Food Security

Salt-Resistant Rice Offers Hope For Farmers Clinging To Disappearing Islands
(NPR) Many of the 4 million people who live in the Sundarbans are poor subsistence farmers like Tarek. Rice is the staple crop, and growing it requires abundant fresh water. In a rice paddy, the brackish water that surrounds these islands can be devastating.
In Kolkata, about 60 miles north of Ghoramara, Asish Ghosh understands that climate change could cause rice paddies to flood with saltwater more frequently, making Tarek’s problems worse. And he believes he can help. Ghosh is the founder of an environmental organization called ENDEV, The Society for Environment and Development.
“We used to grow 6,000 varieties of rice” in the Indian state of West Bengal, Ghosh says. “That is an incredible figure.” The problem is, 90 percent of those varieties have disappeared. Farmers no longer grow them, and nobody has saved the seeds. Still, Ghosh figured that some of the 600 remaining varieties must be salt-resistant.

2015

7 October
Worst El Nino on record whips up fears of EM food price surge
The El Niño weather system, which forecasters believe may prove to have its strongest year this year since records began in 1950, will be the major prompt for an increase in food prices, and the trend may already be in evidence
The worst El Niño on record may provoke a dangerous period of food price inflation which could worsen the pressure on weak emerging markets, according to a leading economist in Asia.
Most food prices, like all commodities, have declined in value over the last year alongside the oil price and sluggish global growth. But according to Rob Subbaraman, chief economist for ex-Japan Asia at Nomura “of all the various commodity classes, it is the soft ones that have the greatest potential for a surge”.
22 September
Syria war spurs opening of ‘doomsday’ Arctic seed vault
As Aleppo gene bank built to safeguard global food supplies is at risk, researchers request frozen seeds from Svalbard.
(Al Jazeera) Syria’s civil war has prompted the first withdrawal of seeds from a “doomsday” vault built in an Arctic mountainside to safeguard global food supplies.
The seeds, including samples of wheat, barley and grasses suited to dry regions, have been requested by researchers elsewhere in the Middle East to replace seeds in a gene bank near the Syrian city of Aleppo that has been damaged by the war.
“Protecting the world’s biodiversity in this manner is precisely the purpose of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault,” Brian Lainoff, a spokesman for the Crop Trust, which runs the underground storage on a Norwegian island 1,300km from the North Pole, told Reuters on Monday.
The vault, which opened on the Svalbard archipelago in 2008, is designed to protect crop seeds – such as beans, rice and wheat – against the worst cataclysms of nuclear war or disease.

2014

25 April
Climate change and the food security dimension
A new report emphasises that climate change will affect us all, and fundamental changes are needed to avoid the worst.
(Al Jazeera) The world’s most authoritative body on climate change science recently published a report emphasising that climate change is happening even faster, and with more damaging effects, than previously anticipated.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report made clear that climate change will be harmful for all of us – and not only for a few remote island states or polar bears – by affecting the world’s food supply.
Although the Panel has a deserved reputation for being a conservative and careful intergovernmental body, it declared its concern in this report using bold language. Even though the report repeated many of the findings of its Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007, some commentators nevertheless called its conclusions “alarmist”.
… refusal to heed earlier warnings about climate change might be overcome by this most recent IPCC report, which reframed climate change as a food security issue. “Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,” said Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian scientist who serves as the distinguished chair of the IPCC.
For a long time, environmentalists exhorted the public to “think of your children and grandchildren”. No more. This report warned that negative impacts on declining crop yields due to climate change could become more likely in the 2030s, just around the corner. Meanwhile, crop yields could decline by two percent per decade, at a time when demand is projected to increase by two percent each year.
Food security is an immediate concern for every human being, and ensuring it calls for fundamental changes in our daily habits. Individual and common action will be required to achieve a viable global agricultural policy and trade in a warming world.
In March, Oxfam, a global non-governmental organisation, published its own report called: “Hot and Hungry: How to stop climate change derailing the fight against hunger.” In a press conference, Oxfam’s head of policy for food and climate change said: “This is no longer a picture about poor farmers in some regions being hit by climate change. This is a picture about global agriculture being hit – US, Russia and Australia – with global implications for food prices.”
Greater food insecurity could even pose a security threat as competition intensifies for water and arable land. The IPCC Report warns about an “increase in risks of violent conflicts in the form of civil war and intergroup violence”. The decade-long armed conflict in Sudan, the ongoing civil war in Syria and unrest in Egypt are all example of how severe drought, internal migration and economic hardship can lead to devastating instability.

2013

21 November
Sci Dev Net Editorial: Food security demands diversity
The challenge calls for divergent solutions — small-scale, tech-based initiatives as much as long-term research.
— Food security relies on inter-related factors that go beyond just ‘producing more’
— Better seed, better storage, less waste, and diversified crops are all needed
— Providing enough good food for all will need a multi-pronged approach
Science’s role in growing diverse, nutritious food
— There will be ten billion mouths to feed by 2050, so food production must rise
— Science can offer tools and strategies but policies must change, too
— In particular, ways to get science in the hands of farmers are vital
1 November
Climate change threatens world food supply, panel warns
(New York Times via Globe & Mail) The [leaked] draft report warns that sweeping effects of climate change are already being seen across the planet, and are likely to intensify as human emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise.
Echoing past findings, the draft report points out that land ice is melting worldwide, leading to a rise of the sea that is putting coastal communities at increased risk of flooding. It describes a natural world in turmoil as plants and animals attempt to migrate to escape rising temperatures, and warns that many could go extinct. Saving a significant fraction of the world’s biological diversity may require far more aggressive human management of natural systems, the report declares.
Dutch envoy Verburg elected as head of World Food Security group
Gerda Verburg, elected to of the Committee on World Food Security, wants to see the group tighten its focus so it can better deliver on its goals. Verburg also expects CWFS to improve its outreach capacity, acting as a platform for discussion and ideas, and become more collaborative with Rome-based agencies. Devex.com (free registration) (10/15),Thomson Reuters Foundation (10/14), The Guardian (London) (10/14), IRINNews.org (10/14)

18 September
Food crisis fears prompt UN wake-up call to world leaders
United Nations urges governments to do more to support small farmers to curb hunger, poverty and climate change
Action needed to stem future food crises, UNCTAD warns
(The Guardian) Climate change requires immediate movement on sustainable agricultural practices to avoid disruptions in food security, especially in poorer countries, says a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report. Greater emphasis is needed on combating poverty and on giving the poor access to food that’s wholesome and affordable, the report argues.
The 2013 Trade and Environment Review, calls on governments to “wake up before it is too late” and shift rapidly towards farming models that promote a greater variety of crops, reduced fertiliser use and stronger links between small farms and local consumers.
Persistent rural poverty, global hunger, population growth and environmental concerns must be treated as a collective crisis, argues the report, which criticises the international response to the 2008 food-price crisis for focusing on technical “quick-fixes”.  (19 September)

See also Water and on Wednesday-Night.com

We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say
What’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any of the above. It’s hunger, plain and simple. If there’s a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it’s food becoming too scarce or too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense.
In a 2011 paper, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute unveiled a model that accurately explained why the waves of unrest that swept the world in 2008 and 2011 crashed when they did. The number one determinant was soaring food prices. Their model identified a precise threshold for global food prices that, if breached, would lead to worldwide unrest. (November 2012)

16 August

The Plight of the Honeybee
Mass deaths in bee colonies may mean disaster for farmers–and your favorite foods You can thank the Apis mellifera, better known as the Western honeybee, for 1 in every 3 mouthfuls you’ll eat today. Honeybees — which pollinate crops like apples, blueberries and cucumbers — are the “glue that holds our agricultural system together,” as the journalist Hannah Nordhaus put it in her 2011 book The Beekeeper’s Lament. But that glue is failing. Bee hives are dying off or disappearing thanks to a still-unsolved malady called colony collapse disorder (CCD), so much so that commercial beekeepers are being pushed out of the business. So what’s killing the honeybees? Pesticides — including a new class called neonicotinoids — seem to be harming bees even at what should be safe levels. Biological threats like the Varroa mite are killing off colonies directly and spreading deadly diseases. As our farms become monocultures of commodity crops like wheat and corn — plants that provide little pollen for foraging bees — honeybees are literally starving to death. If we don’t do something, there may not be enough honeybees to meet the pollination demands for valuable crops. But more than that, in a world where up to 100,000 species go extinct each year, the vanishing honeybee could be the herald of a permanently diminished planet. (19 August)
George Monbiot: DDT 2.0 Most people [The Guardian] who read this newspaper will be aware by now of the evidence fingering neonicotinoids as a major cause of the decline of bees and other pollinators. These pesticides can be applied to the seeds of crops, and they remain in the plant as it grows, killing the insects which eat it. The quantities required to destroy insect life are astonishingly small: by volume these poisons are 10,000 times as powerful as DDT. When honeybees are exposed to just 5 nanogrammes of neonicotinoids, half of them will die. As bees, hoverflies, butterflies, moths, beetles and other pollinators feed from the flowers of treated crops, they are, it seems, able to absorb enough of the pesticide to compromise their survival. But only a tiny proportion of the neonicotinoids that farmers use enter the pollen or nectar of the flower. Studies conducted so far suggest that only between 1.6 and 20% of the pesticide used for dressing seeds is actually absorbed by the crop: a far lower rate even than when toxins are sprayed onto leaves. Some of the residue blows off as dust, which is likely to wreak havoc among the populations of many species of insects in hedgerows and surrounding habitats. But the great majority – Goulson says “typically more than 90%” – of the pesticide applied to the seeds enters the soil.
Honeybee crisis: What’s killing the bees?
(CBS) The plight of the honeybees is growing more serious each year. The U.S. lost 31 percent of its colonies last winter and as the bees die off, the threat to $15 billion-worth of U.S. agriculture is becoming a major concern.

Social media helping Kenyan farmers to better grow crops
Young farmers in Kenya are using social media to gain information about local weather and climate change and how they affect crops. As a result, they are better equipped to make decisions on planning and planting, writes Caleb Kemboi. Thomson Reuters Foundation (7/16)
6 July
‘The real threat to our future is peak water’
As population rises, overpumping means some nations have reached peak water, which threatens food supply, says Lester Brown
(The Guardian) We drink on average four litres of water per day, in one form or another, but the food we eat each day requires 2,000 litres of water to produce, or 500 times as much. Getting enough water to drink is relatively easy, but finding enough to produce the ever-growing quantities of grain the world consumes is another matter.
12 June
Biofuels Get a Dubious Boost
(IPS) – In an unexpected move, European parliamentarians have approved a new biofuel regulation that will take emissions from indirect land use change into account. The new text allows the biofuel sector to expand, sending a clear signal to world food markets and jeopardising food security for the world’s poorest.
The European Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI) voted Thursday in favour of a proposal that limits the use of biofuels to 5.5 percent. This percentage is a compromise between the European Greens who asked for a cap of three percent and the centre-right European People’s Party that wanted a cap of 6.5 percent.
The cap was introduced by the European Commission a year ago after criticism that the policy boosted food prices, causing hunger in developing nations.
6 June
Chinese Imports Of Oilseeds, Dairy, Coarse Grains To Jump; Agribusiness Growth Impact On Resources, Environment Poses Uncertainty
(International Business Times) An annual outlook published on Thursday by the Food and Agricultural Organization and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, said China, with its growing population, higher incomes and rising consumption, will significantly influence world markets over the next 10 years.
“The challenge is clear: feeding China in the context of its rapid economic growth and limited resource constraints is a daunting task,” the Financial Times quoted the report as saying. “China’s consumption growth will slightly outpace its production growth.”
The forecast comes at a time when China’s agribusiness growth is fueling a trend of mergers in the global food industry. China’s Shuanghui last week acquired leading American pork producer Smithfield Foods for $7 billion, the largest Chinese acquisition of a U.S. company till date.
China is already the world’s largest pork producer and consumer and has been mostly self-sufficient in pork supply. However, maintaining its current self-sufficiency levels over the next 10 years will be a challenge, the report said.
The Financial Times report also noted that commodities trading houses such as Archer Daniels Midland and Marubeni have spent $10 billion over the past year buying grain traders in Australia and the U.S., keeping the Chinese food market in mind.
8 May

Native varieties of maize, like these drying in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the southern state of Chiapas, are key to preserving crop diversity. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

Mexico – Ground Zero in the Fight for the Future of Maize
(IPS) Civil society organisations are raising their guard against the possibility that the government of conservative President Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) may approve commercial cultivation of transgenic maize, a move widely condemned by environmentalists and other activists, academics, and small and medium producers due to the risks it poses.
In September, the U.S. corporations Monsanto, Pioneer and Dow Agrosciences presented six applications for commercial plantations of transgenic maize on more than two million hectares in the northwestern state of Sinaloa and the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.
Moreover, in January these companies and Syngenta presented 11 applications for pilot and experimental plots to grow transgenic corn on 622 hectares in the northern states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Sinaloa and Baja California. And Monsanto has applied for an additional plantation in an unspecified area in the north of the country.
10 April
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed: Why food riots are likely to become the new normal
The link between intensifying inequality, debt, climate change, fossil fuel dependency and the global food crisis is undeniable
(The Guardian) We now know that the fundamental triggers for the Arab spring were unprecedented food price rises. The first sign things were unravelling hit in 2008, when a global rice shortage coincided with dramatic increases in staple food prices, triggering food riots across the middle east, north Africa and south Asia. A month before the fall of the Egyptian and Tunisian regimes, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported record high food prices for dairy, meat, sugar and cereals.
Since 2008, global food prices have been consistently higher than in preceding decades, despite wild fluctuations. This year, even with prices stabilising, the food price index remains at 210 – which some experts believe is the threshold beyond which civil unrest becomes probable.
The key issue, of course, is climate change. Droughts exacerbated by global warming in key food-basket regions have already led to a 10-20% drop in rice yields over the past decade. Last year, four-fifths of the US experienced a heatwave, there were prolonged droughts in Russia and Africa, a lighter monsoon in India and floods in Pakistan – extreme weather events that were likely linked to climate change afflicting the world’s major food basket regions. …
Industrial farming methods are breaching the biophysical limits of the soil. World agricultural land productivity between 1990 and 2007 was 1.2% a year, nearly half compared with 1950-90 levels of 2.1%.
Avaaz: Monsanto vs. Mother Earth
It’s unbelievable, but Monsanto and Co. are at it again. These profit-hungry biotech companies have found a way to exclusively ‘own’ something that freely belongs to us all — our food! They’re trying to patent away our everyday vegetables and fruits like cucumber, broccoli and melons, forcing growers to pay them and risk being sued if they don’t.
But we can stop them from buying up Mother Earth. Companies like Monsanto have found loopholes in European law to get away with this, so we just need to close them shut before they set a dangerous global precedent. And to do that, we need key countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands — where opposition is already growing — to call for a vote to stop Monsanto’s plans.
12 March
Food-security strategies must involve women, De Schutter says
The empowerment of women can be enabled by adjusting food-security and anti-poverty programs, writes Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food. “Food security and anti-poverty strategies must be transformative and make the redistribution of roles between women and men a priority. This is the only way to make sure that the social investment intended to sustain the poor does not also sustain the gender divisions that characterise poverty and keep it locked in place,” De Schutter argues. The Guardian (London) (3/12)
De Schutter: Food rights, gender equality need increased FAO support
Advancement of food-rights policies will do much to help ease food-security issues, and support from the Food and Agriculture Organization is essential, writes Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on right to food. Gender equality also will assist in empowering women to pursue farming and other jobs. “[B]e aware that a productive investment is the one made in women — that is the secret weapon, or the shortcut, to reducing hunger and malnutrition,” he writes. The Guardian (London)/Poverty Matters blog (3/4), The Guardian (London)/Poverty Matters blog (3/5)

4 March
Empires of food. why societies rise and fall
(RCI) Throughout history, as a society as farmers are able to produce food surpluses, it has enabled other to leave the agrarian lifestyle and move into urban centres, to develop other pursuits and skills. As this trend goes on the the cities grow, and eventually require more food to feed themselves. The powerful cities and cultures then start to expand into new areas seeking more farmland and resources to sustain them.
New land under cultivation, along with extended periods of clement weather provides much more food and at low cost, which enables the civilization to grow and expand.
Eventually however, a number of factors combine, such as a weakening of soil through excessive use, an extended period of poor weather, or disease that wipes out a monoculture crop.
This results in a food crisis. Food availability is reduced, prices rise, and a great class disparity arises. This can lead to a large percentage of the population being undernourished, along with migration from the cities, internal strife and a weakening of power and control and eventual fall of the empire.
(RCI) a recent Canadian book says that there may well be a main reason underlying both the rise of great civilizations and their fall.
That reason is the supply, availability, and costs of food

No-till Farming Holds the Key to Food Security
(IPS) – No-till farming is a response to climate change that fits well with the needs of the Caribbean: it increases the ability to capture water, while withstanding both drought and excessive rains, says expert Theodor Friedrich, representative of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Cuba. … farming without removing the soil, no-till farming, which responds to the need to improve the economic conditions of farmers, saving on fuel costs or the number of oxen.
It also (mitigates the impacts of) climate change, because (keeping the soil in place) increases the ability to capture water and withstand drought, with less problems for crops. (No-till farming also allows) soil to absorb excess water in the case of hurricanes, for example.
This is called conservation agriculture. It is based on three fundamentals: one is to not work the land, the second is to manage a permanent cover with mulch or plant debris, and the third is to diversify crops, in rotation, in frequency and in crop associations.
The key is not to work on the land mechanically, because what is needed is a tool to open a hole or a groove to put the seed in the ground and cover it – nothing more. Land worked like this can easily absorb well over 100 millimeters of rain per hour. There is no reason for flooding in times of hurricanes, because the water passes to underground areas and stays much longer in the earth
The Caribbean islands are in dire need of new techniques that can ensure food security amid the threats of climate change.
18 January
Toxic Water: Across Much of China, Huge Harvests Irrigated with Industrial and Agricultural Runoff
(circle of blue) … the nation’s rivers, lakes, and falling water tables are enduring deficits of clean water that often force farmers to grow food using water that is tainted with heavy metals, organic pollutants, and nitrogen. Much of China’s water is so contaminated that it should not even be touched, yet tremendous amounts of the grains, vegetables, and fruits that are served in homes and restaurants, as well as textiles that are sold in markets, are irrigated with untreated industrial wastewater.

2012

Yields of important food crops stall
Production of several key crops is increasing in some parts of the world, but a study reports that in up to 39% of growing areas of corn, rice, wheat and soybeans, “yields either never improve, stagnate or collapse.” “This finding is particularly troubling because it suggests that we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars, as we have largely ignored investments in wheat and rice, crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world,” said Jonathan Foley, co-author of the study. The Washington Post/WorldViews blog (12/24)
19 December
Harvests and farmland — Unyielding
(Economist blog|Feast and Famine) SOME of the world’s most significant problems never intrude upon headlines. They make themselves felt indirectly, if at all. One example comes from agriculture. Food riots and hunger make news; so, occasionally, do land grabs in developing countries or arguments over genetically modified foods. But the trend that underlies and helps explain these matters is rarely talked about. This is the decline, sometimes reversal, in the growth in yields of some of the world’s staple crops. All the more reason to welcome a new study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal, which looks in some detail at where, and how far, this decline is occurring.
5 December
Extreme weather may lead to extreme food prices
Research suggests that prices for food staples such as rice, corn and wheat could more than double in the next 20 years because of climate change. That could send millions more people into poverty and increase the ranks of malnourished children. “Extreme weather means extreme prices,” said Tracy Carty of the charity Oxfam. The Guardian (London) (12/5), AlertNet (11/27)
28 November
Wheat genome’s key parts unlocked in new study
(BBC) Scientists have unlocked key parts of the complex genetic code of wheat, one of the world’s most important crops, which could help improve food security.
15 November
New food-assistance agreement to take effect in 2013
With ratification by the EU this week, a new Food Assistance Convention will take effect in 2013, shifting the emphasis from traditional food deliveries to assistance that allows vulnerable populations to buy food within the country as much as possible, thereby supporting local markets. Some aid groups have criticized the new accord because it does not set specific goals for contributions. AlertNet (11/15)
EU reconsiders biofuels policy amid concerns of hunger crisis
The European Commission on Monday proposed capping quotas for production of food-based biofuels amid concerns that policies were resulting in the removal of needed crops from the global supply chain and could contribute to hunger among the world’s poorest. The proposal would limit the targets for biofuel usage in Europe-wide transport to 5% through 2020. The limit is supported by Oxfam, which released a report saying the EU goal of 10% of transport energy from renewable sources by 2020 is too high. AlertNet/Reuters (9/17), The Guardian (London) (9/17)
UN agencies appeal for food-crisis intervention
United Nations food agencies warned today that swift action is needed to avert a catastrophic food crisis that could affect tens of millions of the world’s poor. Nestlé is lobbying the U.S. and EU to reduce their biofuel quotas, while three UN agencies — the World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization and International Fund for Agricultural Development — urged governments of developing countries to increase assistance to small-scale farmers, women and children. AlertNet/Reuters (9/4), The New York Times (tiered subscription model)/The Associated Press (9/4), The Guardian (London) (9/4), Al-Jazeera (9/3)
Water shortages could encourage vegetarianism
The food shortages forecast by scientists over the next 40 years could mean that much of the world’s population will be compelled to become vegetarian, particularly in developing countries that rely heavily on food imports. “There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations,” concludes a report by the Stockholm International Water Institute. The Guardian (London) (8/26)
24 August
We’ll make a killing out of food crisis, Glencore trading boss Chris Mahoney boasts
Drought is good for business, says world’s largest commodities trading company
(The Independent) The United Nations, aid agencies and the British Government have lined up to attack the world’s largest commodities trading company, Glencore, after it described the current global food crisis and soaring world prices as a “good” business opportunity.
With the US experiencing a rerun of the drought “Dust Bowl” days of the 1930s and Russia suffering a similar food crisis that could see Vladimir Putin’s government banning grain exports, the senior economist of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, Concepcion Calpe, told The Independent: “Private companies like Glencore are playing a game that will make them enormous profits.”
Ms Calpe said leading international politicians and banks expecting Glencore to back away from trading in potential starvation and hunger in developing nations for “ethical reasons” would be disappointed.
20 August
Drought Only One Factor Behind High Food Prices
(Spiegel) The severe drought in the US has been blamed the rising prices of agricultural commodities. But that is only part of the story: Biofuels, financial speculation and changing dietary habits are also playing a role. The global food supply faces pressure from all sides.
Some prices have soured by almost 50 percent within just 10 weeks, and grain warehouses are beginning to empty out. Other important supplier countries also anticipate poor harvests. Because of a prolonged dry period in Russia, wheat exports are expected to be only half of what they were last year. Brazil, on the other hand, has had too much rain, which is bad news for sugar-cane farmers. “The latest crop predictions suggest that we should fear the worst,” the United Nations World Food Programme warned last week. It is the third such warning in recent years, following similar crises in 2008 and 2011. Catastrophe, it would seem, is becoming the norm.
8 August
The Global Food Security Index 2012: An assessment of food affordability, availability and quality is an Economist Intelligence Unit publication, commissioned by DuPont.