Waiting for the sea - BBC News. What role for grazing livestock? The Sustainable Food recently held an event to discuss the question ‘What role for grazing livestock in a world of climate change and diet-related disease?’ We feel this is one of the defining questions of our age because it’s really about what we should eat to stay healthy and how food should be produced in future so that we don’t ruin the planet for ourselves and for future generations. Current food production methods are causing huge problems and are unsustainable. We are over-using finite resources, polluting the atmosphere and the environment, destroying wildlife, including pollinators on which much food production actually depends and we are harming our health in the process. We invited 50 scientists, policy-makers, campaigners and industry representatives to discuss these issues, but also filmed the presentations, which you can watch below, to make them widely available. We also plan to publish further details of the discussions and conclusions in due course.
Open and closed case? 40 Organizations That Are Shaking Up the Food System. Since our launch in January, Food Tank has worked to amplify the messages of groups working around the world to improve the food system. The 40 organizations we're highlighting today are doing invaluable work to change the way we eat, grow, cook, buy, and sell food. Our hope is that the more people know about the work that these groups are doing, the more people can be inspired to make their own change in the food system. We realize many, many organizations are missing from this list. Who would you add? We will publish additional suggestions from you on the Food Tank website next week.
Please share this list with 40 of your friends and family members--and on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest--so that we can all take one step closer to our goal of a more sustainable, healthy, and socially just world! 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. Home : 2nd International Conference on Global Food Security, 10-13 October 2015 | Cornell University, Ithaca, New York State, USA.
Challenges to food security in East Asia. Inequality is a threat to economic growth and social stability, globally as well as in Asia-Pacific. In spite of solid GDP growth in the region of around 7-8%, we haven’t seen a corresponding reduction in poverty. It is therefore not surprising that the theme of this year’s World Economic Forum on East Asia is Leveraging Growth for Equitable Progress. Meanwhile, agriculture and food value chains are a major focus of the Grow Asia Agriculture Forum; 35-40% of the workforce in most ASEAN countries are involved in agriculture. Unless the growth of the agriculture sector in East Asia accelerates and keeps pace with overall growth, we are likely to see even greater inequality in the region. It is imperative that the agriculture and rural sector improves its performance in terms or productivity, profitability and sustainability. It is now thought that growth generated by the agriculture sector is four times more effective at reducing poverty than growth in other areas.
The rising challenge of our fragile food security - Barry Desker. The world is being haunted again by the spectre of a global food shortage. Demand for food over the next decade is expected to increase by 1.1% annually. But global food productivity gains have declined from 2% in 1970-2000, to 1.1% today — and are continuing to decline. A 2011 study reported that the world consumed more than it had produced for seven out of the past eight years.
These concerns will lead to growing attention paid to the nexus between food, water and energy resources, especially as climate change is expected to have an increasing impact globally. Nineteenth-century economists struggled with the Malthusian dilemma: As populations rose, it was assumed that a forced return to subsistence agriculture would act as a check on population growth. The reality was that the opening of new agricultural land, technological innovation and higher-yielding crops resulted in a capacity to feed an ever-growing population. Three trends warrant attention. Energy vs food security? Southeast Asia’s Food Security Challenge: More than ‘Stock’ Solution Needed. By Belinda Chng Synopsis Countries in Southeast Asia face a fresh challenge to their food security as food consumption patterns change, and reliance on imports increases to meet such shifts.
Consequently, they may be left with no choice but to seek regional or multilateral options to complement their own food strategies. Commentary COUNTRIES IN Southeast Asia face a fresh challenge to their food security. As the region becomes more affluent, consumption patterns are changing, with greater demand seen for animal protein and wheat. Given that Southeast Asia imports most of its corn and soybean for animal feed, and its wheat, from North and Latin America, this will increase the region’s exposure to supply disruptions and price shocks. Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand could be hit the hardest - being, respectively, Southeast Asia’s top importers of wheat, corn and soybean.
National strategies vulnerable At present, many countries still focus on national-level strategies. Limits of APTERR. Food Security and Hunger in Asia and the Pacific. Wheat - the largest primary commodity. Family Farmers: Feeding the world, caring for the earth. The Role of Livestock Data in Rural Africa: The Tanzanian Case Study. Many farmers across rural Africa depend on their livestock for survival. Whether animals such as chickens, goats, pigs and cattle are used as a primary source of household food or as income from the sale of animal by-products, they represent an important asset to many families throughout the continent. This reality, coupled with the fact that demand for animal protein continues to increase in sub-Saharan Africa due to population growth and a rising middle class, defies the trend of a sector that is often neglected when it comes to targeted investments.
Yet the data shows us that this may indeed represent a missed opportunity. Some of the most revealing findings of the Livestock and Livelihoods in Rural Tanzania study, which is a based on national survey conducted in 2009, are about the contribution of the livestock sector to the economic growth of the country, productivity of the sector itself and gender differences in terms of livestock ownership and access to input and markets. Youth and Livestock in Africa. Family Farmers: Feeding the world, caring for the earth. Family farming includes all family-based agricultural activities, and it is linked to several areas of rural development. Family farming is a means of organizing agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production which is managed and operated by a family and predominantly reliant on family labour, including both women’s and men’s.
Both in developing and developed countries, family farming is the predominant form of agriculture in the food production sector. At national level, there are a number of factors that are key for a successful development of family farming, such as: agro-ecological conditions and territorial characteristics; policy environment; access to markets; access to land and natural resources; access to technology and extension services; access to finance; demographic, economic and socio-cultural conditions; availability of specialized education among others. Family farming has an important socio-economic, environmental and cultural role.
Embed Code. Food security: Facts and figures. Food security is deeply connected to other development challenges and poor health. Michael Hoevel traces the links. Food security addresses one of humankind’s most fundamental needs — access to a nutritious and adequate diet. It is also seen as a fundamental right, as stated by the UN in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet a staggering 842 million people around the world still suffer from undernourishment, 98 per cent of whom live in developing countries. [1] Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest concentration of food insecurity of any region, while South Asia has the highest overall number of hungry people, currently an estimated 295 million (See figures 1 and 2). What is food security? Food security actually describes a number of related yet distinct phenomena, for instance, the availability of food but also the ability to access and use it reliably.
Food security is also interlinked with poverty and health. Increased production and nutrition Table 1. Not just production Gender gap. Big Facts: Focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. This story spotlights some of the Big Facts on Sub-Saharan Africa, and is part of a special blog series to complement the new Big Facts infographics website. All regions are challenged by climate change but some are facing tougher challenges than others.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, severe climatic changes, low adaptive capacity and high levels of food insecurity make for a tough task. But large unused tracts of land, potential to significantly increase yields, as well as a young and growing population, offer glimmers of hope. Population growth about to step up a gear In some countries, population growth is slowing, others are in the midst of growing, and then there are those just getting started. The countries of Sub-Saharan Africa belong to the latter group. Currently a bit below a billion, the population of Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to reach more than 2 billion or 22% of the world total by 2050. Undernutrition set to get under control Emissions: from farms and forests Impacts on People.
Soy. Soy production is one of the biggest drivers of deforestation in South America. It causes widespread environmental damage, increases the use of pesticides, contributes to food insecurity, and is associated with violence and human rights abuses amongst local communities and farmers. As Europe is the leading importer of soy from South America, it must be held responsible for the expansion of soy production and the problems it causes.
Expansion Soy is a protein rich crop. It is used in large amounts in animal feed, as it is high in energy and means animals get fatter quicker. This reduces the costs of livestock production. As a result, soy is increasingly fed to animals in factory farms, and soy production is on the rise. Production in South America has more than doubled in the last 15 years. Food security Soy expansion has devastating impacts on people. Deforestation About 16 percent of the Amazon forests and 60 percent of the Cerrado grasslands have already been lost. Animal feeds. JECH : Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Authors Correspondence to: MrP Scarborough British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, OX3 7LF, UK; Accepted 8 August 2005 Abstract Study objective: To quantify the burden of ill health in the UK that can be attributed to food (the burden of food related ill health).
Design: Review and further analysis of the results of work concerned with estimates of the burden of disease measured as morbidity, mortality, and in financial terms and with the proportion of that burden that can be attributed to food. Main results: Food related ill health is responsible for about 10% of morbidity and mortality in the UK and costs the NHS about £6 billion annually. Conclusions: The burden of food related ill health measured in terms of mortality and morbidity is similar to that attributable to smoking.
When devising food or health policy, policy makers make implicit assumptions about the burden of food related ill health. Mortality and morbidity. Only agroecology can tackle the global food and health crisis. Malnutrition isn't surprising, given that the chief goal of the majority of players in the food system, from farmers upwards, is not to produce nutritious healthy foods for the people, but to make a profit. The current global food crisis is simple and complex at the same time. Simple because all we need is sufficient, healthy food to eat and to share, for our medicine and to commune with nature, simple because it's technically possible to have an abundance of healthy food.
Yet we have made it a complex issue. We overeat, we don't have enough to eat, we sell and buy cheap 'food like substances' whilst watching the rich and famous - who we aspire to - choosing not to eat these foods. We mechanise farms to reduce labour costs, we worry about the lack of rural jobs, and we go to gyms for exercise, fuelled by sugary 'energy drinks'. However the world isn't 'being fed'. A flawed production approach Soil, plants and human health The agroecological approach The report: Global Nutrition Report. Q&A: Reform of EU farm policy. 1 July 2013Last updated at 13:15 ET Global warming has fuelled fresh concerns about food security in Europe The European Union is negotiating a major reform of its Common Agricultural Policy.
The programme is the most expensive scheme in the EU - accounting for more than 40% of its annual budget - and one of the most controversial. In June 2013 ministers reached a deal with Euro MPs and the European Commission, though the reform package has not yet been agreed in full. The Commission's original goal was to shift rewards away from intensive farming to more sustainable practices - but environmentalists say that ambition has been watered down. There is also a drive to create more of a "level playing field", to give young people an incentive to get involved in an industry dominated by older farmers and traditional vested interests. Political parties of all shades, farmers' unions, environmental campaigners and taxpayer groups have all voiced concern about the reforms.
What is the CAP? Yes. Land Grabbed Map. Each country that is shaded represents where a "land grab" has occurred. A "land grab" is defined by GRAIN* as a large-scale land purchase or lease made by foreign investors. According to GRAIN, since 2006, there have been 416 land grabs in 66 countries covering nearly 35 million hectares (86.5 million acres). The different shades of the map show the intensity of the land grabs in each country, with dark red representing more hectares grabbed and cream representing less hectares grabbed. Click a country for more information on how much land was grabbed and on which countries were purchasing or leasing the land, as well as what the final use for the land was (e.g. agribusiness, construction, finance, industry, real estate, etc.).
Source: GRAIN Map created by Varun Mangla / Circle of Blue with contributions from Aubrey Ann Parker and Jordan B. Releases data set with over 400 global land grabs. Today GRAIN is making available a new data set documenting 416 recent, large-scale land grabs by foreign investors for the production of food crops. The cases cover nearly 35 million hectares of land in 66 countries. The data set is available in HTML below, in XLS and PDF formats and in this interactive global map of land grabs created by Varun Mangla / Circle of Blue. This is not an exhaustive list of all land deals. It focuses only on those deals that: were initiated after 2006, have not been cancelled, are led by foreign investors, are for the production of food crops, and involve large areas of land. Deals for sugar cane and palm oil production were included but not those for crops like jatropha or cotton.
The collection of deals provides a stark snapshot of how agribusiness has been rapidly expanding across the globe since the food and financial crises of 2008 and how this is taking food production out of the hands of farmers and local communities. Sustainable development goals .:. Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. Battle to feed the world pits small farmers against big agriculture | Mark Anderson | Global development. Rickets returns as poor families find healthy diets unaffordable | Society. Magic Breakfast. Portion Sizes - Food Portion Size Tips. Media pages – Save Money. Real junk food: Bristol cafe serves up food saved from supermarket rubbish bins. Organic Recycling Ltd | Home. Agroecology Home. Agroecology in Action.
Future of Food: A Plan to Feed the World. UN Global Compact Builds Momentum for Agribusiness and SDGs. Food and Agriculture Business Principles. Obesity-food-policy_lrg.jpg (JPEG Image, 1500 × 2176 pixels) - Scaled (46%)