Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture

Photo: Soil erosion is a major problem for Benin's farmers. Nuclear techniques help scientists find its exact causes, so that they can tackle erosion. Credit: E. Fulajtar | IAEA.

Two UN Agencies Reveal High Rate of Soil Erosion in Benin

By Emil Fulajtar and Joanne Liou*

VIENNA (IDN) – Harmless traces from nuclear testing more than half a century ago are helping researchers assess soil erosion rates. In Africa, about 65 percent of the continent's farmland is affected by erosion-induced losses of topsoil and soil nutrients, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Benin is among those countries severely impacted by soil erosion, which poses a major problem for economic development since agriculture represents approximately 35 percent of the country’s GDP and 80 percent of its export income. A recent study applied a nuclear technique to assess rates of soil erosion and support land conservation in Benin.

: Jaya Ramachandran; SUSTAINABILITY; Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture; 14 November 2019

ACP-FAO Step Up Actions to End Hunger and Malnutrition

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (IDN) –The ACP Secretariat joined with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations to observe the World Food Day 2019 with the aim to step up actions to end hunger and malnutrition in all its forms possible by 2030.

: Reinhard Jacobsen; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 20 October 2019

EU Enhances Support for FAO to Benefit ACP States

By Jaya Ramachandran

ROME (IDN | ACP) – European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, and Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Qu Dongyu, signed on October 14 a new agreement enabling the EU to provide an additional €9 million to support the UN agency's work in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The funding will boost in particular the efforts of countries in the targeted regions to bring about sustainable changes in agricultural policies and practices to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity and natural resources.

: Jaya Ramachandran; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 14 October 2019

Photo: A woman dressed in blue rides a white donkey through open vast terrain surrounded by mountains. Credit: UN.

UN Focuses on Rural Women’s Role in Ensuring Food Security

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – Since the first International Day of Rural Women was observed on October 15, 2008, there is agreement that rural women and girls, including indigenous women, play a critical role in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.

In fact when the UN General Assembly established the new international day in its resolution 62/136 of December 18, 2007, it called for “attaching greater importance to the improvement of the situation of rural women, including indigenous women, in their national, regional and global development strategies”.

: Santo D. Banerjee; SUSTAINABILITY; Poverty; 13 October 2019

UN Concerned that the World Is Off-Track to End Hunger and Poverty by 2030

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Ahead of the World Food Day on October 16 and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17, the United Nations Is warning that the world is not on track to end hunger and poverty by 2030 – and hence missing the deadline for achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015.

: J Nastranis; SUSTAINABILITY; Poverty; 13 October 2019

Global Leaders Urged to Make Africa's Great Green Wall a Reality by 2030

By Caroline Mwanga

NEW YORK IDN) – Eminent leaders from business, politics, media, the film and music industries gathered in New York on September 22 to spotlight the 8000 km Great Green Wall – natural wonder of the world across the entire width of the African continent – as a practical, low-cost nature-based solution responding to the global climate emergency. They issued an urgent call on governments, civil society and business to join a growing global movement to make the Great Green Wall a reality by 2030.

: UN Bureau; SUSTAINABILITY; Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture; 23 September 2019

Photo collage: (left to right) Kumnung Chantasit demonstrating how to plant cardamom; An example of how banana trunks and leaves are used to protect the young trees; One of the hard working Thai chickens. Credit: Bronwen Evans.

Thai Farmer Shows How ‘Sufficiency Economy’ Works in Practice

By Bronwen Evans *

CHANTHABURI, Thailand (IDN) – There are generally two reasons why Thai farmers embrace organics – one is health and the other is economics. For 73-year old Kumnung Chanthasit it was the latter. He had farmed the same plot of land in Thailand’s eastern province of Chanthaburi since boyhood. Despite the rich volcanic soil, he found himself sinking deeper and deeper into debt as he struggled to pay for the fertilisers and pesticides he thought he needed.

: Ramesh Jaura; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 21 September 2019

Rising Demand for Palm Oil Threatens African Culture

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – The palm oil industry is growing by leaps and bounds around the globe but its overnight success is worrying environmentalists.

An estimated 7.5 million acres of land traditionally used or inhabited by local communities has been acquired by palm oil companies, according to GRAIN, a nonprofit that supports small farmers.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 18 September 2019

Photo: Gathering of WFC Councillors and recipients of Alternative Nobel Prize from 13 to 15 September at SEKEM, Egypt. Credit: SEKEM

Securing a World of Climate Resilience, Prosperity and Peace

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) – In the run-up to the Climate Action Summit at the UN in New York on September 23, the World Future Council (WFC) has called for immediate measures to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 to avoid climate catastrophe and to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050, and elimination of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

: Jutta Wolf; SUSTAINABILITY; Poverty; 17 September 2019

Collage: A glimpse of Choldala in Southern Kazakhstan. Photos by Kalinga Seneviratne, IDN-INPS

Costly City Housing Threatens Farming in Southern Kazakhstan

By Milena Melnikova*

CHOLDALA, Southern Kazakhstan (IDN) – "I work six days a week, like my wife. I can sometimes take extra hours, and she takes work home. We don’t have time to grow something or raise cattle," says Andrei Pan, who has been living in Choldala about 580 miles (or 933 km) south of the country's capital town Nur-Sultan for the past six years. He and his family moved from the nearby city Of Taraz in 2013 after numerous attempts to find affordable housing there.