Using a elementary school as a backdrop, President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act into law on Monday, capping a campaign led by the President and his wife, Michelle, to fight childhood obesity in the United States. The new law, which pledges 4.5 billion dollars over 10 years to child nutrition programs, will give […]
The Senate has recently passed a new bill, the Food Safety and Modernization Act, which gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) much greater power to protect the nation’s food supply. The bill was drafted because of the spate of problems the food industry has had in keeping its food clean in recent years; including […]
Dr. Nick Cullather writes on the history of development and nation- building. His most recent book, The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle against Poverty in Asia, was just published by Harvard University Press. He is the author of two other books, Secret History, a study of the CIA’s overthrow of Guatemala’s government, and Illusions […]
In time for Thanksgiving in the United States, The New York Times featured an article about the emergence of the sweet potato from an American holiday vegetable to one of the fastest growing vegetables in American diets, both at home and in restaurants. “Food and farming experts attribute the sweet potato’s escape from the limited […]
The World Food Program has released a hunger quiz in which an anonymous donor will feed a child a warm meal for every person who completes it. The short quiz challenges some basic assumptions about hunger, such as where it is in the world, who it disproportionately affects, and how much it takes to feed […]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the George McGovern Leadership Award given by the World Food Program USA on October 5th, 2010. Secretary Clinton received the award for establishing the U.S. government program Feed the Future (FTF). According to the press release, Feed the Future will be a “comprehensive approach to food security that increases […]
The Executive Director of the World Food Programme Josette Sheeran recently outlined a 10 point strategy for ending hunger. According to a WFP press release, the “world is making headway on fighting hunger – the first Millennium Goal — but not as fast as is needed. The proportion of hungry people in the world has […]
The Word Food Programme has started the Women’s Empowerment Fund, a new initiative which recognizes the importance of women in the global fight against hunger. The Fund envisions helping women in four areas. One is in business leadership, since, as the press report writes: “women in Africa re-invest about 90 percent of their income back […]
With over two-thirds of the world’s hungry found in Asia, the Asia Society and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) formed a task force to examine food security issues in Asia and develop public policy approaches for overcoming hunger. The initial findings of the task force were released last month in a report titled, “Never […]
An ambitious new Food Security Bill is being drafted in India by the National Advisory Council (NAC). According to NDTV and The Hindu, about 79,000 crore rupees (just under $17 billion) per year would be spent under the bill to guarantee 75 percent of the Indian population with foodgrains at subsidized prices. This is up […]
Six million Pakistanis relying on international food aid after being displaced by summer monsoons are facing the additional danger of running out of food aid. According to a report by the BBC, the United Nations coordinator for humanitarian aid in Pakistan, Martin Mogwanja, recently warned of malnutrition already setting in, and only growing by December, […]
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) predicts that by 2050, as many as one-third of Americans may suffer from Type-2 diabetes. Businessweek recently reported that, “An aging population, an increase in minority groups at higher risk for diabetes, and the fact that diabetes patients are living longer are among the reasons for the steep projected […]
World Food Day was marked on October 16th with prominent leaders meeting at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome to discuss increased investment in agriculture, good governance by nations and the importance of unity in the global fight against hunger – which chronically affects over 1 billion people. The Committee on […]
According to last Monday’s New York Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote about concern over a controlling bid for ownership of Potash Corporation, a Canadian fertilizer company, placed by a consortium of Chinese companies and financiers. Sorkin indicates that the writing on the wall from such scrutiny is, “‘Do we really want the Chinese to control […]
The New York Times published an article titled “Raisins Give Hope to Afghan Farmers,” describing how “…an unusual alliance among Afghan farmers; Mercy Corps, an international aid organization based in Portland, Oregon; and Fullwell Mill, a British food producer…” is bringing Afghan raisins to British store shelves and providing a secure agricultural product for Afghan […]