The Meeting Lunch food security blog posted an interview with David Lobell, Stanford researcher and coauthor of a study arguing that our modern high-input, high-yielding agricultural system leads to less green house emissions than if we had a low-input, low-yielding agricultural system. The report argues that even though high-yielding agriculture requires the use of fertilizer, […]
Afghanistan will be more food insecure as 2011 dawns, according to international aid organizations working there. Already one of the most food insecure countries in the world, Afghanistan’s population may not receive needed food aid past June because of a funding shortfall to organizations like the World Food Programme. The summer floods in Pakistan have […]
The “land grab” of fertile farmland in Ethiopia was the subject of a recent post, but is not the only area of Africa that is being made available for foreign countries to buy up, sometimes with the blessing of the international community. The New York Times recently detailed the scope of land grabs across the […]
The cholera outbreak that has been ravaging Haiti since November 2010 is having a lasting effect on Haiti’s rice crop, according to CNN. “A chunk of Haiti’s rice harvest will probably be lost because of farmers’ fears of cholera contamination, the United Nations said Wednesday. On top of that, consumers are afraid to buy rice […]
I saw yesterday that an item I wrote in early December, Nuclear Power: Running on fumes?, was re-posted the other day at Climate Progress. If you don’t know Joe Romm and his and his colleagues’ important writing at Climate Progress, do yourself a favor and get over there and subscribe. Joe is a senior fellow […]
Less than a week after a deadly suicide attack in northwestern Pakistan, the World Food Programme (WFP) plans to resume food aid for victims of deadly floods. The attack killed 46 and wounded over 100. The attacker was reported to be a woman wearing a burqa, the first time such an attacker was deployed in […]
– Overview – The Met Office in the UK reports that 2010 is on track to be the warmest or second-warmest year in the instrumental record. Other science, based on massive data, supports that view. (See graphic above and NOAA’s annual State of the Climate report.) Meanwhile, the Post-Copenhagen international climate negotiations continued and culminated […]
Overview The best news of 2010 is the decrease of the world’s hungry from 1.023 billion to 925 million, though most of that change is due to a reversal in high food prices and global economic crises, according to the UN’s Committee on Food Security (CFS). Taking this into consideration, 2010 saw a continuation of […]
It’s been a busy week. I hope you didn’t get caught in any of the massive travel snafus in Europe or the US that have made holiday travel a nightmare for hundreds of thousands. If you did, then I hope you survived with most of your sanity intact. It’s a cold, windy morning here in […]
Even last-minute holiday shoppers have a chance to help with the fight against global hunger this holiday season. Following the recent post about five ways to fight hunger for the holidays the Global Food Security blog offers these additional suggestions: CARE Full-Circle Exchange Freedom from Hunger Credit with Education and Saving for Change Heifer International […]
Discontent from “land grabbing” in Africa has struck in Ethiopia, where the BBC reports that “opposition activists claim that a number of arrests and the killings of 10 local farmers are as a direct result of” the Ethiopian governmental policy to lease 3 million hectares of land – an area the size of Belgium – […]
That’s what people call California. If you’re thinking about the glitter and the shine of that precious metal and how California reflects it in its forward-thinking, economically smart and environmentally sound approach to climate and energy, then you see what I see. The clean tech vision and environmental ethic are embraced all along the political […]
The question last week was whether or not renewables were going to be left behind in the tax deal in Washington. It is a testament to the maturity of the industry that they were not. The key federal grant program, and some other supports for renewables, were extended. One perspective has it that thousands of […]
Still shopping for holiday gifts? Several food aid organizations are offering unique ways to give gifts that will help in the fight against hunger this holiday season. Check out these gift opportunities, and look through the organizations’ websites to learn more about their work and other ways you can help fight hunger throughout the year. […]
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 […]