plates with fruit and vegetables from California’s Central Valley and with meat fattened by the golden fields of the Corn Belt. But the future of almonds and soybeans looks grim. Industrial agriculture yields massive crops, but in the process destroys its own foundations: groundwater and topsoil. In his new book, Perilous Bounty, journalist and former farmer Tom Philpott explores the contradictions in our food supply by narrowing his focus to these agricultural essentials—water and earth. He reveals a “quiet emergency” happening on our fruited plains, profiles the farmers adapting old ways to a new era, and suggests ways we might reimagine not only the future of food, but that of the people who grow, pick, and package it.
Listen to podcast here...
https://theamericanscholar.org/how-to-s ... 11ID2hKgU4
The Other Way Covid Will Kill: Hunger
Worldwide, the population facing life-threatening levels of food insecurity is expected to double, to more than a quarter of a billion people.
Long before the pandemic swept into her village in the rugged southeast of Afghanistan, Halima Bibi knew the gnawing fear of hunger. It was an omnipresent force, an unrelenting source of anxiety as she struggled to nourish her four children.
Her husband earned about $5 a day, hauling produce by wheelbarrow from a local market to surrounding homes. Most days, he brought home a loaf of bread, potatoes and beans for an evening meal.
But when the coronavirus arrived in March, taking the lives of her neighbors and shutting down the market, her husband’s earnings plunged to about $1 a day. Most evenings, he brought home only bread. Some nights, he returned with nothing.
“We hear our children screaming in hunger, but there is nothing that we can do,” said Ms. Bibi, speaking in Pashto by telephone from a hospital in the capital city of Kabul, where her 6-year-old daughter was being treated for severe malnutrition. “That is not just our situation, but the reality for most of the families where we live.”
It is increasingly the reality for hundreds of millions of people around the planet. As the global economy absorbs the most punishing reversal of fortunes since the Great Depression, hunger is on the rise. Those confronting potentially life-threatening levels of so-called food insecurity in the developing world are expected to nearly double this year to 265 million, according to the United Nations World Food Program.
Worldwide, the number of children younger than 5 caught in a state of so-called wasting — their weight so far below normal that they face an elevated risk of death, along with long-term health and developmental problems — is likely to grow by nearly seven million this year, or 14 percent, according to a recent paper published in The Lancet, a medical journal.
The largest numbers of vulnerable communities are concentrated in South Asia and Africa, especially in countries that are already confronting trouble, from military conflict and extreme poverty to climate-related afflictions like drought, flooding and soil erosion.
At least for now, the unfolding tragedy falls short of a famine, which is typically set off by a combination of war and environmental disaster. Food remains widely available in most of the world, though prices have climbed in many countries, as fear of the virus disrupts transportation links, and as currencies fall in value, increasing the costs of imported items.
Photos and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/busi ... 778d3e6de3
Worldwide, the population facing life-threatening levels of food insecurity is expected to double, to more than a quarter of a billion people.
Long before the pandemic swept into her village in the rugged southeast of Afghanistan, Halima Bibi knew the gnawing fear of hunger. It was an omnipresent force, an unrelenting source of anxiety as she struggled to nourish her four children.
Her husband earned about $5 a day, hauling produce by wheelbarrow from a local market to surrounding homes. Most days, he brought home a loaf of bread, potatoes and beans for an evening meal.
But when the coronavirus arrived in March, taking the lives of her neighbors and shutting down the market, her husband’s earnings plunged to about $1 a day. Most evenings, he brought home only bread. Some nights, he returned with nothing.
“We hear our children screaming in hunger, but there is nothing that we can do,” said Ms. Bibi, speaking in Pashto by telephone from a hospital in the capital city of Kabul, where her 6-year-old daughter was being treated for severe malnutrition. “That is not just our situation, but the reality for most of the families where we live.”
It is increasingly the reality for hundreds of millions of people around the planet. As the global economy absorbs the most punishing reversal of fortunes since the Great Depression, hunger is on the rise. Those confronting potentially life-threatening levels of so-called food insecurity in the developing world are expected to nearly double this year to 265 million, according to the United Nations World Food Program.
Worldwide, the number of children younger than 5 caught in a state of so-called wasting — their weight so far below normal that they face an elevated risk of death, along with long-term health and developmental problems — is likely to grow by nearly seven million this year, or 14 percent, according to a recent paper published in The Lancet, a medical journal.
The largest numbers of vulnerable communities are concentrated in South Asia and Africa, especially in countries that are already confronting trouble, from military conflict and extreme poverty to climate-related afflictions like drought, flooding and soil erosion.
At least for now, the unfolding tragedy falls short of a famine, which is typically set off by a combination of war and environmental disaster. Food remains widely available in most of the world, though prices have climbed in many countries, as fear of the virus disrupts transportation links, and as currencies fall in value, increasing the costs of imported items.
Photos and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/busi ... 778d3e6de3
Lab-grown meat
Hi Karim,
Some food scientists are predicting that the meat of the future will be cultured in labs. Animal rights groups like Mercy for Animals and PETA have jumped on board with enthusiasm since lab-grown meat is essentially cruelty-free.
But is it safe? Is it healthy? Is it sustainable? And will it ever be affordable?
Here’s what you need to know about lab-grown meat.
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/is-lab- ... ant-1-of-2
Yours for responsible technology,
Ocean Robbins
Hi Karim,
Some food scientists are predicting that the meat of the future will be cultured in labs. Animal rights groups like Mercy for Animals and PETA have jumped on board with enthusiasm since lab-grown meat is essentially cruelty-free.
But is it safe? Is it healthy? Is it sustainable? And will it ever be affordable?
Here’s what you need to know about lab-grown meat.
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/is-lab- ... ant-1-of-2
Yours for responsible technology,
Ocean Robbins