By Jaya Ramachandran ROME | 31 March 2024 (IDN)—The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, has called for investments to tap into the potential of millets. These are highly nutritious and resilient alternatives to staple grains that can play a crucial role in ensuring global food security. […]
Mekong Delta Adopts Water-Saving Irrigation
By Le Thanh Binh HO CHI MINH CITY | 28 March 2024 (IDN)—The Mekong Delta region in South Vietnam is a major food production base for the country. Approximately two million hectares of land are allocated for rice and fruit farming, and about a third of this land is regularly affected by drought and salinity […]
There Is More to Write About Africa’s Agriculture Than Famines
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden | 26 March 2024 (IDN) — Once again, the media is presenting us with images of the mother of all famines — stretching from Yemen to Somalia, to Sudan and South Sudan, to the Central African Republic, to northern Nigeria and, most recently, to Gaza. It’s a bad famine, but […]
Sudan Will Soon Be the World’s Worst Hunger Crisis
By Edem Wosornu The author is Director of Operations and Advocacy of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Following are extensive excerpts from his Briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Sudan. NEW YORK | 21 March 2024 (IDN) — In resolution 2417, you asked the Secretary-General […]
Gaza: Worst Famine Fears Realised as 10th Child Reportedly ‘Starves to Death’
By UN News UNITED NATIONS | 1 March 2024 (IDN) — Repeated warnings from humanitarians over desperate food insecurity and imminent famine in Gaza came into focus on Friday amid reports from the enclave’s authorities that a tenth child had died from malnutrition and dehydration. “The official records yesterday or this morning said there was […]
FAO Chief Pleads for Peace, Right to Food and Global Governance Reforms
By Jaya Ramachandran RIO DE JANEIRO | 23 February 2024 (IDN) — The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Mr. QU Dongyu, has called for peace, recognition of the right to food, and reform of multilateral institutions as cardinal imperatives. Addressing the first session of the G20 Foreign Affairs […]
Bangladesh Farmers Are Protecting Paddy Cultivation from Climate Risks
By Rafiqul Islam Montu SHYAMNAGAR (SATKHIRA), Bangladesh | 11 February 2024 (IDN) — The new variety of paddy is ‘Charulata’. This paddy is salinity tolerant, can withstand normal winds, and yields well without fertilisers and pesticides. It is effortless to save seeds from this paddy. Due to these reasons, ‘Charulata’ paddy spreads quickly from one […]
Poultry and Livestock Production Helps Communities Build Climate Resilience in Zimbabwe
By Farai Shawn Matiashe HARARE | 9 February 2024 (IDN) — When Peter Mangana’s crops were hit by drought over a decade ago, he felt depressed. He struggled to feed his family in Bhasikiti village in Mwenezi, southern Zimbabwe. The 49-year-old later realised that he was experiencing the effects of climate change and that he […]
Hundreds of Millions of People Will Benefit from Transformed Food Systems
By Jutta Wolf BERLIN | 4 February 2024 (IDN) — Socio-economic benefits of between 5 to 10 trillion USD a year are expected to emerge from the transformation of food systems around the world, says a new global policy report produced by leading economists and scientists of the Food System Economics Commission (FSEC). The current […]
Laying Foundation for Digital Revolution in Africa’s Food Systems
By Douglas Okwatch This report is a slightly modified version of the original published in the January 2024 issue of Africa Renewal. NAIROBI | 3 February 2024 (IDN) — Digital technologies will be key in addressing the three persistent problems in Africa’s agricultural industry—inefficiency, exclusivity, and unsustainability, according to the 2023 Africa Agriculture Status Report, […]