Rt. Hon Patricia Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, visited the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu in April to discuss climate justice and witnessed the impacts of Cyclones Judy and Kevin in the country. Photo Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jun 5 2023 (IPS)

In the Pacific Islands and many developing and emerging countries worldwide, the informal economy far outsizes the formal one, playing a vital role in the survival of urban and rural households and absorbing expanding working-age populations.

Informal business entrepreneurs and workers make up more than 60 percent of the labour force worldwide. But they are also the most exposed, with precarious assets and working conditions, to the economic shocks of extreme weather and climate disasters.

In 2016, Category 5 Cyclone Winston, the most ferocious cyclone recorded in the southern hemisphere, unleashed widespread destruction of Fiji’s infrastructure, services and economic sectors, such as agriculture and tourism.  And in March this year, Cyclones Judy and Kevin barrelled through Vanuatu, an archipelago nation of more than 300,000 people, and its capital, Port Vila, leaving local tourism businesses with severe losses.

More than 80 percent of people in Papua New Guinea live in rural areas and are sustained by informal business activities, especially the smallholder growing and selling of fresh produce. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

It is now three months since the disasters. But Dalida Borlasa, business owner of Yumi Up Upcycling Solutions, an enterprise at Port Vila’s handicraft market, which depends on tourists, told IPS there had been some recovery, but not enough. “We have had two cruise ships visit in recent weeks, but there have only been a few tourists visiting the market. We are not earning enough money for daily food. And other vendors at the market don’t have enough money to replace their products that were damaged by the cyclones,” she said.

Up to 80 percent of working-age people in some Pacific Island countries are engaged in informal income-generating activities, such as smallholder agriculture and tourism-dependent livelihoods. But in a matter of hours, cyclones can destroy huge swathes of crops and bring the tourism industry to a halt when international visitors cancel their holidays.

Climate change and disasters are central concerns to the Commonwealth, an inter-governmental organization representing 78 percent of all small nations, 11 Pacific Island states and 2.5 billion people worldwide. “The consequences of global failure on climate action are catastrophic, particularly for informal businesses and workers in small and developing countries. Just imagine the struggles of an individual who relies on subsistence and commercial agriculture for their livelihood. Their entire existence is hanging in the balance as they grapple with unpredictable weather patterns and unfavourable conditions that can wipe out their crops in a matter of seconds,” Rt. Hon Patricia Scotland KC, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, told IPS. “It’s not simply a matter of economic well-being; their entire way of life is at stake. The fear and uncertainty they experience are truly daunting. But they are fighting. We must too.”

The formal economy in many Pacific Island countries is too small and offers few employment opportunities. In Papua New Guinea, an estimated four million people are not in work, while the formal sector has only 400,000-500,000 job openings, according to PNG’s Institute of National Affairs. And with more than 50 percent of the population of about 8.9 million aged below 25 years, the number of job seekers will only rise in the coming years. And so, more than 80 percent of the country’s workforce is occupied in self-generated small-scale enterprises, such as cultivating and selling fruit and vegetables.

But eight years ago, the agricultural livelihoods of millions were decimated when a record drought associated with the El Nino climate phenomenon ravaged the Melanesian country.

“Eighty-five percent of PNG’s population are rural inhabitants who are dependent on the land for production of food and the sale of surplus for income through informal fresh produce markets. In areas affected by the 2015 drought, especially in the highlands, the drought killed food crops, affecting food security,” Dr Elizabeth Kopel of the Informal Economy Research Program at PNG’s National Research Institute told IPS. “Rural producers also supply urban food markets, so when supply dwindled, food prices increased for urban dwellers,” she added.

In Vanuatu, an estimated 67 percent of the workforce earn informal incomes, primarily in agriculture and tourism. On the waterfront of Port Vila is a large, covered handicraft market, a commercial hub for more than 100 small business owners who make and sell baskets, jewellery, paintings, woodcarvings and artworks to tourists. The island country is a major destination for cruise ships in the South Pacific. In 2019, it received more than 250,000 international visitors.

Highly exposed to the sea and storms, the market building, with the facilities and business assets it houses, bore the brunt of gale force winds from Cyclones Judy and Kevin on 1-3 March.  Tables were broken, and many of the products stored there were destroyed. Thirty-six-year-old Myshlyn Narua lost most of the handmade pandanus bags she was planning to sell. The money she had saved helped to sustain her family in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, but it would not be enough to survive six months, she stated in a report on the disaster’s impacts on market vendors compiled by Dalida Borlasa.

The country’s tourism sector has suffered numerous climate-induced economic shocks in recent years. In 2015, Cyclone Pam left losses amounting to 64 percent of GDP. Another Cyclone, Harold, in 2020 added further economic losses to the recession across the region triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To address the climate emergency and protect the lives and livelihoods of people, particularly those in the informal sector, countries must fulfil their commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement. They must work to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and provide the promised US$100 billion per year in climate finance,” said the Commonwealth Secretary-General. She added that climate-vulnerable nations should also be eligible for debt relief. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Secretariat is working with member countries to improve their access to global funding for climate projects. And it is calling for reform of the global financial architecture to improve access to finance for lower-income countries that need it the most.

At the same time, the International Labour Organization predicts that the informal economy will continue to employ most Pacific Islanders, and the imperative now is to develop the sector and improve its resilience.

In PNG, the government has acknowledged the significance of the informal sector and developed national policy and legislation to grow its size and potential. Its long-term strategy is to improve the access of entrepreneurs to skills training, communications, technology and finance and encourage diversity and innovation within the sector. Currently, 98 percent of informal enterprises in the country are self-funded, with people often seeking loans from informal sources. The government’s goal is to see informal enterprises transition into higher value-added small and medium-sized businesses and to see the number of these businesses grow from about 50,000 now to 500,000 by 2030.

In Port Vila, Borlasa and her fellow entrepreneurs would like to see their existing facilities made more climate resilient before they face the next cyclone. She suggested that stronger window and door shutters be fitted to the market building and the floor raised and strengthened to stop waves and storm surges penetrating.

Looking ahead, the economic forecast is for GDP growth in all Pacific Island countries this year and into 2024 after three difficult years of the pandemic, reports the World Bank. Although, the economic hit of the cyclones is likely to result in a decline in growth to 1 percent in Vanuatu this year. But the real indicator of economic well-being for many Pacific islanders will be resilience and prosperity in the informal economy.

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Freshly slaughtered bush meat is being consumed even though it may have health risks.

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, May 18 2023 (IPS)

Meat from wild animals is relished across Africa and widely traded, but scientists are warning that eating bush meat is a potential health risk, especially in the wake of pandemics like COVID-19.

A study at the border settlements of Kenya and Tanzania has found that while people have been aware of the risks associated with eating bushmeat, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak, they don’t worry about hunting and eating wild animals that could transmit diseases.

On the contrary, the demand for bushmeat has increased, the 2023 study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and TRAFFIC and other partners found.

No Beef With Bushmeat

Bushmeat is a collective term for meat derived from wild mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds that live in the jungle, savannah, or wetlands. Bushmeat comes from a variety of wild animals, including monkeys, pangolins, snakes, porcupines, antelopes, elephants, and giraffes.

The study — the first ever to look at disease risk perceptions of wild meat activities in rural communities in East Africa — was conducted in December 2021, and 299 people were interviewed in communities on the Kenya-Tanzania border.

Key findings of the study revealed that levels of education played a critical role in understanding zoonotic disease transmission; a majority of the people interviewed who had higher levels of education were more aware of the risks of disease transmission.

Nearly 80 percent of the respondents had learned about COVID-19 from mass media sources, but this did not impact their levels of wild meat consumption. Some even reported increased consumption. Hoofed animals, such as antelopes, gazelles and deer, were found to be the most consumed species, followed by birds, rodents and shrews.

Scientist and lead study author at ILRI, Ekta Patel, commented that it was important to commence the study in Kenya given the limited information on both rural and urban demand for wild meat and the potential risks associated with zoonotic diseases. The Kenya-Tanzania border is a known hotspot for wild meat consumption.

Zoonotic diseases are those that originate in animals — be they tamed or wild — that then mutate and ‘spill over’ into human populations.  Two-thirds of infectious diseases, from HIV/AIDS, which are believed to have originated in chimpanzee populations in early 20th century Central Africa, to COVID-19, believed to have originated from an as-yet undetermined animal in 2019, come from animals.

Confirming that there is no COVID health risk of consuming wild meat, Patel said that given the COVID-19 pandemic, which is thought to originate from wildlife, the study was investigating if the general public was aware of health risks associated with frequent interactions with wildlife.

Patel said some of these risks of eating bush meat include coming into contact with zoonotic pathogens, which can make the handler unwell. Other concerns are linked to not cooking meats well, resulting in foodborne illnesses.

“The big worry is in zoonotic disease risks associated with wild meat activities such as hunting, skinning and consuming,” Patel told IPS.

Africa is facing a growing risk of outbreaks caused by zoonotic pathogens, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The global health body reported a 63% increase in zoonotic outbreaks in the region from 2012-2022 compared to 2001-2011.

Control or Ban?

Scientists estimate that 70 percent of emerging infectious diseases originated from animals, and 60 percent of the existing infectious disease are zoonotic. For example, Ebola outbreaks in the Congo basin have been traced back to hunters exposed to ape carcasses.  She called for governments to implement policies to control zoonotic disease transmission risks through community engagements to change behaviour.

The study, while representative of the small sample, offered valuable insights about bushmeat consumption trends happening across Africa, where bushmeat is many times on the menu, says Martin Andimile, co-author of the study and Research Manager at the global wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

Pointing to the need to improve hygiene and standards of informal markets while at the same time providing communities with alternative protein sources, Andimile believes bushmeat consumption should be paused, citing the difficulty of regulating this source of meat.

“I think people in Africa have other options to get meat besides wild meat although some advocate that they get meat from the wild because of cultural reasons and that it is a delicacy, government systems cannot control the legal exploitation of wildlife,” Andimile told IPS. “I think bushmeat consumption should be stopped until there is a proper way of regulating it.”

Andimile said while some regulation could be enforced where the population of species are healthy enough for commercial culling to give communities bushmeat, growing human populations will impact the offtake of species from the wild.

“Bushmeat consumption is impacting species as some households consume bushmeat on a daily basis, and it is broadly obtained illegally (and is) cheaper than domestic meat,” Andimile told IPS.

Maybe regulation could keep bushmeat on the menu for communities instead of banning it, independent experts argue.

“Wild meat harvesting and consumption should not be banned as this goes against the role of sustainable use in area-based conservation as made clear by recent CBD COP15 decisions,” Francis Vorhies, a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (SULi), says.  He called for an enabling environment for sustainable and inclusive wild meat harvesting, which means better regulations and voluntary standards such as developing a FairWild-like standard for harvesting wild animals.

Another expert, Rogers Lubilo, also a member of the IUCN SULi, concurs that bushmeat consumption should not be banned because it is a major source of protein. He argued that local communities who live side-by-side with wildlife would like to access bushmeat like they used to before, but the current policies across many sites incriminate bushmeat when acquired from illegal sources.

“There is a need to invest in opportunities that will encourage access to legal bushmeat,” Lubilo said. “The trade is big and lucrative, and if harnessed properly with good policies and the ability to monitor, would be part of the broadened wildlife economy.”

Eating Species to Extinction

There is some evidence that the consumption of bushmeat is impacting the species’ population, raising fears that without corrective action, people will eat wildlife to extinction.

The IUCN has warned that bushmeat consumption and trade have driven many species closer to extinction, calling for its regulation. Hunting and trapping are listed as a threat to 4,658 terrestrial species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, including 1,194 species in Africa.

At least 5 million tons of bushmeat are trafficked every year in Central Africa. Africa is expected to lose 50 percent of its bird and mammal species by the turn of the century, says  Eric Nana, a member of the IUCN SULi.

Nana notes that bushmeat trafficking from Africa into European countries like France, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK remains a largely understudied channel. He said estimates show that more than 1,000 tons are trafficked yearly.

“Much of the reptile-based bushmeat trade in Africa is technically illegal, poorly regulated, and little understood,” Patrick Aust, also a member of IUCN SULi, said, adding that reptiles form an important part of the bushmeat trade in Africa and further research is urgently needed to better understand conservation impacts and socioeconomic importance.

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Joy of Marketing - Ethiopia. Credit: International Seed Federation

By Michael Keller
VAUD, Switzerland, May 16 2023 (IPS)

At long last, momentum is growing for an overdue rethink of climate finance and development assistance to support countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

But while investment, aid and compensation are all much needed, another form of currency is equally valuable for climate-vulnerable countries that are also highly dependent on small-scale agriculture: quality seeds.

The latest generation of seeds offers varieties adapted to specific climatic circumstances to provide more reliable food production, as well as improved incomes and livelihoods for farmers, having boosted productivity by 20 per cent for nine key crops in the European Union over 15 years.

Yet improved varieties of many of the world’s staple cereals, vegetables and pulses are too often inaccessible for farmers in Africa, despite having some of the greatest exposure to climate extremes.

For instance, in East Africa, certified quality seed potatoes – which produce higher yields and greater resilience to climatic changes, pests, and diseases – account for just one per cent of all those planted by farmers.

By leveraging the advances and resources of the commercial seed sector – supported and scaled by public and NGO partners – the global community can ensure African farmers receive the tangible, long-term support they need to cope with the impacts of climate change.

Michael Keller

For example, non-profit Fair Planet coached more than 2,300 lead farmers in 65 Ethiopian villages and trained their regional extension agents in improved farming practices. With this training, farmers were able to quickly adopt and maximize their crop yields using locally tested and improved varieties of vegetables.

In total, some 75,000 smallholder farmers in the project’s regions subsequently tripled their vegetable production at a time when the Horn of Africa faced pressing food security challenges. As a result of an historic, ongoing drought, an estimated 22 million people are currently facing acute food insecurity across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.

According to an external evaluation, more than 95 per cent of households involved in Fair Planet’s work in Ethiopia – or roughly 485,000 people – benefitted from improved nutrition after the increased yields raised household incomes in just one production season by more than 25 per cent. This extra income provided farmers with a greater buffer against climate shocks, and more money to spend on health services and education for their families.

Opening up access to improved varieties of staple crops plays an important role in safeguarding food and nutrition security in the face of climate change, which could reduce levels of protein, iron and zinc in cereals by up to 10 per cent.

This is why the International Seed Federation (ISF), together with Fair Planet, is embarking on a five-year project to increase farmer choice of and access to quality seeds in Rwanda.

The aim is to benefit 84,000 Rwandan farmers by offering increased access to improved, high-quality vegetable, pulses, cereal, and potato varieties alongside downstream value chain projects training to support higher yields and incomes, and climate adaptation.

The final piece of the puzzle is to establish the policies and regulations needed to develop resilient and sustainable seed systems that benefit farmers. This requires policymakers to build an efficient and effective regulatory framework that provides reassurance to farmers that they are receiving the highest quality seed year after year, while also providing the long-term certainty likely to incentivize additional private sector investment.

Quality seeds are clearly the bedrock upon which productive and resilient farming systems are built, yet these technologies up to now remain out of reach for many of Africa’s farmers – one of the many significant challenges they face today.

By investing and collaborating to build resilient seed systems, the private sector can share more broadly the fruits of progress in global crop science through partnerships that ensure farmers receive seeds that are not only fit for purpose but fit for the future.

Improved seeds can then pay dividends by unlocking better productivity, incomes, and climate resilience for those on the frontlines who have for too long been underserved.

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Excerpt:

Nosintu Mcimeli and Bonelwa Nogemane of the Abanebhongo People with Disability (APD) started with an agroecological project to improve food security in South Africa’s Eastern Cape (left). A soup kitchen feeds the village children (right). Credit: ADP

By Fawzia Moodley
JOHANNESBURG, May 11 2023 (IPS)

In the deep rural village of Jekezi in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, most young and able-bodied people have fled the area, leaving behind people with disabilities, the elderly, and children.

It’s in villages like this one that the stark statistics of one in five South Africans being so food insecure they beg to feed themselves and their families could be a reality.

The village instead supports its fragile community through an agroecological project, Abanebhongo People with Disability (APD), co-founded in 2020 by Nosintu Mcimeli as an example of food sovereignty in action.

Food security in South Africa, the second wealthiest country by GDP, is low. According to 2019 data, Statistics SA says at least 10 million people didn’t have enough food or money to buy food.

Impacts on Physical Development, Mental Health

The impacts of this are devastating; hunger not only impacts physical development but also people’s mental health. Siphiwe Dlamini, writing in The Conversation, recently reported on a study that found that those who could not afford proper nutrition resorted to eating less, borrowing, using credit, and begging for food on the streets, which was the most harmful coping strategy for mental health.

“We found that over 20% (1 in 5) of the South African households were food insecure. But the prevalence varied widely across the provinces. The Eastern Cape province was the most affected (32% of households there were food insecure). We also confirmed that food access in South Africa largely depends on socioeconomic status. People who are uneducated, the unemployed, and those receiving a low monthly income are the most severely affected by inadequate food access,” wrote Dlamini, a lecturer School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand.

The situation in the region is also dire, with a UN World Food Programme (WFP) report in 2020 revealing that 45 million people were severely food insecure in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

South Africa has long been afflicted with widespread hunger, but the onset of Covid, an ailing economy, climate change, fuel and food price increases, interest hikes, and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war has deepened the food crisis.

However, Vishwas Satgar of the SA Food Sovereignty Campaign (SAFSC) says even before Covid, the number of hungry people was close to 14 million – and “women shoulder the burden of the high food prices, sharing limited food, skipping meals, and holding families together.”

The irony, Satgar says, is that the country can feed all its people.

“We produce enough food, but it’s essentially for export. The stark paradox in the commercial food system is that it is just another commodity; most people can’t feed themselves. The poor eat unhealthy (cheaper) food, and we have an obesity problem.”

Satgar says a change of strategies is needed to feed the poor.

“Despite overwhelming research proving that small-scale farmers feed the world, many people have the perception that large-scale industrial farms are the ultimate source of food. South Africa, with an expanded unemployment rate of 46.46 percent (start of 2022), cannot afford to lose more farm workers. Agroecological farming can transform the rural and urban economy with localised farming practices that absorb many unskilled and semi-skilled people,” he says.

The SAFSC, the Climate Justice Charter Movement, and the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC) are building a new food system to avert a catastrophe.

Food Sovereignty 

“We call this the food sovereignty system, which is democratically organised and controlled by small-scale farmers, gardeners, informal traders, small-scale fishers, communities, and consumers.

That’s where Mcimeli comes in. She tells IPS her activism journey began after she left a company that worked with people with disabilities in Cape Town. She contracted polio as a baby because her domestic worker mother could not take her for immunisation. “I have a disability in my right thigh and leg.”

She was working as an informal trader when she was given the opportunity from SADC, “which was releasing millions of rand to train SA women for activism in any kind of project.”

Mcimeli was one of 80 women trained in 2012 and 2013.

“In 2014, I was transferred to Copac for activist schooling. That’s when I met Vish (Satgar). I then decided to come to the Eastern Cape to plough back my activism skills.”

It was here that she co-founded the APD, and it has become an example of food sovereignty in action in Jekezi in the Eastern Cape.

Mcimeli says the ADP started an agriculture project.

“Because in rural areas there is communal land, it’s free, so we formed groups to start communal gardens. Then I realised that there are people who are bedridden, so I started enviro gardens in nearby villages. At the moment, we have 24 of these, and they are working.”

She works with four young women but wants to include more young people in the projects.

A donation of a water tank and a borehole brought a promise of fresh ‘forever’ water to the village of Jekezi. Credit: ADP

Forever Water—Free and Healthy

During the hard lockdown, the ADP got a big water tank from the local municipality and started a soup kitchen.

“We got donations of masks and sanitisers and food from Shoprite. Then a colleague of mine organised radio interviews for me, and a company that provides boreholes heard me asking for more water tanks. They said they had a lifetime solution and sponsored a community borehole. It was installed free of charge in a local schoolyard. It’s forever water—free and healthy and available for everyone, not just our projects”.

One of ADP’s beneficiaries, Bonelwa Nogemane, says: “I have a family of seven including a disabled four-year-old; we are often hungry because the food is too expensive. I joined the ADP to help my family and community to grow our own food.”

While the ADP is making a small dent, the problem is much bigger, and activists warn that unless a solution is found to the hunger crisis, South Africa is in danger of producing a lost generation of intellectually and physically stunted future leaders.

A study published in BMC Public Health on the link between food insecurity and mental health in the US during Covid found that: “Food insecurity is associated with a 257% higher risk of anxiety and a 253% higher risk of depression. Losing a job during the pandemic is associated with a 32% increase in risk for anxiety and a 27% increase in risk for depression.”

Campaign to Save Children from ‘Slow Violence of Malnutrition’

Marcus Solomon of the Children’s Resource Centre, which has launched a campaign to save SA’s children from the “slow violence of malnutrition”, says: “The consequences of this are dire for the affected children, with an estimated four million children in SA having stunted growth because of malnutrition and another 10 million going hungry every day.”

Activist Shanaaz Viljoen from Cape Town says: “My personal experience on a grassroots level is rather heartbreaking. The children we work with are always hungry due to the situation in their homes.”

In addition to an alternate food system, Trade Union Federation Cosatu, the SASFC, Copac, and others believe introducing a Basic Income Grant will go a long way towards addressing the hunger crisis in the country.

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Frequent power cuts have meant that Zimbabweans have had to return to the old ways to ensure their food doesn’t spoil. Credit: Allen Meki/Unsplash

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, May 10 2023 (IPS)

Amid silent refrigerators spawned by crippling electricity cuts, township grannies are relying on their smarts and traditional preservation: roasting and smoking meat over fires as they attempt not to throw away food.

And this at a time more and more Zimbabweans are going hungry amid a combination of shrinking incomes and price increases.

For 79-year-old grandmother Tabeth Chisale, food and perishables, such as beef sourced by her children, fill the fridge, but she is increasingly frustrated by the unrelenting power outages.

“Recently, we went for seven days without electricity,” Chisale said.

“We were informed it was not because of the regular power cuts but some thieves had vandalised the power supply,” she said, at a time there are increasing reports of the theft of copper cables and transformer oil from power base stations.

The country’s power utility has blamed erratic power supply on the vandalism of electricity infrastructure.

However, amid such a chaotic and erratic energy supply, grannies such as Chisale must find or have found ways of making the best out of a bad situation.

“Once I suspect the meat is going bad, I roast the meat over a fire, then hope that electricity will be restored in time. I then stew the roasted meat. You cannot watch the meat go bad in these trying times,” she said, her practice for many here a hard-to-understand culinary secret: first roasting meat, then boiling it.

Generators and fires have become the go-to heat source in electricity-poor Zimbabwe. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

Smoking meat over a fire to preserve it has been around for centuries, but Zimbabwe’s energy crisis has reminded older generations of the practice at a time when large-scale enterprises such as butcheries are having to rethink how they do business.

Local food scientists have raised concerns about the consumption of bad or rotting food, noting that it reverses the small gains the country is making towards addressing nutrition deficits among children and the elderly.

In a country where supermarket shelves are stocked with expired food items, the practices of Chisale show the desperation of consumers, local analysts say.

For Desmond Mugadza, chair of the food science department at the Midlands State University, the answer is simple: “Avoid over-stocking perishables.”

“Food must be free from bio-hazards to ensure it is safe for consumers to eat as all food items have a shelf life,” Mugadza said.

“We should rely on science on whether food is safe to consume,” he added.

Yet the desperation of consumers such as Chisale has meant that they have sought ways to salvage their food without the support of science.

It has been a long practice here amid economic hardships that bargain hunters stock up on food and other basic commodities because of regular price increases, creating difficulties in how the food is stored in the absence of electricity.

However, the food preservation methods available to Chisale come with a downside: “The meat that I try to save doesn’t taste as it should, but it’s still meat,” she said.

In Zimbabwe, where the backyard poultry business has become the favoured source of income for the unemployed, power cuts have wreaked havoc for people such as Nelisiwe Mudimba.

“When you slaughter your birds, you pray that they will be sold before they go bad in the fridge,” Mudimba said, adding that on numerous occasions, she has had to throw away dozens of rotting chickens.

She says she has also tried smoking the chickens over a fire, feeding some to her dogs, but: “I cannot eat all these chickens.  What’s the point, then, of operating such a business?”

These concerns come as global agencies lament the continued wastage of food when millions go hungry.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, “One-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally. This amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year, worth approximately US$1 trillion.”

While FAO says most food losses in developing countries are during post-harvest and processing levels, in countries such as Zimbabwe, power cuts have only added to the food waste crisis.

Local consumer rights groups say inflation has added to the challenges as those who already cannot afford basics face more headaches with trying to stock the little food available in their homes.

“Consumers are unable to buy basic commodities that they desperately need because of the increasing gaps between prices and incomes,” said Effie Ncube, spokesperson of a local consumer rights group.

“To prevent the unlawful sale of expired goods, two things are required. The first is to ensure thorough enforcement of the Consumer Protection Act. Secondly, the government should address the root causes of the economic crisis that has led to runaway inflation, lack of incomes, and general price volatility,” Ncube said.

For now, Chisale and her peers continue to seek old ways to address new challenges and make their own local desperate efforts not to throw away food, albeit against their will.

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A farmer from a women-run vegetable cooperative grows cabbages in Sierra Leone. Credit: FAO/Sebastian Liste

By Danielle Nierenberg and Emily Payne
BALTIMORE, Maryland / DENVER, Colorado, May 1 2023 (IPS)

Studies consistently show that women have lower rates of agricultural productivity compared to men in the region, but it’s not because they’re less efficient farmers.

Women in sub-Saharan Africa often lead food storage, handling, stocking, processing, and marketing in addition to other household tasks and childcare. Yet they severely lack the resources they need to produce food.

A 2019 United Nations policy brief reports that giving women equal access to agricultural inputs is critical to closing this gender gap in productivity while also raising crop production.

And last year, the 17th Tanzania Economic Update showed that bridging the gap could lift about 80,000 Tanzanians out of poverty every year and boost annual gross domestic product growth by 0.86 percent.

This makes a clear economic case for investing in women, but public policies frequently overlook gender-specific needs and equality issues. Instead, organizations across the region have been stepping up to help break down the barriers that have traditionally held sub-Saharan African women back.

The West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), Africa’s largest sub-regional research organization, runs a database of gender-sensitive technologies, ones that are low-cost and labor-saving for women across the region.

It also developed a series of initiatives to provide training in seed production, distribution, storage, and planting techniques for women. These programs are specifically designed with women’s needs and preferences in mind, such as prioritizing drought resistance or early maturity in crops.

This is an important shift. While we’re seeing an increasing number of exciting technologies and innovations tackling the food systems’ biggest challenges, unless these technologies are gender-sensitive—meaning they address the unique needs and challenges faced by women farmers—they will not be effective.

But empowering women means more than just facilitating access to technologies. Women must also be supported to lead the discoveries, inventions, and research of the future.

The West Africa Agriculture Productivity Program (WAAPP), a sub-regional initiative launched by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with the financial support of the World Bank and collaboration with CORAF, has specifically targeted initiatives for women farmers as well as women researchers.

Since 2008, 3 out of every 10 researchers trained under the WAAPP have been women.

And in just the past few years, more exciting networks are emerging to support women leading agriculture: In 2019, the African Women in Agribusiness Network launched to promote women’s leadership in African agribusiness. In 2020, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) launched the Women in Agribusiness Investment Network to help bridge the gender financing gap.

And in 2021, the African Women in Seed program was created to support women’s participation in the seed sector through training, mentorship, and networking opportunities for women seed entrepreneurs.

Empowering women in the food system is not simply a matter of social justice and equality; sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford to leave women behind.

Nearly a third of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is undernourished. Meanwhile, it’s one of the fastest-growing populations in the world, expected to double by 2050 and dramatically increase demand.

Women are the backbone of communities and the food system at large in sub-Saharan Africa, and the region’s future economic development and environmental sustainability depend on them. While women are now playing a more active role in the food system, we need more women in leadership at all levels.

Rwanda’s female-led parliament, one of the highest proportions of women parliamentarians in the world, has been instrumental in not only advancing women’s rights but promoting economic development and improving governance. We need more of this.

With the resources, recognition, and support they need and deserve, women will lead the region to a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient future.

Sub-Saharan Africa can achieve the transformation it so critically needs, but only if we support women in the food system now.

Danielle Nierenberg is President, Food Tank; Emily Payne is Food Tank researcher.

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Most vendor tables are empty in the large fresh produce market in Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila, due to the widespread devastation of food gardens and crops by Cyclones Judy and Kevin in early March. Photo credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
PORT VILA, Vanuatu , Apr 4 2023 (IPS)

One month after the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu was hit by two Category 4 cyclones within three days, food scarcity and prices are rising in the country following widespread devastation of the agriculture sector.

In the worst affected provinces of Shefa and Tafea, the “scale of damage ranges from 90 percent to 100 percent of crops, such as root crops, fruit and forest trees, vegetables, coffee, coconut and small livestock,” Antoine Ravo, Director of Vanuatu’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development told IPS.

Vanuatu is an archipelago nation of more than 80 islands located east of Australia and southeast of Papua New Guinea. More than 80 percent of the population of more than 300,000 people were impacted by Cyclones Judy and Kevin, which unleashed gale-force winds, torrential rain and flooding across the nation on the 1 March and 3 March. Properties and homes were destroyed, power and water services cut, seawalls damaged and roads and bridges blocked.

In the aftermath, many households turned to their existing stores of food and any fresh produce that could be salvaged from their food gardens. But these have rapidly depleted.

In the large undercover fresh produce market in the centre of the capital, Port Vila, about 75-80 percent of market tables, which are usually heaving with abundant displays of root crops, vegetables and fruits, are now empty. Many of the regular vendors have seen their household harvests decimated by wind and flooding.

Susan, who lives in the rural community of Rentapao not far from Port Vila on Efate Island, commutes

Regular market vendor, Susan, lost much of her garden produce during the two cyclone disasters and is selling dry packaged food, such as banana chips, instead. Central Market, Port Vila, Vanuatu. Photo credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

daily to the market. “The cyclones destroyed our crops and our homes. We lost a lot of root crops and bananas. Today, I only have half the amount of produce I usually sell,” Susan told IPS. But, faced with the crisis, she quickly diversified and, alongside a small pile of green vegetables, the greater part of her market table is laden with packets of dried food, such as banana and manioc or cassava chips.

Agriculture is the main source of people’s income and food in Vanuatu, with 78 percent and 86 percent of households in the country relying on their own growing of vegetables and root crops, respectively, for food security and livelihoods.

But, as families grapple with increasing food scarcity, they have also been hit by a steep rise in prices for basic staples that are the core of their daily consumption. A cucumber, which sold for about 30 vatu (US$0.25) prior to the disasters, is now priced from 200 vatu (US$1.69), while pineapples and green coconuts, which could be bought for 50 vatu (US$0.42) each, also sell for 200 vatu (US$1.69).

Leias Cullwick, Executive Director of the Vanuatu National Council of Women, said that, in the wake of the cyclones, children were experiencing deprivation and anxiety. “Water is the number one concern [for families] and, also, food. And children, when they want water and food, and their mother has none to give, become traumatised,” she told IPS.

Lack of clean water and contamination by the storms of water sources, such as rivers and streams, in peri-urban and rural areas is also causing illnesses in children, such as dehydration and diarrhoea. Meanwhile, the current wet season in Vanuatu is increasing the risks of mosquito-borne diseases, including malaria and dengue fever, Cullwick added.

It will take months for some households to regain their crop yields. “Root crops have been damaged, and these are not crops that you plant today and harvest tomorrow. It takes three months, it takes six months, it will take a while for communities to get their harvests going, so it’s a concern,” Soneel Ram, Communications Manager for the Pacific Country Cluster Delegation from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told IPS in Port Vila. Although, he added that access to food at this time is easier in Pacific cities and towns.

“In urban areas, the main difference is access to supermarkets. People can readily access supermarkets and get food off the shelf. For rural communities, they rely on subsistence farming as a source of food. Now they have to look for extra funds to buy food,” Ram said. In response, the government is organising the distribution of dry food rations to affected communities, along with seeds, planting materials and farming tools.

The Pacific Island nation faces a very high risk of climate and other natural disasters. Every year islanders prepare for cyclones during the wet season from November to April. And being situated on the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, it is also prone to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts that Vanuatu will experience increasingly extreme climate events, such as hotter temperatures and more severe tropical storms, droughts and floods, in the future. And, on current trends, global temperatures could exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming as early as 2030, reports the IPCC.

The impacts of Cyclones Judy and Kevin in the country follow damages wrought by other cyclones in recent years, including Cyclone Pam in 2015, which is estimated to have driven 4,000 more people into poverty, and Cyclone Harold in 2020. And the impacts of the pandemic on the country’s economy and local incomes, especially from agriculture and tourism, since early 2020. Agriculture and tourism are the main industries in Vanuatu, and agriculture, forestry and fisheries account for 15 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The most important cash crops are copra, cocoa and kava, with copra alone accounting for more than 35 percent of the Pacific nation’s exports. Now the environmental havoc and the sudden decline in international tourist arrivals following the cyclones threaten to hinder the building of recovery in the country.

The government reports that this month’s disasters will leave the country with a recovery bill of USD 50 million. And it predicts that the rescue of the agricultural sector will take years.

“It will take three months for immediate recovery of short-term food production, and six to nine months for mid-term crops, such as cassava, taro, yam and bananas. But it will take three to five years for coconut, coffee, pepper, vanilla and cocoa,” Ravo said.

With climate losses predicted to continue accumulating in the coming decades, the Vanuatu Government remains determined to pursue its ‘ICJ Initiative’, now supported by 133 other nations worldwide. The initiative aims to investigate through the International Court of Justice how international law can be used to protect vulnerable countries from climate change impacts to the environment and human rights.

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Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs shows that 2.2 million people have been affected, with 676 killed and 538 missing after Cyclone Freddy hit Malawi earlier this month. Credit: Red Cross

By Charles Mpaka
SONJEKE, MALAWI, Mar 30 2023 (IPS)

In Sonjeka village in Mulanje district, which lies on the border with Mozambique in southern Malawi, destroyed crop fields stretch almost interminably after floods ripped through them when Tropical Cyclone Freddy pounded the country.

One of those fields lying in waste with its drying maize stalks flattened to the ground, if not ripped off altogether, belongs to Eliza Mponya.

A field close to a hectare in size, this has been the lifeline for the single mother and her four children.

Not that it gives her all the maize which the family needs for the whole year, but it still gets Mponya and her children enough to carry them close to the next harvesting season.

By her estimation, this year, she would have harvested maize that would have lasted the family until the end of November.

Crops destroyed by Cyclone Freddy, which left at least 676 dead and 650 000 displaced. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

“We had good rains here, and we were lucky because my son found piece work in Mozambique, and we managed some fertiliser through what he earned.

“But now, after all the hard work and just when we were close to reaping the rewards, we have this damage. It’s heartbreaking,” she says.

Malawi is in a mourning period, courtesy of the worst natural disaster to have struck the country in recent memory.

Exactly a year after the battering by tropical storms Ana and Gombe, whose devastation the country is yet to recover from, Tropical Freddy hit rather more brutally.

After barreling through Madagascar and Mozambique, the cyclone stormed into Malawi on March 11, 2023. From the afternoon of March 12, rain poured over 10 of the 13 districts in the southern region of the country for the next 72 hours.

Rivers broke their banks; furious waters gorged through unlikely landscapes, and, beyond anyone’s expectation, several mud avalanches pushed down giant boulders from mountainous areas that, in some cases, swept away entire villages and crushed homes and people below at night.

President Lazarus Chakwera declared it a state of disaster, calling for help, a plea to which both local and the international community have responded generously.

The scale of the destruction is unprecedented in any natural disaster Malawi has experienced. A draft situation report which the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA), a government agency, released on Wednesday, March 29, shows that up to 2.2 million people have been affected thus far; 676 have been killed, and 538 are missing – many of them feared to have been buried in the mudslides and rubble of collapsed buildings or washed away to unknown lands.

At the appropriate time, the police will declare the missing people dead, DoDMA says.

According to the report, up to 2,000 people are nursing various degrees of injuries, some while still in the over 760 evacuation camps that are hosting over 650,000 that have been displaced in the affected districts.

Up to 405 kilometres of road infrastructure have been damaged, and 63 health facilities and close to a million water and sanitation facilities have been affected.

The worst hit of all sectors, according to the report, is agriculture, the mainstay of Malawi’s economy. Over 2 million farmers have lost their crops and livestock, and over 179,000 hectares of crop fields have been destroyed.

Mponya’s field is among those counted.

Her maize crop would have been ready for harvest sometime towards the end of April. Now floods have harvested it, and Mponya is broken.

“I have never experienced anything like this in my life,” she tells IPS.

On March 23, 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture launched its own assessment of the damage the cyclone has caused to the agriculture sector in the region. It is yet to release its report on the assessment and the interventions that it will undertake to bail out the affected farmers.

However, in effect, the cyclone has worsened the food security situation for millions of people for the year. This comes against the backdrop of the government distributing food to 3.8 million food-insecure households, an exercise meant to see them through to the next harvest, which is now struck by the storm.

In an earlier forecast, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), a USAID-supported global food security monitoring activity, said the southern region could register a decrease ranging between 30 and 50 percent in the harvest of maize, Malawi’s staple crop and a key factor in the economy.

This, it said, would leave poor households running out of food stocks by end of August instead of October, as it usually happens with most such households in a good harvest year.

FEWSNET cited limited and delayed access to fertiliser for most subsistence farmers who rely on the government’s fertiliser subsidy programme that was rocked by logistical and procurement challenges in this growing season and due to high prices of the commodity on the normal market, which drove the farm input out of reach for most of them.

FEWSNET compiled the report before Cyclone Freddy lashed the country.

Christone Nyondo, a research fellow at MwAPATA Institute, a local independent agricultural policy think-tank, says the cyclone has effectively struck a blow on household food security in the region and the country.

According to Nyondo, families that have lost their food crops will struggle to cope without external help. He, therefore, suggests assistance for the affected farmers to replant short-duration maize varieties.

He further says crops that can still do well when planted under residual moisture should be promoted to provide a short-term coping mechanism for the households as they recover.

However, Nyondo argues that Malawi needs to invest in long-term and enduring disaster-proactive measures considering that these natural shocks will keep occurring in the face of climate change.

According to Nyondo, an agricultural economist, for a long time, Malawi has focused much of its efforts on post-disaster recovery. It is high time the country did a deep rethink of its policies and invest significantly in early warning systems and forward planning based on intelligence gathered from these early warning systems, he says.

“The specific interventions to safeguard food security will vary by season by the nature of the predicted disaster. If the predicted disaster is a widespread drought, then forward planning in terms of strategic investments in irrigation infrastructure will be key,” Nyondo tells IPS via email.

He adds: “But, in any case, we need to invest more in irrigation, storage and other critical infrastructure without waiting for disasters. That’s the surest way of safeguarding our food security. Yes, it will be expensive but it will also be necessary.”

Back in Mulanje district, Mponya has no idea how she will recover.

Unlike some people in her village, she has not suffered any damage to her house or the loss of any member of her family. But she says it is a tragedy of her life that for the first time as a farmer, the 51-year-old will harvest almost nothing from her field after months of toil, leaving her to face a year-long struggle for food.

Asked whether she has a way out, Mponya stares blankly and then says, “I don’t know what to do.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

A cell phone gives rural women access to financial services, training, networks, and, importantly, information and knowledge. Credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan (CCAFS)

By Nicoline de Haan
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

While 100 million people worldwide are using the AI chatbot ChatGPT to get ahead on homework and try out for top jobs at Google, more than 370 million women in developing countries lack the services of a simple cell phone.

The world may be witnessing a quantum leap in the digital revolution, but cell phones and mobile internet would give these women enough of a foothold to access unprecedented opportunities to improve their incomes, nutrition and health.

For rural women and girls in low-income countries who rely on small-scale agriculture, ICT can unlock financial services, training and networks, and, importantly, information and knowledge. Without these core technologies, women are farming with one hand tied behind their backs, making up just a quarter of registered users of agricultural applications in Africa.

The potential of digital technology to transform farming and agriculture in countries across the Global South is increasingly compelling. Producers in sub-Saharan Africa who adopted online services were found to increase their incomes by up to 40 per cent while new forecasting and early warning systems can also help farmers stay ahead of climate shocks. Digital innovations are therefore an essential component of agricultural research strategies to strengthen food and economic security around the world.

Nicoline de Haan

Women in sub-Saharan Africa are 15 per cent less likely to own a cell phone and more than 40 per cent less likely to use mobile internet than are men. Yet when women were given cell phones, SIM cards and time charge cards in one study in Tunisia, 75 per cent said they benefitted either through better connectivity to agricultural information, such as veterinary advice, or greater levels of communication.

Meanwhile, a project to provide app-based drone delivery of livestock vaccines is set to allow women in Ghana to overcome gender norms that dictate men farmers liaise with men veterinarians, and better care for their chickens and goats.

But to ensure that women get maximum benefit, both the technology and the training to use it must be optimized to account for different needs and contexts – and this needs ongoing investment into gender-responsive agricultural research.

While cell phones and SMS have increased the reach of agricultural information services, disproportionate levels of illiteracy among women require innovative forms of delivery to be impactful. For example, developing interactive voice response (IVR) technology and voice messages in local languages can allow women to receive the same valuable information in a format that acknowledges gendered differences in education levels.

Similarly, complementary technologies ensure that greater access translates into greater benefit. Using radio programming in combination with SMS, and avoiding gendered greetings such as “dear brother farmer”, can improve both women’s access to and capacity to leverage information.

Perhaps the greatest barrier when it comes to closing the digital gender divide are the norms that continue to limit women’s access to technology, and the slow social and cultural acceptance of women making use of digital tools in agriculture.

One approach is to support efforts to work with the gatekeepers of technology within the community, whether fathers, clerics or elders, to encourage behaviour change. Another promising tactic is for governments and research partners to develop community-based opportunities for women to access and act upon information technologies collectively.

Radio Listeners Clubs in Rwanda were found to help remove the significant disparities in awareness, access and use of climate information that usually exist between women and men smallholder farmers. The greatest improvements in income and social standing as a result were among women.

Digital innovations can themselves play a part in deconstructing gender norms. #BintiShujaaz (“Heroine Girl”), a social media campaign launched in Tanzania, used posts, videos, comics and two online panel discussions to showcase positive examples of young women in the chicken business. The campaign reached 4.4 million young Tanzanians, with more than 500,000 engagements, to help improve the perception of women in the poultry business.

Access to information through digital technologies can be a powerful leveller and a critical weapon in the arsenal. And when it comes to gender inequality, it can generate multiple benefits, not only for women but for their families, communities and economies.

It is vital that governments, development partners and agricultural research institutes do everything they can to ensure women not only have access to the information and knowledge they need but are empowered to use it in their best interests.

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Excerpt:

Mariyeti Mpala (56) runs a thriving vegetable garden on a former dumpsite and its proceeds assist the community in creating incomes of their own. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
Jan 10 2023 (IPS)

It’s a typical story in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city. With the failure to provide services such as refuse collection by the local municipality, township residents dump garbage wherever they fancy, and with time, dumpsites become “official.”

For 56-year-old Mariyeti Mpala, however, a community dumpsite on land that belonged to the local municipality a stone’s throw away from her residence presented an opportunity to turn what had become an accepted eyesore into a thriving greening project.

She purchased the land in 2006, and it is here on a section of the former dumpsite where she has grown indigenous wild fruit trees at the one-hectare piece of land and runs a thriving vegetable garden.

She rotates planting tomatoes, peas, cabbages, onions and lettuce, with aquaculture being the latest addition to her project.

“I have put up three thousand bream fishlings,” Mpala said as she explained her long-term ambitions for the local community.

“I decided to apply for this piece of land as it was clear no one imagined the land was of any use as it was being used as a dump site,” Mpala told IPS.

While she may not be aware of it, Mpala’s project fits snugly into the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Green Cities initiative, which among other things, “focuses on improving the urban environment, ensuring access to a healthy environment and healthy diets from sustainable agri-food systems, increasing availability of green spaces through urban and peri-urban forestry.”

“Urban agriculture is, therefore, an important part of the urban economy contributing significantly to urban food and nutrition security as the produce is less subject to market fluctuations,” said Kevin Mazorodze, FAO spokesperson.

And now, as more and more people in the country require food assistance, Mpala’s project comes as a relief for members of her community.

“I especially cater for the elderly who have no source of income and cannot fend for themselves,” Mpala told IPS.

“I sell some of the produce at low cost to those elderly women who buy in bulk so they can sell at a markup, so they raise funds for their own private needs,” she said.

FAO’s Green Cities Initiative seeks to promote more such activities, said Mazorodze.

“Urban and peri-urban agriculture is one of the key pillars of the initiative through which FAO intends to foster sustainable and climate-resilient practices and technologies to improve local food production,” Mazorodze told IPS.

Mpala sunk a borehole powered by solar energy in a country where abundant sunlight has been touted to promote clean energy.

Her work has not gone unappreciated by locals.

“She is a hard worker and has always looked out for us old people,” said Agnes Nyoni, a 70-something-year-old granny who lives not far from Mpala’s green project.

“I first knew her a few years ago when she collected our names to register for food parcels that included mealie meal, cooking oil and beans,” Nyoni told IPS.

Mpala’s work has also reached city offices, with the local councillor lauding her contribution towards uplifting the lives of the poor and food insecure.

“We actually need more of such initiatives being done by Mrs. Mpala as she is uplifting the lives of our people,” said Tinevimbo Maphosa, the local councilman.

“I understand she has also set up a fisheries project which I see as a sign of her community-building commitments. People need to be productive and stop complaining all the time about the situation in the country, and Mrs. Mpala’s work is part of what we need to see happening in our communities,” Maphosa told IPS.

The city already has numerous community gardens dotted across the city, with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) supporting the municipality through the Green Cities Network.

The food she grows is organic, Mpala says, and local nutritionists believe at a time, food is becoming more expensive, and where people now eat whatever is available, consumers need healthier diets.

“Food grown in such nutrition gardens as that run by Mrs. Mpala is encouraged because it is fresh straight from the garden, and the elderly people she caters for certainly need healthier diets,” said Mavis Bhebhe, a government hospital nutritionist.

“What is required is to encourage such initiatives to spread the variety of the food they grow so that consumers get the most out of locally grown foods,” Bhebhe told IPS.

These sentiments come at a time when humanitarian agencies have raised concerns about levels of malnutrition across Africa as some parts of the continent battle acute food shortages.

In a country such as Zimbabwe, where formal jobs come far in between, homegrown initiatives such as the Dingindawo Gardens offer hope for young people seeking opportunities to take idle time off their hands, Maphosa believes.

“There is too much crime and drug abuse here, and with more projects from individuals like Mrs. Mpala, we could solve the community’s many problems,” Maphosa told IPS.
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A year that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is ending with famine in Africa, while still spreading death and misery through an enduring pandemic and a deteriorating climate crisis — 2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

Farhana Haque Rahman

Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians (numbers given by the UN and involved parties vary enormously) have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched war on February 24. More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country. Billions of dollars have been spent on armaments.

But the impact of the war has been felt worldwide, driving up prices of basic commodities such as oil, gas, grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers. Somalia, now in the grip of the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years, used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

Commodities have been weaponised. Countries slipped back into recession, just as they were slowly recovering from the economic distress of Covid-19 lockdowns. A deepening relationship between sanctioned Russia and an energy- hungry China exacerbated existing tensions with the US over Taiwan. The result? China broke off climate cooperation efforts with the US in the run-up to the COP27 climate conference hosted by Egypt in November with 200 countries and 35,000 people attending.

Against the backdrop of devastating floods in Pakistan and West Africa, and with 2022 on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record, agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda. Talks ran into extra time, as they tend to, and countries of the global South emerged with the landmark creation of a special fund paid by wealthier countries to address the Loss and Damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.

“After 30 contentious years, delayed tactics by wealthy countries, a renewed spirit of solidarity, empathy and cooperation prevailed, resulting in the historic establishment of a dedicated fund,” said Yamide Dagnet, director for climate justice at the Open Society Foundations, reflecting a sense of hard fought victory among developing countries.

Still unresolved however is which countries will give money and to whom. China in particular seems uneasy over which category it belongs to. However COP27 joined its 26 forerunners since 1995 in not reaching a binding agreement on cutting fossil fuel burning which has continued to rise globally, except for a brief pandemic dip. For this, many branded it a failure. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the opening plenary session. By the end, many felt the conference had concluded with the latter. Rather than falling, the latest estimates from the Global Carbon Project show that total worldwide CO2 emissions in 2022 have reached near-record levels.

Victims of devastating floods, heatwaves and forest fires, and severe drought in Central Sahel and East Africa surely needed no confirmation from the final decision text of COP27 which recognises “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger” and the vulnerability of food production to climate change.

In this respect, COP27 recognised the importance of nature-based solutions – a theme driven by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in ringing alarm bells on the degraded soil, water sources and eco-systems caused by intensive agriculture with overuse of fertilisers and pesticides. According to FAO, more than 25 percent of arable soils worldwide are degraded, and the equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds. The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result. As highlighted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in stressing the vital connections between Nature and people, a landmark report in July found that 50,000 wild species provide food, cosmetics, shelter, clothing, medicine and inspiration. Many face extinction. As international agencies and NGOs (and media outlets) jostled and competed for funding to deal with the fallout from wars and climate emergencies, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which is active in the Sahel cautioned that only 1.7 per cent of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries and as little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality. Women’s empowerment has been made a major focus of ASAP+, IFAD’s new climate change financing mechanism.

Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among communities hit by severe drought in the Horn of Africa, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). It launched a $113.7 million appeal to scale-up life-saving reproductive health and protection services, including establishment of mobile and static clinics in displacement sites.

Also overshadowed by wars and pandemics in 2022 were marginalised communities lacking a voice, suffering diseases such as leprosy or exploited in the form of child labour.

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says many issues have been sidelined because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Society has the knowledge and means to stop and cure leprosy, he says in the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative.

“When people are still being discriminated against even after being cured, society has a disease. If we can cure society of this disease—discrimination—it would be truly epoch-making,” he told IPS.

A similar message was delivered by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi who told the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour that a mere $53 billion per annum – equivalent to 10 days of military spending – would ensure all children in all countries benefit from social protection. International Labour Organisation and UNICEF statistics from 2020 show at least 160 million children are involved in child labour, a surge of 8.4 million in four years. Children denied education became a burning issue in Afghanistan in March when the Taliban declared that girls would be banned from secondary education. The UN said 1.1 million girls were affected. The late-night reversal of a decision by Taliban authorities to allow girls from grades 7 to 12 to return to school was met with outrage and distress, inside and outside Afghanistan. Denial of human rights to girls and women has fuelled the desire of many to get out of Afghanistan and seek a better life elsewhere, adding to the millions around the world forced to flee their homes because of conflict, repression or disaster. The Ukraine conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, about a third of the population.

A UN Office on Drugs and Crime report on trafficking warns that refugees from Ukraine are at risk of including sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal adoption and surrogacy, forced begging and forced criminality.

As they come over border crossings into Poland, refugees – including victims of rape – are greeted with posters and flyers carrying warnings about jail terms for breaking local abortion laws, images of miscarried foetuses, and a quote from Mother Theresa saying: “Abortion is the greatest threat to peace”.

UNDP, which is assisting the Ukraine government in getting access to public services for IDPs, says in its 2022 report, Turning the tide on internal displacement, that earlier and increased support to development is an essential condition for emerging from crisis in a sustainable way.

“More efforts are needed to end the marginalization of internally displaced people, who must be able to exercise their full rights as citizens including through access to vital services such as health care, education, social protection and job opportunities” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

Nearly one million Rohingya refugees languishing in refugee camps in Bangladesh after being driven out of Myanmar in waves since 2016 would surely agree.

Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, said to be the world’s largest NGO and founded by Sir Fazle after the independence of Bangladesh in 1972, says work needs to “shift towards a development-like approach from a very short-term humanitarian crisis-focused approach”. But the only solution for the Rohingya refugees is their sustainable and voluntary repatriation to Myanmar. As 2022 closes, that unfortunately looks highly unlikely as the military junta that seized power in 2021 fights ethnic armed organisations on multiple fronts.

There was one seismic milestone event that happened in late 2022 although no one is quite sure exactly where and when. The few people to witness it were not aware either – not that it prevented the UN from declaring it a special day. The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15. The world’s population has doubled from 4 billion in 1974 and UN projections suggest we will be supporting about 9.7 billion people in 2050. Global population is forecast to peak at about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN environment programme, sent a message to the baby, and the rest of the world, as countries meet in Montreal for the COP15 biodiversity conference this month.

“We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,” she said.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

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Despite its dismal record, the Gates Foundation-sponsored Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) announced a new five-year strategy in September after rebranding itself by dropping ‘Green Revolution’ from its name.

Rebranding, not reform
Instead of learning from experience and changing its approach accordingly, AGRA’s new strategy promises more of the same. Ignoring evidence, criticisms and civil society pleas and demands, the Gates Foundation has committed another $200 million to its new five-year plan, bringing its total contribution to around $900 million.

Timothy A. Wise

Stung by criticism of its poor results, AGRA delayed announcing its new strategy by a year, while its chief executive shepherded the controversial UN Food Systems Summit of 2021. Following this, AGRA has been using more UN Sustainable Development Goals rhetoric.

Hence, AGRA’s new slogan – ‘Sustainably Growing Africa’s Food Systems’. Likewise, the new plan claims to “lay the foundation for a sustainable food systems-led inclusive agricultural transformation”. But beyond such lip service, there is little evidence of any meaningful commitment to sustainable agriculture in the $550 million plan for 2023–27.

Despite heavy government subsidies, AGRA promotion of commercial seeds and fertilizers for just a few cereal crops failed to significantly increase productivity, incomes or even food security. But instead of addressing past shortcomings, the new plan still relies heavily on more of the same despite its failure to “catalyze” a productivity revolution among African farmers.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The name change suggests the 16-year-old AGRA wants to dissociate itself from past failures, but without acknowledging its own flawed approach. Recently, much higher fertilizer prices – following sanctions against Russia and Belarus after the Ukraine invasion – have worsened the lot of farmers relying on AGRA recommended inputs.

It is time to change course, with policies promoting ecological farming by reducing reliance on synthetic fertilizers as appropriate. But despite its new slogan, AGRA’s new strategy intends otherwise.

Last month, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa rejected the strategy and name change as “cosmetic”, “an admission of failure” of the Green Revolution project, and “a cynical distraction” from the urgent need to change course.

Productivity gains and losses
Despite spending well over a billion dollars, AGRA’s productivity gains have been modest, and only for a few more heavily subsidized crops such as maize and rice. And from 2015 to 2020, cereal yields have not risen at all.

Meanwhile, traditional food crop production has declined under AGRA, with millet falling over a fifth. Yields actually also fell for cassava, groundnuts and root crops such as sweet potato. Across a basket of staple crops, yields rose only 18% in 12 years.

Farmer incomes have not risen, especially after increased production costs are taken into account. As for halving hunger, which Gates and AGRA originally promised, the number of ‘severely undernourished’ people in AGRA’s 13 focus countries increased by 31%!

A donor-commissioned evaluation confirmed many adverse farmer outcomes. It found the minority of farmers who benefited were mainly better-off men, not smallholder women the programme was ostensibly meant for.

That did not deter the Gates Foundation from committing more to AGRA despite its dismal track record, failed strategy, and poor monitoring to track progress. Judging by the new five-year plan, we can expect even less accountability.

The new plan does not even set measurable goals for yields, incomes or food security. As the saying goes, what you don’t measure you don’t value. Apparently, AGRA does not value agricultural productivity, even though it is still at the core of the organization’s strategy.

Last month, the Rockefeller Foundation, AGRA’s other founding donor and a leader of the first Green Revolution from the 1950s, announced a reduction in its grant to AGRA and a decisive step back from the Green Revolution approach.

Its grant to AGRA supports school feeding initiatives and “alternatives to fossil-fuel derived fertilisers and pesticides through the promotion of regenerative agricultural practices such as cultivation of nitrogen-fixing beans”.

Business in charge
AGRA’s new strategy is built on a series of “business lines”, e.g., the “sustainable farming business line” will coordinate with the “Seed Systems business line” to sell inputs. Private Village Based Advisors are meant to provide training and planting advice in this privatized, commercial reincarnation of the government or quasi-government extension services of an earlier era.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization successfully promoted peer-learning of agro-ecological practices via Farmer Field Schools after successfully field-testing them. This came about after research showed ‘brown hoppers’ thrived in Asian rice farms after Green Revolution pesticides eliminated the insect’s natural predators.

China lost a fifth of its 2007-08 paddy harvest to the pest, triggering a price spike in the thinly traded world rice market. Seeking help from the International Rice Research Institute, located in the Philippines, a Chinese delegation found its Entomology Department had lost most of its former capacity due to under-funding.

Earlier international agricultural research collaboration associated with the first Green Revolution – especially in wheat, maize and rice – seems to have collapsed, surrendering to corporate and philanthropic interests. This bitter experience encouraged China to step up its agronomic research efforts with a greater agro-ecological emphasis.

Empty promises?
The new strategy promises “AGRA will promote increased crop diversification at the farm level”. But its advisers cum salespeople have a vested interest in selling their wares, rather than good local seeds which do not require repeat purchases every planting season.

AGRA is not strengthening resilience by promoting agroecology or reducing farmer reliance on costly inputs such as fossil fuel fertilizers and other, often toxic, agrochemicals. Despite many proven African agroecological initiatives, support for them remains modest.

The new strategy stresses irrigation, key to most other Green Revolutions, but conspicuously absent from Africa’s Green Revolution. But the plan is deafeningly silent on how fiscally strapped governments are to provide such crucial infrastructure, especially in the face of growing water, fiscal and debt stress, worsened by global warming.

It is often said stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Perhaps this is due to the technophile conceit that some favoured innovation is superior to everything else, including scientific knowledge, processes and agro-ecological solutions.

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Activists say governments should be urgedto put agriculture onto the negotiating table at COP27 especially to diverse,resilient agroecological farming are crucial for farmers which will enablefarmers to adapt to climate chaos. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
SHARM EL SHEIKH, Nov 17 2022 (IPS)

At a time when sustainable farming approaches such as agroecology have been removed from the text at ongoing global climate negotiation (COP27) taking place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, activists are urging African governments to explore new steps to integrate agriculture into the UN climate agreement.

According to the most recent assessment of climate impacts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), loss and damage can broadly be split into two categories: economic losses involving “income and physical assets”; and non-economic losses, which include – but are not limited to – “mortality, mobility and mental wellbeing losses”.

Million Belay, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty coordinator in Africa, says green revolution solutions have failed the continent. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

In the agriculture sector, estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indicate that despite overall gains in food production and food security on a global scale, many countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, have failed to make progress in recent decades.

According to UN experts, the region produces less food per person today than it did three decades ago, and the number of chronically undernourished people has increased dramatically.

“This must change because many of Africa’s agricultural and food security problems have been related to misguided policies, weak institutions in the context of climate crisis,” said Million Belay, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty coordinator in Africa (AFSA).

Belay pointed out that the industrial food system is a major culprit driving climate change but is still not being taken seriously by climate talks.

“Real solutions like diverse, resilient agroecological farming are crucial for farmers [in Africa] to adapt to climate chaos, but they are being sidelined and starved of climate finance,” he told IPS on the sidelines of COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

While COP27 in Egypt is trying to address food systems, for the first time, new suggested solutions by multinational companies and global philanthropists by providing new technologies and systems that reward African farmers for mitigating emissions have become a new point of anxiety among climate activists.

The industrial food systems such as monocultures, high-fertilizer and chemical use are described by experts as an enormous driver of climate change in Africa, while small-scale, agroecological farming and indigenous systems comparatively have significantly less GHG emissions and can even work to sequester carbon in healthy ecosystems.

“Historically, these philanthropists and multinationals have been considering Africa as a continent facing an agriculture productivity crisis, yet the serious problem is instead related to resilience crisis,” Belay said.

As global warming patterns continue to shift and natural resources dwindle, agroecology is considered by climate experts as the best path forward for feeding the continent. Most experts agree that under current growth rates, Africa’s population will double by 2050 and then double again by 2100, eventually climbing to over 4 billion by the end of the century.

The latest estimates by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) show that feeding this growing population will require significant advancements in Africa’s food systems.

Martin Fregene, the Director of Agriculture and Agro-Industry at the African Development Bank, told delegates at COP27 that the power of agricultural technologies to raise productivity and combat malnutrition on the continent are desperately needed.

Speaking during a session that focused on major solutions for a sustainable Agriculture sector in Africa, Fregene pointed out that the inadequate public investment in agricultural research, training and infrastructure and the limited mobilization of the private sector are some major contributing factors to food insecurity affecting Africa because of Climate Change.

In May this year, the African Development Bank launched an African Emergency Food Production Facility to provide 20 million African smallholder farmers with seeds and access to fertilizers in a bid to enable them to rapidly produce 38m tons of food – a $12bn increase in production in two years.

The programme aims especially at providing direct subsidies to farmers to buy fertilizer and other inputs, as well as financing large importers of fertilizer to source supply from other regions.

While climate-induced shocks to the food system used to occur once every ten years on average in Africa, experts show that they are now happening every 2.5 years.

Estimates show by 2050, warming of just 1.2 to 1.9℃, well within the range of current IPCC projections, is likely to increase the number of malnourished in Africa by 25 to 95 percent–25 percent in central Africa, 50 percent in east Africa, 85 percent in southern Africa and 95 percent in west Africa.

Both activists and climate experts agree that the public sector in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa can do more to engage the private sector to ensure that smallholder farmers are taking ownership of established adaptation strategies.

Matthias Berninger, the senior Vice-President of Global Public and Government Affairs at Bayer, a global Life Science company with core competencies in the areas of health care and agriculture, told IPS that yet there are positive examples showing how the private sector is getting involved in agricultural adaptation to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa, there is still a long way to go.

“The continent has adaptation projects that are now demonstrating their potential, but there is still a pressing need to reshape Africa’s food system to be more resilient, productive and inclusive,” Berninger said.

A new study by researchers from Biovision, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and the United Kingdom-based Institute of Development Studies shows that such sustainable and regenerative farming techniques have either been neglected, ignored, or disregarded by major donors.

One of the major findings is that most governments, especially in Sub-Saharan still favour “green revolution” approaches, believing that chemical-intensive, large-scale industrial agriculture is the only way to produce sufficient food. “Green revolution solutions have failed,” said Belay.

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Illegal fishing is not only affecting the environment but impacting on the livelihoods of millions of fishers are also at stake, according to a new report. Here residents wave to fishers on boats in Saint Louis, Senegal. Credit: Carsten ten Brink/Flickr

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Nov 2 2022 (IPS)

As a new report lays bare the massive financial costs to developing states of illegal fishing, campaigners are hoping that drawing attention to the practice’s devastating economic effects will help push governments to greater action against the illicit trade.

Research by the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) released at the end of October showed that states are losing up to 50 billion US Dollars per year to the trade, with almost half of all vessels involved in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing plundering African waters.

The massive ecological damage of IUU fishing has made headlines in recent years, but the report’s authors say they believe by focusing on the financial aspect of the practice, governments will have more incentive to deal with the issue.

“Until now, IUU fishing has been seen mostly as an environmental issue and a food security issue. But what we’re trying to do, almost for the first time, is to show that this is a serious financial issue, that countries are losing billions of dollars because of IUU fishing, so the issue moves from fisheries ministries to finance ministries,” Alfonso Daniels, lead author of the report, told IPS.

“Fisheries organisations are beginning to recognise that this is a financial issue, of money lost to illicit financial flows. Once this is established, there will be more incentive for countries to act because they are losing money,” he said.

The ecological damage of IUU fishing has been widely documented. The UN has warned that more than 90% of global fishing stocks are fully exploited, overexploited or depleted, describing the situation as an ‘ocean emergency’.  IUU fishing is a key contributor to overfishing, accounting for as much as one-fifth of global fisheries catches.

But the report from FTC – a group of 11 NGOs from around the world – draws attention to the economic costs of IUU fishing, which disproportionately affects poorer coastal states.

It says IUU fishing accounts for as much as one-fifth of global fisheries catches, representing up to 23.5 billion USD every year, with overall economic losses estimated to be 50 billion USD, making it the third most lucrative natural resource crime after timber and mining.

Meanwhile, Africa concentrates 48.9% of identified industrial and semi-industrial vessels involved in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, with 40% in West Africa alone, which has become a global epicentre for these activities.

But it is not just the direct financial losses that are creating economic problems in poorer states. The UN estimates that globally, 820 million people rely on fishing for their livelihoods, while in west Africa, as much as 25 percent of the labour force are involved in fishing.

IUU fishing is destroying key local fishing industries, driving communities into poverty and in some cases, malnutrition – the FTC report points out that fish consumption accounts for a sixth of the global population’s intake of animal proteins, and more than half in countries such as Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka.

“Illegal fishing and overcapacity in the Ghanaian trawl sector is having catastrophic impacts on coastal communities across the country,” Max Schmid, CEO of the Environmental Justice Foundation, told media earlier this year.

The group said in Ghana, for example, 80-90 percent of local fishers had seen a fall in income over the last five years.

The FTC report focuses on the financial secrecy behind IUU fishing that drives it.

It paints a picture of a practice being enabled by lax global legislation, poor international co-operation, and weak enforcement measures, coupled with a lack of resources for local bodies to fight it.

Much IUU fishing involves large foreign distant water fishing (DWF) fleets from industrialised countries. These work especially in Global South countries which cannot effectively monitor their waters and enforce regulations, and are prone to corruption, the report highlights.

It also underlines how IUU operators use complex, cross-jurisdictional corporate structures such as shell companies and joint ventures, and flags of convenience, to mask links to owners, allowing them to operate with virtual impunity.

Ending the financial secrecy around the practice is key to stopping it, say experts.

“[Solving the issue of ultimate beneficial ownership] is critical because it allows law enforcement to track ownership and go after individuals more effectively.” Lakshmi Kumar, Policy Director at the Global Financial Integrity NGO, told IPS.

But campaigners say that tackling financial secrecy alone is not going to bring an end to IUU fishing and that more measures need to be implemented, with the world’s richest countries taking the lead.

“Local governments are unable to crack down on this. Officials in West Africa have said they don’t have the means to patrol their borders and western countries are not prepared to give them that means.

“The only way there will be any change is through pressure from the main seafood markets, which is Japan, the US and EU. The G7 countries must force change by not opening their markets to anyone involved in IUU fishing, and provide the means to local governments to patrol their waters,” Daniels said.

Kumar said China also needs to be involved.

The study showed that 10 companies involved in IUU fishing were responsible for nearly a quarter of all reported cases, and that of those ten, eight were from China.

“In countries like China where most of these vessels originate, the government only gives vessels allegedly involved in IUU fishing a slap on the wrists and in other cases the vessels are part of a Chinese state-owned enterprise,” he said.

In its report, whose authors claim it is the largest analysis of IUU fishing ownership data to date, FTC calls for a number of steps to be taken.

It wants to see, among others, fisheries included in national beneficial ownership registries in all jurisdictions, with information made available to the public, fisheries included as an extractive industry in key initiatives including the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI).

It also wants governments to publish an up-to-date list of IUU vessels allowing the use of fines and sanctions on the companies and real owners which would be collated internationally under IMO-FAO auspices to allow institutions focusing on fisheries management and Illicit Financial Flows to work together and wants to see more external support to boost monitoring capacity by coastal state governments.

The group is planning to present its findings to the European Parliament in November, and hopes to organise a high-level event in early November with representatives from the African Union and other institutions to discuss the report.

But FTC officials and other campaigners against IUU fishing are under no illusions about how quickly governments might begin to ramp up any efforts to stop their practice.

They say though that a combination of growing crises may soon force their hands.

“A combination of crises makes me think governments will be pushed into doing something. The UN has talked of an ‘ocean emergency’ because of overfishing and with the current combination of a cost of living crisis, a food crisis, the rise of the fishmeal industry in west Africa – the situation is not sustainable in ten years, or even in five or six years from now,” said Daniels.

And it would be in rich countries’ long-term interest to make sure they do address the problems IUU fishing is causing in Global South states, he added.

“All the money being lost by African countries through illicit financial flows is being lost to these other [richer] countries. They may think why should we care so much about this? But that’s a very short-sighted view, because if you mistreat fisheries grounds in West Africa then you will encourage the loss of fishing jobs and fishermen will want to migrate to Europe, then you have a migration crisis,” Daniels said.

“This is not something theoretical – you go to coasts and ports in Senegal, for example, and many people cannot catch fish, so what else are they going to do? I spoke to some people who tried to go to Spain. They failed, but this phenomenon is happening now. The approach [from these richer countries] is so short-sighted, they’re not taking this seriously.”

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Workmen at a Dar es Salaam harbour loading bags of wheat destined for Central Africa. Credit: FAO/Giuseppe Bizzarri

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 31 2022 (IPS)

A war of words between Russia on the one hand, and the US, Britain, France and Germany on the other—specifically on the deployment of drones in Ukraine — has triggered an unintended consequence: a new world food crisis.

The Western powers last week asked the UN to verify whether Iranian drones were being used “illegally” in violation of the 2015 Security Council resolution 2231 which endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.

But Iran has denied it had supplied Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)—or drones– to Russia. So have the Russians.

Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy, insisted last week that drones used in Ukraine were Russian-made — not Iranian.

He also warned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his staff not to engage in any “illegitimate investigation” of drones used in Ukraine.

And Russia pushed back further — and said it will re-consider its cooperation with the UN on the Black Sea Grain Initiative, thereby barring Ukraine grain exports.

As expected, Russia pulled out of the deal threatening food security worldwide.

The world is facing a global hunger crisis of unprecedented proportions – we are at a critical crossroads. Up to 50 million people in 45 countries are on the brink of famine, says WFP. Credit: WFP/Eulalia Berlanga in South Sudan.

As of October 30, the total tonnage of grain and food stuffs moved from Ukrainian ports. under the Initiative, was 9.6 million tons.

UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said October 30 that the Secretary-General “is deeply concerned about the ongoing situation regarding the Black Sea Grain Initiative”.

“The Secretary-General continues to engage in intense contacts aiming at the end of the Russian suspension of its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative”, he added.

The same engagement, Dujarric pointed out, also aims at the renewal and full implementation of the initiative to facilitate exports of food and fertilizer from Ukraine, as well as removing the remaining obstacles to the exports of Russian food and fertilize

Danielle Nierenberg, President Food Tank, told IPS Russia’s decision to halt grain shipments is using food as a weapon.

As a result, she pointed out, food prices across the world will increase and people, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, will suffer the most.

“There will likely be food riots and increased malnutrition,” she predicted.

The Russian war against Ukraine, she argued, demonstrates that our global food systems are fragile.

“What we need are more local and regional food and input production to ensure food security”, said Nierenberg, whose non-profit organization aims at reforming the food system with the goal of highlighting environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity, and poverty.
www.foodtank.com

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky is quoted as saying that Russia has been “deliberately aggravating” the world’s food crisis.

“Russia is doing everything to ensure that millions of Africans, millions of residents of the Middle East and South Asia, will find themselves in conditions of artificial famine or at least a severe food crisis”.

The world has the power to protect people against this, he declared.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, beginning February 2022, exports of grain from Ukraine, as well as food and fertilizers from Russia, have been significantly hit, according to the United Nations.

“The disruption in supplies pushed soaring prices even higher and contributed to a global food crisis. The Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by the United Nations and Türkiye, was set up to reintroduce vital food and fertilizer exports from Ukraine to the rest of the world.”

Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, normally supplies around 45 million tonnes of grain to the global market every year but, following Russia’s invasion of the country, mountains of grains built up in silos, with ships unable to secure safe passage to and from Ukrainian ports, and land routes unable to compensate, the UN said.

“This contributed to a jump in the price of staple foods around the world. Combined with increases in the cost of energy, developing countries were pushed to the brink of debt default and increasing numbers of people found themselves on the brink of famine.”

On 22 July, the UN, the Russian Federation, Türkiye and Ukraine agreed the Black Sea Grain Initiative, at a signing ceremony in Türkiye’s largest city, Istanbul.

The deal allowed exports from Ukraine of grain, other foodstuffs, and fertilizer, including ammonia, to resume through a safe maritime humanitarian corridor from three key Ukrainian ports: Chornomorsk, Odesa, and Yuzhny/Pivdennyi, to the rest of the world.

To implement the deal, a Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) was established in Istanbul, comprising senior representatives from the Russian Federation, Türkiye, Ukraine, and the United Nations.

According to procedures issued by the JCC, vessels wishing to participate in the Initiative will undergo inspection off Istanbul to ensure they are empty of cargo, then sail through the maritime humanitarian corridor to Ukrainian ports to load.

The corridor was established by the JCC and monitored 24/7 to ensure the safe passage of vessels. Vessels on the return journey will also be inspected at the inspection area off Istanbul.

Meanwhile, a statement released on October 30 says the UN Secretariat convened all delegations earlier Sunday at the Joint Coordination Centre in a plenary format.

During the session, the delegation of the Russian Federation informed that while it suspends its participation in the implementation of the activities of the Initiative, including in inspections for an indefinite time, it will continue the dialogue with the United Nations and the Turkish delegation on pressing issues.

The Russian Federation also expressed its readiness to cooperate remotely on issues that require immediate decision by the JCC.

The Secretariat, in close cooperation with the Turkish delegation at the JCC, continues to engage all representatives to offer options on next steps regarding the JCC operations in accordance with the goals and provisions stated in the Initiative.

In order to continue fulfilling the Initiative, it was proposed that the Turkish and United Nations delegations provide by October 31 ten inspection teams aimed at inspecting 40 outbound vessels. This inspection plan has been accepted by the delegation of Ukraine. The Russian Federation delegation has been informed.

Currently, there are 97 loaded vessels and 15 inbound vessels registered for JCC inspection around Istanbul. There are an additional 89 that have applied to join the Initiative.

In addition, the Ukrainian, Turkish and United Nations delegations agreed on a movement plan for the maritime humanitarian corridor of 14 vessels, 12 outbound and four inbound.

The UN delegation, in its capacity as JCC Secretariat, has informed the delegation of the Russian Federation on the movements in accordance with the JCC established procedures.

As per JCC procedures, all participants coordinate with their respective military and other relevant authorities to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels under the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

There was no movement of vessels in the corridor on 30 October. There are currently 21 vessels engaged in the Initiative that are in or near the three Ukrainian ports with a capacity of over 700,000 metric tons, including IKARIA ANGEL, a vessel chartered by the World Food Programme loaded with 30,000 metric tons of wheat for the emergency response in the Horn of Africa, the UN said.

According to the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) last month, the world faces a global hunger crisis of unprecedented proportions.

In just two years, the number of people facing, or at risk of, acute food insecurity increased from 135 million in 53 countries pre-pandemic, to 345 million in 82 countries today.

Fuelled by conflict, climate shocks and COVID-19, the crisis is escalating as the war in Ukraine drives up the costs of food, fuel and fertilizers. Millions of people are struggling to put food on the table and are being driven closer to starvation in a storm of staggering proportions.

“We are at a critical crossroads. We need to rise to the challenge of meeting people’s immediate food needs, while at the same time supporting programmes that build long-term resilience”.

“The alternative is hunger on a catastrophic scale,” the WFP warned, long before the current grain crisis.

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At Jhargram in India’s West Bengal state, farmers have returned to indigenous and organic farming with promising results. Here women farmers prepare seed beds. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Jhargram, India, Oct 24 2022 (IPS)

At Jhargram, a far-flung village in India’s West Bengal state, a group of farmers sit together in one of the open fields. They debate, deliberate, and confabulate about the marketing strategy they should use when selling their harvest on the open market.

Two years ago, the scenario in the village was completely different. The farmers were perturbed by sudden market inflation—a price hike on seeds, fertilisers, and saplings. On top of that, they were worried about climate change and the damage that occurs with the changes in weather patterns—late monsoons, unseasonal rains, and extreme heat waves.

The state of West Bengal is located in the eastern region of India along the Bay of Bengal. It was in this Indian state that Britain’s East India Company started doing business before it went on to rule almost the entire South Asia.

West Bengal is primarily an agricultural state. Despite covering only 2.7% of India’s geographical territory, it is home to approximately 8% of its 1.3 billion population. There are 7,1 million farming families, with 96% being small and marginal farmers in West Bengal. The average land holding is only 0.77 hectares. The state has a broad set of natural resources and agro-climatic conditions that allow for the production of a wide range of crops.

However, over the past few years, farmers here have been reeling in distress.  According to recent research conducted to determine the intensity of the agrarian crisis in the region, agricultural produce returns for farmers were meagre.

The main reasons for low agricultural returns were a flawed marketing system; low agricultural product prices; price fluctuations of farm products; and crop loss due to disease, flooding, and heavy rains.

Jayanta Sahu, a farmer from Jhargram village, recalls how the drastic price rise of seeds and saplings put farmers like him in dire straits.

“We belong to the village, which is far away from the city. It takes hours of bus rides to reach the markets. Hardly a bus drones through this place. This was why we used to rely mostly on the middleman to supply seeds, fertilisers, and related entities required for farming. They used to take their commission from the supplies, and we were left with extremely high-priced material,” Sahu told IPS.

He adds that several issues have afflicted the farming sector in the past, including loss of agricultural land, a shortage of local seeds and seedlings, irrigation, and a lack of agricultural infrastructure, manures, fertiliser, and biocides.

But above all, said Sahu, the plummeting income from farming left them feeling “wretched” in more ways than one.

“We couldn’t even cover the basic expenses of our family through the meagre income from agriculture. Our finances were strained by inflation and climate change. We were really helpless before such a tumultuous situation,” Sahu said.

Another farmer, namely Mongal Dash, recalls how he was about to bid adieu to farming forever and instead do menial jobs like working as a daily wage labourer in the main town. “We were fighting a battle on multiple fronts—the low yields of our crops, the high cost of fertilisers and seeds, and climate change. The middlemen who used to supply us with the seeds raised the basic cost four to five times. We had no option left but to buy from them. The degraded quality of these seeds would result in low yields and, ultimately, low incomes,” Dash told IPS.

Witnessing insurmountable predicaments coming from all sides, the farmers last year sat together to decide a future course of action. It was like either they would perish or prosper. After hours of deliberations, they identified the key issues concerning them and how they should address them as a priority. One of the major hurdles was the involvement of middlemen or commission agents in procuring seeds. Another hurdle was the long distance to the city, which made it difficult to procure seeds and fertilisers for themselves.

At this time, they deliberated over a strategy to produce their own seeds and saplings that they could grow and make profitable yields.

The village, with more than 250 households, identified six veteran and experienced farmers who were tasked with producing their indigenous seeds and saplings. These farmers were trained in seed preservation, seed bed making, organic manure preparation, and pest control.

About an acre of land was identified. Seedbeds for Tamara, cabbage, cauliflower, and chilli, with an estimated 9000 saplings, were prepared there. The farmers resolved that no chemical fertilisers or pesticides would be used on seedlings or seed beds—everything was grown organically.

The saplings were distributed at a low cost to the farmers in the village based on their needs.

Now, when more than a year has passed, the endeavour these otherwise crisis-stricken farmers have made is beginning to yield the desired results.

“We are no longer dependent on the outside market for seed procurement. We do not use chemical fertilisers, nor are we importing any degraded saplings from outside. Our village is becoming self-reliant in this regard, and we are very proud of this,” says a local farmer Shyam Bisui.

The farmers, who otherwise had to invest about one-third of their yearly earnings on purchasing inorganic seeds and chemical fertilisers, now save most of their money because organic manures are used. Seeds are prepared in the village.

“The yields are subtly growing, and so are our hopes of good living. We are sure our earnest efforts will bring us prosperity, and we will never perish,” the farmer said.

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By External Source
Oct 14 2022 (IPS-Partners)

In 2022, an ongoing pandemic, global conflicts, climate change, rising prices and international tensions…

…are affecting global food security.

But we need to build sustainable access to enough nutritious food.

For everyone – everywhere.

No one should be left behind.

Leave No One Behind
World Food Day
16th October 2022

Enough food is produced today to feed everyone on the planet…

…but millions of people around the world cannot afford a healthy diet.

Ending hunger isn’t only about supply.

The problem is access and availability of nutritious food.

People around the world are suffering the domino effects of challenges that know no borders.

More than 80% of the extreme poor live in rural areas.

Many rely on agriculture and natural resources for their living.

They are usually the hardest hit by natural and man-made disasters…

…and are often marginalized due to their gender, ethnic origin, or status.

In the face of global crises, global solutions are needed more than ever.

A sustainable world is one where everyone counts.

Governments, the private sector, academia, and civil society and individuals need to work together…

…to prioritize the right of all people to food, nutrition, peace and equality.

We must all be the change.

Climate change, among other crises, has impacted on food security. Changing rainfall patterns have affected a rural community from Kondh Adivasis, Odisha. Credit: Credit: Aniket Gawade / Climate Visuals Countdown

By Naureen Hossain
New York, Oct 14 2022 (IPS)

In this year alone, the global impact of compounding crises demonstrates, more than ever, why food scarcity must be addressed internationally and how there must be a shift in the food and agricultural systems.

October 16 is World Food Day, and this year it seems crucial to take stock of the causes and consequences of global food insecurity. Food insecurity has already been of greater concern in recent years due to the global COVID-19 pandemic disrupting our interconnected governance, trade, welfare, and humanitarian aid systems. This year has seen a continuation of those disruptions exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic and increasing challenges brought on by climate and environment-induced disasters, conflict, and rising prices.

The impact could not be more obvious. Findings from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that over 40% of the world population – or 3.1 billion people – cannot afford a healthy diet and that 828 million people are hungry. Rising food prices across crops in meats, cereals, and oils have disrupted the Food Price Index, which has been declining for six months.

The increase in food insecurity and its impact on global hunger has been observed worldwide. But between certain regions, there are clear disparities. Africa has been bearing the greater burden of food insecurity. A new report from the FAO reveals that in 2021, 20.2 percent, or one-fifth of the total population, went hungry. The next highest rate is Asia, with 9.1 percent. A disparity that wide should be more than enough to raise the alarm.

This food insecurity has also resulted in micronutrient deficiencies, such as zinc, iron, vitamin A, vitamin B, folate, and vitamin D. While at first unnoticeable; these deficiencies can lead to long-term losses in health and cognitive development. This would be fatal, especially to young children still developing and still needing proper nutrition.

Researchers from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) conducted an analysis of the global prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies in preschool-aged children and non-pregnant women of reproductive age. Its findings suggested that over half of the preschoolers and two-thirds of the women in the study reported a deficiency in either iron, zinc, or folate. Regionally, the majority of the children and women lived in east Asia and the Pacific, south Asia, or sub-Saharan Africa. While the report acknowledged its limitations, and in how rarely the rate of deficiency is quantified and the absence of a global standard rate at the time of the study, as GAIN Executive Director Dr Lawrence Haddad has noted, one might observe the troubling implications for a wider demographic.

“Once we factor in males and other age groups, such as schoolchildren and the elderly, these numbers imply that our current global suggestion that two billion people suffer from hidden hunger is a gross underestimation,” he said.

In the context of Africa and the Sahel region, local governments’ capacity to respond to the food crisis have been limited or difficult to implement in the face of conflict within the region and in neighboring countries. Even international intervention from groups like FAO and World Food Programme (WFP) have had to work with limited resources and funding. In February, it was reported that within the last three years in the Sahel, the number of people dealing with starvation increased dramatically and dangerously, from 3.6 to 10.5 million.

Forced displacement caused by conflict in the region also impacts food security, as more than 5 million people live in forced displacement from Burkina Faso to the Lake Chad Basin area.

But what is perhaps more pressing, and more devastating, is the impact of climate change or environment-induced disasters on food security. The Sahel region in particular is susceptible to extreme weather conditions such as heavy rains and floods, and the Horn of Africa is suffering from a historic drought this year. Looking at other regions, the recent floods that devastated Pakistan destroyed over $70 billion USD worth in rice crops. This has also led to a rise in rice prices in the international market from other major rice exporters such as India, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Meanwhile, sub-Saharan Africa is heavily dependent on rice imports. It is an example of how connected the world is, and how we are dependent on each other to help meet that most basic and essential need: food.

With all these crises piling onto one another, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. But it also makes the theme of World Food Day even more pertinent. It is why this year’s theme feels more like a call to action: leave no one behind. These challenges will persist and only further overwhelm the global community unless we are united in our efforts to mitigate food insecurity. We are undeniably and inextricably dependent on each other to meet our needs for food, health, and security. “Leave no one behind” is a simplified reminder and approach, to a problem with complex parts and overlapping problems.

This call to action will only ring true when greater systematic changes are implemented in the food systems, and when this is revisited frequently rather than left for the next big natural disaster.

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Cattle are important for economic growth and in supporting livelihoods across Africa. Livestock farmers in Nkayi, Zimbabwe, tending to their cattle. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
Bulawayo, Oct 7 2022 (IPS)

Meat, milk, and eggs are bad for you, and livestock is bad for the environment.

Growing negative narratives about cattle’s contribution to climate change are shrinking the growth of the strategic livestock sector on which the livelihoods of more than 1.3 billion people in the world depend.

In Africa, livestock farming is life, providing food, nutrition, jobs, draught power, income generation, and a source of cultural significance. But the benefits of keeping cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs are lost when it comes to the impact of livestock on the environment are mentioned.

As a result,  livestock farmers are suffering from the low investment in the livestock sector, which has the potential to drive economic growth, address poverty and achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Researchers, farmers, and entrepreneurs, lamenting the negative perception about livestock in contributing to climate change, are calling for a balanced discussion to highlight livestock production, not as a problem but as a solution in tackling climate change, especially in developing countries.

Ian Wright, Deputy Director General at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, admits that livestock production is today topical for its negative impact on the environment, an area where it can provide a solution. There are suggestions that milk, meat, and eggs are becoming foods to avoid, yet livestock is one of the fastest-growing economic sectors in Africa, he said.

“Livestock and livestock systems are very different in different regions of the world, and the cultural significance and economic importance varies but the contribution of livestock to food and nutrition security in Africa is absolutely critical,” Wright told IPS in an interview. He added that the majority of people in Africa tend not to eat adequate sources of protein and micronutrients, in contrast to the situation in the Global North, where people will benefit from eating less meat and animal-sourced foods.

We can ‘meat’ in the middle

“The global discussions around livestock tend to be dominated by voices from the Global North, so it is important we ensure that perspectives on the role of livestock from the Global South, including Africa,  are heard at the top table of global events like the Conference of Parties (COP 27) to articulate the positives about the role of livestock which no doubt has its challenges,” Wright said.

“The livestock sector must address these shortcomings as there are opportunities to make livestock part of the resilience and adaptation efforts; for example,  climate variability makes cropping too risky, but livestock can still be raised producing food from land that cannot produce crops.”

Better livestock management and improved feed regime can help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock, while sustainable rangeland management promotes the fixing of carbon in the soil.

Livestock production contributes to about 40 percent of the global value of agricultural output while supporting the livelihoods, food, and nutrition security of billions of people around the world, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

A growing population and rapid urbanization are also driving an appetite for animal-sourced foods from eggs, milk, beef, and pork, which are also some of the best and often affordable sources of protein. Livestock provides energy-dense and micronutrient-rich foods, which are important for pregnant women and particularly babies in the first 1 000 days of life.

Scientists are clear about livestock’s huge hoof print.  Assessments by the FAO show that total emissions from global livestock represent 14.5 percent of all human-induced GHG emissions. Cattle, in particular, are responsible for the most emissions, at about 65 percent of the livestock sector’s emissions, largely of dangerous methane gas. As a result, there is a growing movement to stop eating meat and instead tuck it into plant-based diets to promote health and save the environment.

However, Africa is one of the regions in the world where malnutrition is rising. More people are going hungry, and even more, have no access to nutritious food. Livestock is a solution.

The World Bank notes that Africa is losing between 3 and 16 percent of its GDP annually because of childhood stunting, and animal-sourced foods can contribute to reducing that problem, says Adegbola Adesogen, Director of the Food Systems Institute and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems at the University of Florida.

“We should prioritize livestock-sourced foods in nutrition and increase access to these foods across Africa because there is low consumption of animal-sourced foods in Africa, Adesogen urged. “For example, the consumption of meat in Nigeria is about less than five percent of what is consumed in Argentina, yet the animal-sourced foods contain a plethora of  vital macro and micro nutrients which are vital for children of Africa for their growth and health yet most of the interventions address malnutrition in Africa neglect animal-sourced foods.”

Investing in livestock

The livestock sector attracts little investment compared to other agriculture sectors but contributes up to 40 percent of the agriculture GDP in Africa. Of the $129 billion Official Development Assistance in 2020, only 4,3 of that was funneled into agriculture, and livestock received just 1.3 percent, Wright noted.

Smallholder farmer, Emma Naluyima from Uganda, who has integrated crop growing and livestock in growing a thriving farm enterprise on an acre of land, says supportive policies are critical in promoting the development of the livestock and the livelihoods of livestock farmers.

Naluyima, speaking during a panel discussion at a session hosted by the ILRI during the 2022 Alliance for a Green Revolution Forum in Rwanda, highlighted that livestock is productive and profitable when farmers are supported to do it correctly.  Naluyima’s one-acre integrated farm, based on the recycling of farm resources to provide natural fertilizers and pesticides as well as biogas, generates $100,000 in income annually.

While many countries in Africa have failed to allocate at least 10 percent of their public expenditure on agriculture in line with the Malabo Declaration on Agriculture commitments, the livestock sector was barely getting more than 3 percent of the agriculture budget, yet it has the potential to transform the continent’s food systems.

Wright says livestock can solve multiple food system challenges in Africa as it is a significant contributor to the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. For a continent that continues to bear the double burden of food and nutritional insecurity, livestock-sourced foods can reduce malnutrition for the most vulnerable communities, he said.

“The livestock sector must address these shortcomings as there are opportunities to make livestock part of the resilience and adaptation efforts; for example, climate variability makes cropping too risky, but livestock can still be raised producing food from land that cannot produce crops,” said Wright.

ILRI has worked with various governments to develop Livestock Investment Master Plans, which have enabled governments and the private sector to get the best value from the sector, which battles to show a return on investment. For example, through a developed Livestock Investment Master plan, the government of Ethiopia was able to leverage $500 million from private sector investment in the livestock value chain.

“With the right policies and a balanced narrative about the livestock sector, livestock can attract investment and boost economic growth in Africa,” said Wright.

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CHINA - Constructing an irrigation network in Qinghai Province. Workers were paid part of their wages in food supplied by the World Food Programme. Credit WFP/Sarah Errington

By Trevor Page
LETHBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 8 2022 (IPS)

As our planet continues to heat up, extreme weather has affected many of us. From the west coast of North America across Europe, the Middle East and Asia to Pakistan and New Zealand, wildfires and flash floods have destroyed homes and property and disrupted the daily lives of millions.

Supply chains, already badly affected by COVID, have been further complicated by drying rivers and waterways. In the more developed countries, insurance covers much of the short-term losses.

But it’s in the developing world where the effects of climate change cause the most acute form of human suffering: starvation. Somalia, in the Horn of Africa is once again in the grip of a devastating drought. Livestock have perished and children are beginning to die.

Parts South Sudan’s farmland have now been under water for the 4th consecutive year because of abnormal floods. Hapless farmers, marooned on islands of higher ground, are living off handouts from the international donor community. No insurance to cover their losses; they’re lucky just to hang on to their lives.

And if we needed a shriller wake-up call about the unfolding global food crisis, Russia’s war on Ukraine has certainly provided that: Much of grain and fertilizer that the world relies on was held hostage by the combatant’s mines and warships in the Black Sea.

Paralyzed by the outdated make-up and role of the Security Council, the political side of the UN System was once again unable to prevent war from breaking out.

Wars and armed conflict rage on in Syria, Libya, Myanmar, Afghanistan, South Sudan, the DRC and, of course, in Ukraine itself. But thanks to UN and Turkish mediation, grain and fertilizer shipments from Ukrainian and Russian ports have resumed under the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

The Joint Coordination Centre (JCC), set up in Istanbul at the end of July, is ensuring that trade and aid in these most basic of commodities can flow out of Black Sea ports again. Amir Abdulla, the World Food Programme’s former Deputy Executive Director is the UN’s coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative and heads up the UN Delegation to the JCC.

Abdulla told me earlier this week that operations are scaling up and grain exports from Ukraine went over 1 million tons in less than a month and to 2 million tons in just the last week. An average of 9 ships a day heading to or from Ukraine are being inspected jointly by UN, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian inspectors. “While the conflict in Ukraine continues, it has been possible with the help of Turkey and the agreement of Russia and Ukraine, for the UN to get this initiative underway so that the much-needed flow of food and fertilizer moves out of Black Sea ports to the rest of the world”, he said.

“More grain needs to move through to make space in silos for the new harvest. This is critical for the world’s grain supply for next year. Equally important is the urgent export of fertilizer, including ammonia, so that farmers across the world can continue food production at an affordable cost”, he added.

But what about the wider food crisis that is developing and will be with us in the years to come?

The World Food Programme (WFP) warns that 345 million people are already affected by acute food insecurity in 82 countries. And with the global population set to hit at least 10 billion by 2050, the effect of climate change on agriculture will compound the growing problem. There is a desperate need for the developing world to grow more food.

Up to now, WFP has helped ward off mass starvation among the world’s most vulnerable. But to prevent this happening in the years ahead, there’s never been a greater need for it to address the “development” part of its dual mandate by getting back in the business of helping governments and communities grow more food.

In the early-60s when WFP started out, and for it’s first 20 years of operation, around 70% of its budget was spent on development projects, many of them designed to grow more food.

Work on India’s Indira Gandhi Canal, which takes water from the Himalaya mountains to irrigate 2 million hectares of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, started in 1964 with WFP assistance. Workers building the canal were able to buy WFP food at specially set up shops on the banks of the canal network at low, fixed rates.

After WFP assistance ended the World Bank and the EU helped complete the irrigation network. For the last 50 years, millions of tons of additional food grain has been produced every year as a result of this project. Wheat is now reaped annually in the far-flung desert district of Jaisalmer.

As WFP’s Representative in India, Bishow Parajuli says with pride, “This project has changed the lives of millions of ordinary people”, giving real meaning to WFP’s development slogan: changing lives.

In China’s far-western province of Qinghai, it’s much the same story. Here, back in the 80s, WFP helped the local government’s Water Conversancy Bureau construct an irrigation network that today irrigates what was 8,000 hectares of low-yielding land in Haidong Prefecture.

CHINA – Completed irrigation canal in Qinghai Province, a WFP- assisted project. Credit: WFP/Trevor Page

As with India’s Indira Gandhi Canal, the network was built manually, by hand. WFP food was supplied to pay part of the worker’s wages. With assured irrigation, wheat yields doubled within 5 years. Today, this same area of Qinghai is the province’s main wheat producing area with mechanical combines harvesting the crop instead of reaping it by hand.

CHINA – With irrigation, wheat yields doubled in 5 years at this WFP-assisted project in Qinghai Province. Credit: WFP/Paul Mitchell

Why is WFP no longer helping developing countries build major irrigation networks designed to grow more food? Because its focus changed in the early 90s to emergencies or saving lives as WFP calls it today.

That was when WFP took over the responsibility from the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR to feed the world’s 25 million refugees on its books as well as the 50-odd million who sort refuge elsewhere in their own country as internally displaced people, or IDPs.

But the pressure of climate change and population growth is causing the pendulum to swing again. At WFP’s last Executive Board (EB) meeting in June, WFP’s Changing Lives Transformation Fund (CLTF) was introduced.

While there was general agreement that WFP’s dual mandate – emergencies and development – must be respected and that humanitarian aid alone is not enough, cash-strapped main donor EB members insisted that saving lives must always take priority over changing lives.

Not surprisingly, most EB members from the developing world wanted WFP to help more with changing lives through stepped-up development assistance. After much debate, which went to closed night sessions, the compromise was a $55 million fund over 5 years, or upto $1.2 million for around 10-15 countries as seed money for projects aimed at supporting national food security.

While this is a start, the amounts earmarked seem like half-hearted steps for the organization that the world set up to help governments prevent mass hunger and starvation. Volli Carucci, Director of WFP’s Resilience and Food Systems Service disagrees, pointing to the many reliance measure that WFP is supporting in the drought-stricken Sahel. “ But more long-term support from donors is needed”, he said. Many countries in Africa need to be growing drought-resistant sorghum and millet rather than maize he told me. Maize is the staple for much of the continent.

Acknowledging “the present and future danger” of the global food crisis, Carucci emphasised that greater awareness of WFP’s current resilience initiatives and its development successes of the past is needed.

BANGLADESH – Unskilled labour re-excavating a silted-up irrigation canal. WFP food was used as part-payment of wages to workers rehabilitating irrigation and drainage canals and embankments in this flood-prone country. Credit: WFP/Trevor Page

Bangladesh, China, Egypt and India have all benefited from WFP assistance in building major irrigation networks. Every year since, millions of tons of food grain has been produced that helps feed their people.

EGYPT – Irrigation canal under construction. Credit: WFP

Ethiopia reversed some of its major soil erosion problems by planting millions of trees to protect agricultural land. Always short of cash to pay labour costs, these governments used WFP assistance to help pay the workers on these projects with food.

ETHIOPIA – Watering seedlings for a WFP-assisted forestry project. Credit: WFP/Franco Mattioli

South/South Cooperation provides a channel to transfer the organizational management and technical expertise of these countries to less developed countries with agricultural potential. Projects like these would also provide employment for the growing hordes of unskilled labour looking for work.

As WFP nears its 60th anniversary it has a full agenda of programming and internal management issues to address. Hopefully, helping the governments and community organizations in developing countries grow more food will figure more prominently than in past decades.

Irrigating and developing more farmland could also help with the integration IDPs into new communities to make them productive citizens instead of living off handouts year after year. It could also help stem the flow of migration to the more-developed countries.

Involving cooperating partners such as UNDP, FAO, World Bank, NGOs and other multilaterals like the EU will be crucial right from the planning stage.

Of course, saving lives will always be the priority of the day. But unless governments act now to ensure that future generations have enough food to eat, parts of the planet run the risk of becoming overwhelmed by the hungry poor.

WFP can and must do more to help countries along the path towards food security, as its mandate dictates. Only then will the world move significantly towards achieving its Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger.

Trevor Page is a former Country and HQ Director of the World Food Programme. He has also served with FAO, UNHCR and what is now the United Nations Department of Political and Peace Building Affairs.

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Elvie Gallo's thriving chicken business means she can support her family and put aside savings to build resilience against future shocks. Credit: BRAC/Robert Irven 2022

By Joyce Chimbi
Iloilo, Philippines, Sep 1 2022 (IPS)

Elvie Gallo no longer hangs around her local grocery store, hoping for the odd job to put food on the table. Her hand-to-mouth life has been replaced by a viable chicken rearing and selling business in Iloilo province in the Philippines.

“I have enough for today, and I am saving for my children’s future,” she says. Gallo’s story of growth and transformation is replicated across 3,000 households in Iloilo, Bukidnon, and Sultan Kudarat, three of the poorest provinces in the country.

These households have been reached through the Padayon Sustainable Livelihood program (Padayon SLP). This is a capability-building program for households and communities living in extreme poverty to improve their socio-economic conditions and develop thriving livelihoods. The Padayon SLP program is overseen by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI), and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

This project builds on two existing government programs, the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) and the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), with additional interventions providing access to available government services and resources to households, coupled with supportive coaching and mentorship as well as robust monitoring of household outcomes. This more holistic approach to poverty reduction is often referred to as Graduation, a multifaceted set of interventions designed to address various factors keeping people trapped in extreme poverty within the local context.

Before this most recent program, the government began exploring how to build on their existing cash transfer and livelihood programs to address multidimensional poverty, diversify household income sources, and build resilience to shocks.

Integration of the Graduation approach into the government’s existing cash transfer program was led by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) via a Graduation pilot officially launched in 2018. The pilot worked with 1,800 extremely poor beneficiaries of the 4Ps cash transfer program and administrative systems established for their Kabuhayan (livelihood) program, which provides households with productive assets and technical training.

The program included other Graduation elements to make the interventions comprehensive such as technical training on managing assets, savings mechanisms, coaching by Graduation Community Facilitators, skills building on social and health issues, and linkages to community groups and cooperatives.

Corazon Gaylon, a participant of the initial pilot, is comfortably putting her children through school and is no longer in debt. Credit: BRAC 2020

Corazon Gaylon, a participant of the initial pilot, reflected on how much her life has changed in just two years after successfully “graduating” from the program.

“My eldest daughter has been able to finish her college program, my second child is now starting his first year, and my youngest child is fully enrolled in school. I am no longer in debt [to anyone]. Our training sessions helped me a lot during the [COVID-19] lockdowns; I was able to prepare for it and put money aside.”

According to an initial endline impact assessment reported by ADB, despite the many challenges created by COVID-19 and ensuing lockdowns, participants demonstrated more resilient livelihoods and better savings and financial management. 73% of group livelihoods and 60% of individual livelihoods remained fully operational by the end of the program. Likewise, despite some initial dips in savings and new loans taken, by September 2020, 69% of those who reported incurring a debt also reported being able to repay all or part of the loan, indicating improved savings management and a significant decrease in instances of risky financial behavior.

After successfully completing the DOLE Graduation project in Negros Occidental, the government is now on its second iteration of Graduation integration via the DSWD program.

Rhea B Peñaflor, DSWD Assistant Secretary, hopes to see the Padayon SLP program scaled up to become a central part of the 4Ps scheme. This will ensure that people participating in the social protection program will not fall back into extreme poverty.

By integrating these various components, Peñaflor has witnessed drastic changes in the participants. “From livelihood support to social empowerment via coaching, our dreams for these participants are being realized, and they are able to create a more stable and successful future for themselves and their families.”

She stresses that the most significant feature of the Padayon SLP program “is the intensive coaching and monitoring aspects that are mainly facilitated through the coaches. We are also seeing great commitment from the various LGUs (Local Government Units) to oversee the implementation and help participants sustain their livelihoods and progress”.

“Our vision, in particular, is to create self-sufficiency and support the entire household. Extreme poverty should be everyone’s business. All levels of government, top-down and bottom-up, should be involved,” Peñaflor continues.

Every day, you can find Rosalie at the fish market near the docks of Iloilo City, providing customers with quality, freshly caught seafood at a fair price. Credit: BRAC/Robert Irven 2022

Marlowe Popes, Program Manager at BRAC UPGI, says: “The future starts at the local level. We must strengthen the capacity of local government units. They have the most experience working within the local contexts and implementing projects. They have experienced the roadblocks and challenges firsthand and are the real experts.”

Additionally, Popes confirms the need to engage local communities in the adaptation and design, implementation, and measurement of Graduation programs. Emphasizing that monitoring processes are significantly boosted by the participation of the local communities, community members serve as a driver for the success and motivation of the participants.

This level of involvement improves accountability, integration, and community ownership, especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our strategy to involve leadership was key to success. Regular updates helped bring them into the fold, allowing them to feel part of success,” Popes concludes.

Meanwhile, Gallo and all other 2,699 targeted households continue their journey of growth and transformation, developing livelihoods of their choice, including agriculture, water buffalo, pig rearing and swine fattening, food carts ventures, convenience stores locally known as ‘sari sari’ stores.

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UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Antonio Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 4 2022 (IPS)

The war in Ukraine continues to have a devastating impact on the people of that country. Civilians are dying in the most tragic circumstances every day. Millions of lives have been destroyed or put on hold.

This war is senseless, and we must all do everything in our power to bring it to an end through a negotiated solution in line with the UN Charter and international law.

We are doing all we can to reduce suffering and save lives in Ukraine and the region, through our humanitarian operations. And Martin Griffiths will be able to soon brief you on those developments.

But the war is also having a huge and multi-dimensional impact far beyond Ukraine, through a threefold crisis of access to food, energy and finance.

Household budgets everywhere are feeling the pinch from high food, transport and energy prices, fueled by climate breakdown and war.

This threatens a starvation crisis for the poorest households, and severe cutbacks for those on average incomes.

Many developing countries are drowning in debt, without access to finance, and struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and could go over the brink.

We are already seeing the warning signs of a wave of economic, social and political upheaval that would leave no country untouched.

That is the reason why I set up the Global Crisis Response Group: to find coordinated global solutions to this triple crisis, recognizing its three elements – food, energy and finance – that are deeply interconnected.

The GCRG has presented detailed recommendations on food and finance. I believe we are making some progress, namely on food.

Today’s report looks at the energy crisis, with a wide array of recommendations.

Simply put, it aims to achieve the energy equivalent of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, by managing this energy crisis while safeguarding the Paris Agreement and our climate goals.

I would like to highlight four of the recommendations of the report.

First, it is immoral for oil and gas companies to be making record profits from this energy crisis on the backs of the poorest people and communities and at a massive cost to the climate.

The combined profits of the largest energy companies in the first quarter of this year are close to $100 billion.

I urge all governments to tax these excessive profits and use the funds to support the most vulnerable people through these difficult times.

And I urge people everywhere to send a clear message to the fossil fuel industry and their financiers that this grotesque greed is punishing the poorest and most vulnerable people, while destroying our only common home, the planet.

Second, all countries – and especially developed countries – must manage energy demand. Conserving energy, promoting public transport and nature-based solutions are essential components of that.

Third, we need to accelerate the transition to renewables, which in most cases are cheaper than fossil fuels.

Earlier this year, I outlined a 5-point plan to spark the renewables revolution.

Storage technologies including batteries should become public goods.

Governments must scale up and diversify supply chains for raw materials and renewable energy technologies.

They should eliminate red tape around the energy transition, and shift fossil fuel subsidies to support vulnerable households and boost renewable energy investments.

Governments must support the people, communities and sectors most affected, with social protection schemes and alternative jobs and livelihoods.

Fourth, private and multilateral finance for the green energy transition must be scaled up.

Renewable energy investments need to increase by factor of seven to meet the net zero goal, according to the International Energy Agency.

Multilateral development banks need to take more risks, help countries set up the right regulatory frameworks and modernize their power grids, and mobilize private finance at scale.

I urge shareholders in those banks to exercise their rights and make sure they are fit for purpose.

Today’s report expands on these ideas, and Rebeca Grynspan will elaborate on them in a moment.
 
Every country is part of this energy crisis, and all countries are paying attention to what others are doing. There is no place for hypocrisy.

Developing countries don’t lack reasons to invest in renewables. Many of them are living with the severe impacts of the climate crisis, including storms, wildfires, floods and droughts.

What they lack are concrete, workable options. Meanwhile, developed countries are urging them to invest in renewables, without providing enough social, technical or financial support.

And some of those same developed countries are introducing universal subsidies at gas stations, while others are reopening coal plants. It is difficult to justify such steps even on a temporary basis.
 
If they are pursued, such policies must be strictly time-bound and targeted, to ease the burden on the energy-poor and the most vulnerable, during the fastest possible transition to renewables.

Footnote: Launching the third brief of the Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres thanked the GCRG Task Team, coordinated by Rebeca Grynspan, and the Energy Workstream, for making this report possible.

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Edward Mukiibi first worked the fields as punishment. Now he is a firm believer that the slow food movement can save the planet. He was recently named as the President of Slow Food International. Credit: Slow Food International

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Aug 2 2022 (IPS)

Edward Mukiibi was forced to do agriculture at school as punishment for misbehaviour.

Instead of hating the punishment, he loved it, especially when he realised farming was the future of good food, health and wealth.

Mukiibi is a farmer and social entrepreneur from Uganda on a mission to prove that sustainable farming is the foundation of all fortune and a solution to overcoming hunger, unemployment, and biodiversity loss. He is an advocate for food production based on using local resources,   knowledge and traditions to promote diverse farming systems.

Mukiibi is a member of Slow Food International, a global movement advocating for local food production and traditional cooking.

In July 2022, Mukiibi (36) was named as the new President of Slow Food International at its 8th International Congress in Pollenzo, Italy.

“I feel good and happy about this appointment and also happy on behalf of Slow Food, which is a strong international food movement that has become more established not only in the founding continent of Europe but across the world, which is why it was now possible for the network for finding more able and enthusiastic leaders like me,” Mukiibi told IPS during an online interview.

Founded in 1986 by Carlo Petrini, Slow Food International works to cultivate a worldwide network of local communities and activists who defend cultural and biological diversity. They promote food education and the transfer of traditional knowledge and skills.

Convinced of the untapped potential of farming and the need to make agriculture attractive for the youth, Mukiibi founded the Developing Innovations in School Cultivation (DISC). The project works with students and communities to cultivate a positive attitude in young people towards agriculture and locally produced food.

Citing that 70 percent of the population in Africa is below the age of 40, Mukiibi said Africa has a large young generation that can be involved in agriculture. Mukiibi deplored the practice in schools where farming was used as a punishment in the same manner prisons have young offenders working on large-scale farms to provide labour as part of corporal punishment.

“This prevents many young people from loving agriculture and food production,” said Mukiibi. “I am a victim of this kind of practice. When I was in school, I always wanted to change this by working with schools in a participatory way and introducing children to farming in a more interest-oriented manner.”

Mukiibi has also championed the development of Slow Food Gardens, a global project that has created thousands of green spaces to preserve African food biodiversity and help communities access nutritious food. Mukiibi has created gardens in more than 1000 schools in Uganda.

“Slow Food gives you a 360-degree view of food systems because it covers everything that transforms the way we grow, eat, market, process and save food,” said Mukiibi, explaining that slow food is a movement and philosophy about clean, good and fair food.

Interview excerpts:

The slow food movement promotes biodiversity on the land and our plates. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

IPS: What is slow food? Is it the opposite of fast food?

Edward Mukiibi: The concept of slow food carries more of a responsibility than just literal meaning and the direct opposite of fast food. It carries more sense when combined with our philosophy of good, clean, and fair food for everyone. The concept means being responsible in everything we do when it comes to food, agriculture, and the planet. In being responsible for your food choices, you need to eat food and produce food that is good for the environment and good for the culture and the traditions of the people that safeguard it.

Another aspect of slow food is fairness. We need to ensure fairness when it comes to transactions. Openness and transparency when it comes to negotiations and working deals between the producers and consumers but also a declaration of information and the true identity of the producers of the food we eat. Sometimes people are not fair, especially big food chains, when they sell food produced by small-scale producers but brand it as their own production. We also need to ensure justice for smallholder farmers, justice for indigenous people and justice for the environment.

Slow Food is also a movement of actors and activists. We are a movement that involves everyone who thinks we need to urgently slow down climate change and the destruction food production is bringing to this planet. We need to slow down on policies that are against environmental equilibrium.

IPS: Is clean, good and fair food achievable, and are slow fooders meeting this goal?

Historically there have been a lot of ruthless, careless food production activities and cruel ways of production to the environment and to the people who are going to eat the food. A good, clean, and fair food system exists and is achievable. With all the challenges we are seeing, the conflicts, climate crisis and food insecurity created by the global food system can be reversed if everyone understands the concept of slow food, whose goal is to solve global challenges using local actions and activities done by the local communities.

We have many examples. So many communities in 160 countries are taking positive actions to regenerate the planet … It is not too late to regenerate the planet and rethink how food is produced, how food is handled and how food is consumed.

IPS: Climate change is impacting our food production. How do you see the Slow Food movement addressing this?

EM: Slow Food is promoting regenerative approaches to food production, including promoting agri-ecology, building traditional farming systems based on agroforestry, and preserving and protecting local food biodiversity and fragile ecosystems.

We are not only talking about climate change by going out to conferences. We are taking action through the thousands of communities taking practical work to promote agroecology, permaculture and traditional farming systems. In Africa, we count 3 500 agro-ecological gardens that have been created and managed in schools.

IPS: You mention Slow food in biodiversity protection. How and why?

EM: We have the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity because we are concerned about the rate at which we are losing biodiversity not only in the field but also biodiversity on our plates which makes our nutrition and diets dependent on a few highly controlled products.

We are working with cooks to bring back biodiversity on the plate. It is not enough to talk. We have to bring back what we are losing on the table and open the discussion from the dinner table about the wealth we are losing.

Slow Food has worked to create community value chains in different communities to protect food products at the risk of extinction. It means sharing knowledge about these products and that the community sits together to devise ways to protect and promote these food products.

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Farmers in Bangladesh would welcome an early warning system that does not rely on smartphones. Authorities and devising an SMS service after devastating floods killed many people and destroyed harvests. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Aug 1 2022 (IPS)

Ziaur Rahman, a farmer of Pakuar Char under Sariakandi Upazila in Bogura, cultivated jute on a newly emerged river island (char) in the Brahmaputra River, but this year’s flood washed away his crop.

“Flood is very common in the char areas during the monsoon. Despite that, I sowed jute seeds on the char. This year, the flood hit our locality too early, damaging my jute field,” he said.

Ziaur said his jute field was almost mature and could have been harvested within a couple of weeks, but the sudden deluge damaged it.

“I did not get flood forecast in time, and that was why I failed to harvest jutes, incurring a heavy loss this year,” he said.

Like Zillur, many farmers lost their crops to the devastating flood that swept Bangladesh’s northeast and northwestern regions in June this year.

According to Bangladesh Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque, floods damaged Aus (a type of rice) paddies of around 56,000 hectares across the country this year.

The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC) under Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) issues daily flood bulletins and warnings, but the people living in remote and vulnerable areas hardly benefit because they do not have the proper technology.

Under the digital flood forecasting and warning system introduced in 2021, the FFWC issues flood warnings to the people living in flood-prone areas through ‘Google push notifications’ three days to three hours before a flood hits.

To receive flood warnings, people need an android mobile phone. The notifications are sent to these devices through a Google alert between three days and three hours before the onset of a flood, depending on the system’s predictive capacity.

BWDB, in collaboration with tech-giant Google and Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, developed the system, which is now functional in the 55 districts of the country.

Sarder Udoy Raihan, an FFWC sub-divisional engineer, said the BWBD has available data on floods and sends those to Google.

Google improved flood mapping using its topographical data and sends ‘push flood notifications’ to those living in flood-prone areas.

While this system has been helpful, many people living in remote chars and flood-prone areas do not have access to smartphones and the internet, so they don’t receive digital flood warnings.

BWDB has decided to launch a toll-free SMS service containing flood-related messages and information, said officials at BWDB.

The BWDB, a2i, Google, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have already started a collaboration to reach the flood warnings and information at the doorsteps of the people living in the country’s flood-prone areas through toll-free mobile SMS service. This will enable them to take measures to protect their properties before a flood hits.

FFWC executive engineer Arifuzzaman Bhuyan said talks continue with the stakeholders concerned, including Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), to introduce the SMS service.

“Introduction of the SMS flood alert service depends on the BTRC as there is an issue of cost involvement,” he said, hoping that the BWDB would be able to launch the SMS service in the next season.

Once the toll-free SMS service is introduced, mobile phone users living in flood zones will be identified using their cellphone tower ping, and SMS will be sent to them containing information on the rise or fall of river water level, severity of flood and details of the nearest shelter.

Raihan said it would be possible to send around 36 million SMS per year through mobile phone operators if flood warnings could be sent to people through SMS.

Sardar Mohammad Shah-Newaz, a former director of Flood Division at Dhaka-based think tank, Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), said if the flood forecast were not appropriately disseminated to those living in flood-prone areas, it wouldn’t help.

“Almost all people of the country use mobile phones. If the flood warnings could reach the people living in flood-prone zones through toll-free mobile SMS, they would be able to take precautionary measures to save their properties and minimise their loss and damage to this end,” he said.

Suggesting automation of the flood forecasting system in Bangladesh, Shah-Newaz said the BWDB could introduce the SMS service, and it should launch the service as soon as possible.

Deluge is a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. During every monsoon, flood hits different parts of the country, causing a huge loss of lives and assets.

Due to heavy precipitation upstream in India’s northeast states, Bangladesh experienced devastating floods in its northwestern districts and Sylhet division, leaving millions of people stranded and triggering a humanitarian crisis.

According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the death toll from this year’s floods has reached 123 in the country. The total deaths were recorded from May 17 to July 17 in 2022.

Of the total deceased, 69 people died in Sylhet, while 41 in Mymensingh, 12 in Rangpur and one in Dhaka.

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Credit: EBRD

By Vanora Bennett
LONDON, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)

Until Russia went to war on Ukraine in February, Ukraine was known as the “breadbasket of Europe”. One of the largest grain exporters in the world, it provided about 10 per cent of globally traded wheat and corn and 37 per cent of sunflower oil, United Nations figures show. The yellow and blue of its flag mimic its rolling golden fields under blue summer skies.

The war has darkened this picture beyond recognition.

Despite the conflict, Ukrainian farmers are still growing grain, at levels estimated to be around three-quarters of a normal year. But, with Russia blockading the Black Sea ports through which Ukraine would usually export about 5 million tonnes a month, the country is now struggling to get just 2 million tonnes a month out westward by choked road, rail and river routes.

This is not only an existential problem for Ukraine, whose grain exports are one of the biggest contributors to its economy, but also for the millions of people worldwide who would normally import and eat this grain. The World Food Programme (WFP) says that as many as 47 million people, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, are at risk of acute hunger.

Addressing this food security risk is a double challenge for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which works both in Ukraine and neighbouring countries affected by the war, and in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries which are struggling to import food.

Vanora Bennet. Credit: EBRD

“The biggest issue is storing the grain. There is some warehouse and silo capacity free, but not enough for the harvest taking place now. We’ve been told they are missing 15 million tonnes of capacity, even before the spring crop harvest that’s coming in in two months’ time,” says Jean-Marc Peterschmitt, EBRD Managing Director for Industry, Commerce and Agribusiness. “It is unclear how it will play out.”

“For now, the only solution is temporary storage – silo bags or floor storage or even storage in the field with some basic covers, which obviously will deteriorate the quality of grain,” says Natalia Zhukova, EBRD Director, Agribusiness. “Silo bags can pretty much preserve the quality for 12 months because they are hermetically sealed so infections or pests cannot develop inside. But simple silos without proper drying or ventilation will obviously have problems.”

“Getting grain out of the country and being able to store the harvest inside the country are the mirror image of each other, because whatever you get out is freeing up storage capacity for the next harvest,” adds Peterschmitt. “Getting it out so far has been not a great experience. But it’s vital to find more ways to do that.”

As the quantity of Ukrainian crops waiting for export and potentially rotting in siloes and fields increases, hopes that Ukraine could soon resume exports in something like their usual quantities rose briefly last week when a tenuous U.N.-brokered deal to lift the blockade on the key Ukrainian port of Odessa was agreed in Turkey on 22 July.

Less than 24 hours later, however, Russian cruise missiles hit Odesa. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying the attack cast serious doubt on the credibility of Russia’s commitment to the deal, accused Russia of “starving Ukraine of its economic vitality and the world of its food supply.”

Yet, by 25 July, Ukraine said it still hoped to start implementing the deal within as little as a week, and was making preparations including demining essential sea areas, and setting up naval corridors for the safe passage of merchant vessels and a coordination centre in Istanbul.

Still, for now, amidst the uncertainty, it’s back to working within the limits of wartime.

Within Ukraine, a significant part of the €1 billion of EBRD investment pledged for this year is earmarked to support domestic food security. As part of the EBRD’s Resilience and Livelihoods Framework (RLF), a €200 million multi-instrument Food Security Guarantee works across the food chain in Ukraine, both helping farmers buy fertiliser and retailers get food into the shops.

And there are other, smaller, freight transport options out of Ukraine for grain export if access to Black Sea ports continues to be blocked. The Danube River, whether in Ukraine or neighbouring Moldova or Romania, could be one option.

Throughput at Moldova’s Giurgiulesti Port on the Danube has already doubled in 2022. Another possibility might be supporting improvements to road and rail exports to help carry more freight overland.

In the southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region where the EBRD also works, meanwhile, all countries rely on imports to make enough dietary energy available domestically. The level of reliance on Russian and Ukrainian grain is unusually high.

Food prices are currently at an all-time high, making sourcing scarce imports from elsewhere ruinously expensive.

As the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s senior economist, Katya Krivonos, told a panel discussion at the EBRD Annual Meeting in May, Egypt, which has 5.4 million undernourished people, usually sources more than 40 per cent of its calorie imports from Russia and Ukraine.

“Climate conditions in SEMED don’t really allow them to grow grain. In arid countries, the question is how in the longer term to become more food secure, in a more sustainable way. We are looking at ways to help these countries find the commodities that they need,” says Iride Ceccacci, the EBRD’s head of Agribusiness Advisory.

In this region, the Bank is looking at expanding its work on agribusiness and food security beyond its current focus on the private sector to support SEMED countries to secure import of grains in this context of unprecedented high prices.

In Tunisia, 50 percent of all food calories are imported. Jordan imports approximately 90 percent of wheat and barley, which are essential staples and water intensive crops to produce. Morocco, which is generally less reliant on imports, is facing one of the worst droughts in decades.

In May, the EBRD joined forces with other international financial institutions – the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group – to formulate an IFI Action Plan to Address Food Insecurity.

“People in SEMED are very frustrated that they came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, having coped with it with a lot of resilience, and were looking forward to some positive growth.

But instead, they’re now getting this massive new hit, mainly through high food prices but also through high energy prices, which affect fertiliser prices so will also have an impact on domestic food production,” says Heike Harmgart, Managing Director, SEMED, at the EBRD.

She adds: “Now middle-class people in Egypt are buying less meat because food price inflation has been so high in the supermarket. And governments are worried because high food prices were one of the triggers of the Arab Spring in 2011, and there’s a very clear connection between political unrest and high bread prices”.

“What everyone wants to avoid is social unrest. The EBRD has been working on urgent food security response projects to support SEMED countries, with a first transaction now Board approved for Tunisia. These investments include technical assistance designed to promote sustainable solutions for grain supply chains in the region.”

Gérald Theis, Chairman of CereMed UK Ltd, a big grain trader, vividly describes working first with the supply problems of the Covid era, which raised prices and the threat of protectionism, and then the war on Ukraine, which began on 24 February.

“February 24 was like 9/11, or a tsunami,” he told the EBRD Annual Meeting’s food security panel. “We didn’t sleep much for a while. In eight days, we saw a move of nearly US$ 200 dollars per tonne – a percentage rise of 160 per cent.”

Asked what his sense was of where food security was heading next season, he replied: “I’m sorry to say I don’t know, if we speak about long-term. Today I would say a day is like a month used to be before. Nobody knows when this war will end or how it will end.”

“Even if it stopped tomorrow, we traders don’t think that things will go back to normal – there are too many issues with logistics, broken bridges and railways, silos and sanctions. In this environment, we believe prices will stay at a high level and it’s going to be extremely volatile.”

Source: EBRD

Vanora Bennett is EBRD Green spokeswoman / Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Georgia and Armenia

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Like so many others, Africans have long been misled. Alleged progress under imperialism has long been used to legitimize exploitation. Meanwhile, Western colonial powers have been replaced by neo-colonial governments and international institutions serving their interests.

‘Shithole’ pots of gold
US President Donald Trump’s “shitholes”, mainly in Africa, were and often still are ‘pots of gold’ for Western interests. From 1445 to 1870, Africa was the major source of slave labour, especially for Europe’s ‘New World’ in the Americas.

Anis Chowdhury

The ‘scramble for Africa’ from the late nineteenth century saw European powers racing to secure raw materials monopolies through direct colonialism. Western powers all greatly benefited from Africa’s plunder and ruin.

European divide-and-conquer tactics typically also had pliant African collaborators. Colonial powers imposed taxes and forced labour to build infrastructure to enable raw material extraction.

Racist ideologies legitimized European imperialism in Africa as a “civilizing mission”. Oxford-trained, former Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson – an unabashed apologist for Western imperialism – insists colonialism laid the foundations for modern progress.

Richest, but poorest and hungriest!
A recent blog asks, “Why is the continent with 60% of the world’s arable land unable to feed itself? … And how did Africa go from a relatively self-sufficient food producer in the 1970s to an overly dependent food importer by 2022?”

Deeper analyses of such uncomfortable African realities seem to be ignored by analysts influenced by the global North, especially the Washington-based international financial institutions. UNCTAD’s 2022 Africa report is the latest to disappoint.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

With 30% of the world’s mineral resources and the most precious metal reserves on Earth, Africa has the richest concentration of natural resources – oil, copper, diamonds, bauxite, lithium, gold, tropical hardwood forests and fruits.

Yet, Africa remains the poorest continent, with the average per capita output of most countries worth less than $1,500 annually! Of 46 least developed countries, 33 are in Africa – more than half the continent’s 54 nations.

Africa remains the world’s least industrialized region, with only South Africa categorized as industrialized. Incredibly, Africa’s share of global manufacturing fell from about 3% in 1970 to less than 2% in 2013.

About 60% of the world’s arable land is in Africa. A net food exporter until the 1970s, the continent has become a net importer. Structural adjustment reform conditionalities – requiring trade liberalization – have cut tariff revenue, besides undermining import-substituting manufacturing and food security.

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 24% of the world’s hungry. Africa is the only continent where the number of undernourished people has increased over the past four decades. About 27.4% of Africa’s population was ‘severely food insecure’ in 2016.

In 2020, 281.6 million Africans were undernourished, 82 million more than in 2000! Another 46 million became hungry during the pandemic. Now, Ukraine sanctions on wheat and fertilizer exports most threaten Africa’s food security, in both the short and medium-term.

Structural adjustment
Many of Africa’s recent predicaments stem from structural adjustment programs (SAPs) much of Africa and Latin America have been subjected to from the 1980s. The Washington-based international financial institutions, the African Development Bank and all donors support the SAPs.

SAP advocates promised foreign direct investment and export growth would follow, ensuring growth and prosperity. Now, many admit neoliberalism was oversold, ensuring the 1980s and 1990s were ‘lost decades’, worsened by denial of its painfully obvious consequences.

Instead, ‘extraordinarily disadvantageous geography’, ‘high ethnic diversity’, the ‘natural resource curse’, ‘bad governance’, corrupt ‘rent-seeking’ and armed conflicts have been blamed. Meanwhile, however, colonial and neo-colonial abuse, exploitation and resource plunder have been denied.

While World Bank SAPs were officially abandoned in the late 1990s following growing criticism, replacements – such as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers – have been like “old wine in new bottles”. Although purportedly ‘home-grown’, they typically purvey bespoke versions of SAPs.

With trade liberalization and greater specialization, many African countries are now more dependent on fewer export commodities. With more growth spurts during commodity booms, African economies have become even more vulnerable to external shocks.

Can the West be trusted?
Earlier, G7 countries reneged on their 2005 Gleneagles pledge – to give $25 billion more yearly to Africa to ‘Make Poverty History’ – within the five years they gave themselves. Since then, developed countries have delivered far less than the $100 billion of climate finance annually they had promised developing nations in 2009.

The Hamburg G20’s 2017 ‘Compact with Africa’ (CwA) promised to combat poverty and climate change effects. In fact, CwA has been used to promote the business interests of donor countries, particularly Germany.

Primarily managed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, CwA has actually failed to deliver significant foreign investment, instead sowing confusion among participating countries.

Powerful Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development governments successfully blocked developing countries’ efforts at the 2015 Addis Ababa UN conference on financing for development for inclusive UN-led international tax cooperation and to stem illicit financial outflows.

Africa lost $1.2–1.4 trillion in illicit financial flows between 1980 and 2009 – about four times its external debt in 2013. This greatly surpasses total official development assistance received over the same period.

Africa must unite
Under Nelson Mandela’s leadership, Africa had led the fight for the ‘public health exception’ to international intellectual property law. Although Africa suffers most from ‘vaccine apartheid’, Western lobbyists blocked developing countries’ temporary waiver request to affordably meet pandemic needs.

African solidarity is vital to withstand pressures from powerful foreign governments and transnational corporations. African nations must also cooperate to build state capabilities to counter the neoliberal ‘good governance’ agenda.

Africa needs much more policy space and state capabilities, not economic liberalization and privatization. This is necessary to unlock critical development bottlenecks and overcome skill and technical limitations.

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A child eating WFP high-energy biscuits as part of WFP's nutrition assistance in Batangafo town, northern Central African Republic. Credit: WFP/Bruno Djoyo

By Alexander Müller, Adam Prakash and Elena Lazutkaite
BERLIN / TERNI, Italy, Jul 25 2022 (IPS)

A growing mountain of data and analysis points to an unprecedented global crisis in the making, due to the convergence of “Four Cs” (Conflict, Covid, Climate and Costs).

As most recently highlighted at the recent UN High-Level Political Forum on the Sustainable Development Goals (HLPF), the intersection of poverty, climate vulnerability and geopolitical dynamics could unleash the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.

Why is this crisis different?

All food crises are intrinsically linked to spikes in fossil fuel prices. Recent episodes (such as the food price crises of 2007-2009 and 2012) display several common characteristics: increased demand for biofuels as an alternative energy source; and the diversion of massive amounts of food grains to intensive, and unsustainable livestock sectors in countries with an already high and unhealthy consumption of animal protein.

However, until now, severe impacts on food availability have been avoided thanks to favourable weather conditions that have helped to quickly restore market equilibria.
Not this time.

While the root of the current crisis is strongly linked to incessant pressure on food systems to deliver energy and meat, high fertilizer prices mean that production costs are outpacing farmgate prices of food, discouraging farmers from maintaining or increasing production.

This adds yet another layer of complexity to the “perfect storm” that has already been gathering. Covid-19 looms large over the ability of supply chains to deliver food. Conflict (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) has siphoned-off enormous amounts of food destined for international markets as well as driving up the price of crude oil, which is highly influential in determining prices of fertilizer – the critical input in global agri-food value chains.

(Note: On July 22, The United Nations, Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine signed an agreement in Istanbul aimed at delivering Ukrainian grain to world markets. The deal was the result of months of negotiations as world food prices skyrocketed amid increasing grain shortages connected to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres heralded the agreement as a major diplomatic breakthrough. “Today there is a beacon on the Black Sea. A beacon of hope—a beacon of possibility, a beacon of relief—in a world that needs it more than ever.”)

Due to our energy-hungry and inefficient food systems, over seven units of fossil fuel energy are required to produce one unit of food – from farm to retail.

Adding to the complexity of these developments is the accelerated impact of the climate crisis on global agriculture. The upshot is that the world is facing record food costs in 2022.

These “Four Cs” are instigating a scenario that could be more severe than anything we’ve seen in the past five decades, mirroring the hunger crisis of the 1970s in which millions perished from hunger.

Moreover, overall prospects for a global bumper grain crop are increasingly dim. Recent satellite surveillance shows that excessive dryness and heat stress could lead to a five million tonne shortfall in the EU wheat harvest and a combined eight million tonne contraction of wheat output in the US and India.

This adds to uncertainty about continued blockage of wheat supplies from Ukraine, which had a pre-conflict capacity of storing 60 million tonnes of grains and oilseeds.

One hopeful sign is that Ukraine has begun shipping small but increasing quantities of food via land routes, with significant volumes also passing through the Danube River. Several international initiatives are also underway to unblock supply chains and compensate for storage infrastructure destroyed by Russia.

These include US support for new silos along the border with Romania and Poland, and Turkey’s offer to help reinstate Ukraine’s exports from the Black Sea. However, any delays to these initiatives could force many Ukrainian farmers into bankruptcy, jeopardizing global food security for years to come.

Can we crisis-proof our food systems?

The war in Ukraine has thrown into sharp focus – yet again – to just how vulnerable our energy and food systems are to shocks, including geopolitical tensions. Dependence on a few countries for energy and fertilizer needs, poses exceptional and unacceptable risks.

Faced with severe food shortages, many countries will undoubtedly turn to Russia, which is set for an excellent food harvest this season, raising prospects of “weaponizing grain” in retaliation against sanctions.

Behind the geopolitics of blockades on Ukrainian grain is an untold story of a fragile, overly-centralized global food system, constructed and promoted by the richer nations and their corporations, that was already vulnerable to shocks long before the tanks rolled in.

Added to these continuing uncertainties, is the increasing impact of climate extremes to global food production. Once largely associated with the African region, drought is wreaking havoc to food systems around the world. A record-breaking drought reordered plantings in the United States, heat stress in India has led to a reported 10-35 percent decline in crop yields with more heatwaves predicted prompting a ban on the country’s wheat exports, with restrictions on food shipments instigated by another 34 countries.

Devastating heatwaves and the worst drought in 70 years are also being felt in northern regions of Italy driving up prices by as much as 50% , while the Horn of Africa is being ravaged by the worst drought in four decades. With only one percent of arable land equipped for irrigation in the region, the longer-term prognosis for strengthening climate resilience is disturbing, to say the least.

Unfortunately, the global response so far has largely taken the same laissez faire approach that was proposed in the wake of previous crises. In Einstein’s words, it is tantamount to “doing the same thing(s) over and over again and expecting different results.”

To achieve the fundamental reform needed, our food systems need to be set on a transformative pathway, necessitating the redesign around intertwined action.

Restoring sanity

It would be wishful thinking to expect that the world will ever be free of multiple crises. The question, therefore, is how to construct a more resilient global food system to shocks from wherever they might arise.

In the short-term, emergency measures are needed to safeguard access to food for those who are hardest hit from high food prices. Moratoriums on the biofuel and livestock feed sectors would free up sufficient quantities of grain to avoid a hunger crisis. Food stocks, where abundant, should also be released to ensure that the most at risk have affordable and open access to food.

A communiqué issued at the close of the recent G7 Summit in Germany unveiled plans to boost fertilizer production and promote the supply of organic fertilizers. G7 leaders also encouraged the release of food from stockpiles and agreed not to introduce any new public subsidies for fossil fuel sectors, even as they called for additional temporary investment in the natural gas industry to mitigate current supply shortages.

In parallel to these emergency measures, we urgently need to embark a more resilient pathway in the medium- to long-term. Even were the war in Ukraine to end tomorrow and supply chains to return to “normal” we must shift the current paradigm of dependency on climate-destroying mineral fertilizers. We must make hard choices to wean ourselves off conventional monocultural agriculture towards more diverse, localized and ecosystem-sensitive food systems.

Science tells us that nitrogen-based fertilizers derived from fossil fuels, can contribute to 40 percent of cereal yields. Continuing to depend on fertilizer supplies from a few countries is therefore tantamount to holding nearly 8 billion people to ransom.

It is increasingly clear that to avert the impact of such geopolitics, policy makers must make serious attempts to delink world food security from fossil fuel-based and climate-destroying inputs. Incentivizing inexpensive and readily available and proven technologies – such as agroforestry and other agroecological practices – boosts soil health, improves the availability of nutritious food, and strengthens climate resilience.

Repurposing a mere fraction of current perverse subsidises for the fossil fuel sector, which amount to an astounding US$ 7 trillion per year, is a critical step towards enabling such a transformation.

Ultimately, however, we need to value our food systems differently by including their total footprint on human health and the environment. Ignoring the “true cost” of food production has led to a focus on cheap and non-nutritious food that is linked to the global obesity pandemic and a greater risk of zoonotic disease spillovers.

The benefits of such a True Cost Accounting (TCA) approach would be manifold: a reduction in food waste, a far more productive and sustainable agricultural sector that respects our natural capital, and a sense of realism in achieving greenhouse gas targets under the Paris Agreement.

Dismantling the 4 Cs

Decoupling the world’s food systems from fossil fuel-based inputs would be a major step forward in solving long-term global hunger. A necessary first step towards such transformation is to design pathways in which the global north shares its food stockpiles instead of diverting grains to fuel cars and promoting unsustainable livestock production.

Such repurposing requires immediate investment in renewable energy and the manufacture of bio-fertilizers. Organic fertilizers are integral to the circular economy, which is an increasingly important model for planetary sustainability.

Equally, the overuse of mineral fertilizers needs to be addressed, especially given their role in creating additional input demand, which in turn leads to higher prices, while compounding environmental degradation.

While the G7 Leaders’ communiqué is a refreshing breakaway from tradition, the world still has much to learn from history. The world was ill-prepared in the 1970s, the 2000s as well as today. Arguably, solutions to fix increasingly complex and intertwined food systems are difficult.

Vested interests, a lack of governance and a system of economic accounting that undervalues our natural and societal capital are challenges under which transformation of our food systems needs to happen. This task is by no means underestimated, but bold action is needed to ensure food systems become more crisis-proof.

As an emergency step, prioritizing food for people “over all else” would build up trust especially between developing regions in need and the G7. And trust is also a very scarce resource in the world of today.

Alexander Müller is Managing Director (based in Berlin), Adam Prakash is Research Associate (based in the UK), Elena Lazutkaite is Research Associate (based in Berlin)

Töpfer Müller Gaßner, a Think Tank for Sustainability, based in Berlin.

About TMG
TMG Research gGmbH is a Berlin-based research organization with an African regional hub in Nairobi and projects across several countries in Africa. Together with partners at the local, national and international levels, TMG explores transformative solutions for entrenched sustainability challenges, with a focus on four thematic clusters: Food Systems, Land Governance, Nature-Based Solutions and Urban Futures.

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More than 1.3 million people in Ontario, Canada, the most populous province in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, are food insecure. Credit: Ottawa Food Bank

By Juliet Morrison
Ottawa , Jul 12 2022 (IPS)

Lisa Argiropulos, a single mother of two teenage sons and a resident of Ottawa, Ontario, has been facing food insecurity since 2016, after an accident that left her with chronic pain and disabilities.

Unable to continue working, Argiropulos has been living off disability support and child benefits payments. Yet, her income is insufficient to provide for herself and her family, especially with today’s prices.

“With the prices going up, it’s astronomical. I was struggling before. Now it’s ten times worse. By the time I pay all my bills, my utilities, and any expenses, what’s left over for food is not nearly enough. It’s been really, really hard. You’re always having to look elsewhere for help, weekly, monthly,” Argiropulos said.

In Canada, the cost of food has risen 9.7 percent from April 2021 to April 2022. The high price of other necessities, like gas and housing, has also contributed to food insecurity; people have to spend more of their income on those expenses, which leaves less for food.

Food insecurity occurs when people do not have reliable access to enough nutritious food. Pre-pandemic, it affected approximately 1.3 million people in Ontario—the most populous province of one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

“That really shows how challenging it is for so many in Ontario. It is not everyone’s reality to be able to afford all your basic necessities in a month,” Amanda King, Director of Network and Government Relations at Feed Ontario, said.

Today, the total number living with food insecurity is likely to be bigger because inflation has put more people in precarious positions.

“Food insecurity is something that’s somewhat invisible. That is why it is really important to emphasize the data and statistics that we have. If you look at a classroom, you cannot immediately identify which child did not have breakfast that morning. Statistically, you know there are children in that classroom that have not had breakfast,” King said.

To get by, Argiropulos seeks additional support from her local food bank to stretch her food budget. For her, that is the Barrhaven Food Cupboard, where she’s allowed one visit a month. While she receives a package of food intended to last for seven days, it goes quickly in her family of three, with her growing sons.

Food banks are also feeling the current strain of inflation.

Usage of food banks has increased significantly in the past couple of months as more people are in need. According to CEO George Macdonald, the Barrhaven Food Cupboard has seen a usage increase of 130 percent since last year. Ottawa Food Bank CEO Rachael Wilson noted that they served 52,000 meals across their network in March. Last year, they served an average of 44,000 a month.”

Higher food and gas prices mean that it has become more expensive for food banks to operate. Before the pandemic, the Ottawa Food Bank spent 1.7 million Canadian dollars (about USD 1.31 million) annually on food. This year, Wilson told IPS they were preparing to spend over 4.5m CAD (USD 3.49m).

Though both Wilson and Macdonald were coping with the demand, they noted that further increases in food bank usage could affect their ability to serve their community.

“It’s very stressful. Knowing how we are going to get food on our shelves every day is just a day-to-day stress right now. So far, there hasn’t been an instance where we couldn’t provide the food that is needed. But I honestly don’t know how sustainable it is for us to continue to meet the needs at this level without major change,” Wilson said.

The Ottawa Food Bank, which supports 112 smaller food programs, relies primarily on charitable donations. It receives no regular funding from the provincial or federal government.

The current extent of food insecurity has prompted calls for change in how policymakers address the issue.

Government interventions on food insecurity have mostly been in helping support the operations of food banks.  Provincial relief for food insecurity during the pandemic came indirectly: over 1 billion CAD was allocated in Social Services Relief Funding (SSRF) (about USD 775m) to help municipalities and social service providers, including food banks.  ­­­­

While helpful for short-term relief, Tim Li, research coordinator at PROOF—a program from the University of Toronto working to identify policy solutions for hunger—explained that these interventions do little to address the causes of food insecurity.

“Hunger is not just about not having food. It’s about people’s financial circumstances. It’s about poverty, lack of income, and income security. We’re not seeing action that takes that approach as far as addressing income inadequacy to reduce food insecurity. It goes to show that the safety net is not as robust as we thought.”

Rather than increasing aid to food banks, PROOF advocates for income-based solutions, such as expanding social assistance and increasing the minimum wage. Such moves would require mostly provincial-level action, given the provinces are responsible for both areas.

“Our research really points to policymakers tackling minimum wage, social assistance, and all the other different policies that exist within their toolbox, whether that’s income tax, child benefits. There’s a lot that public policymakers can do. It’s just a matter of them doing it,” Li said.

More than 60 percent of people dependent on social assistance in Canada are food insecure, according to a 2018 study.

The total is presumed to be bigger today, given most social assistance programs are not indexed to inflation. This results in support payments being worth less and less each year as prices rise, potentially leading more people to slip into food insecurity.

Argiropulos is also asking for income-based solutions. Fully supporting herself and her family is simply out of reach in her current state, she told IPS.

Around a year ago, her doctor recommended she apply for a food allowance for those with dietary needs because of medical conditions. The allowance was part of Ontario’s Disability Support Program (ODSP), and Argiropulos qualified because she had type two diabetes.

She was shocked, however, upon realizing how much she was eligible to receive.

“He sent in [the paperwork], and it was only an additional 35 dollars per month for type two diabetes. I had gestational diabetes throughout both pregnancies with my children. So, I know. I’ve seen dieticians. I know how you’re supposed to eat. I know about carbohydrates. I know about all that stuff. Thirty-five dollars, it’s not even doable,” she said.

Argiropulos noted that the reality of living on social assistance and facing food insecurity needs to be emphasized.

“I worked my entire life, and I fell on bad times. And food, nobody should be denied food. We live in a country where we should not be denied food. When you are forced to rely on the system, struggling for food should not happen. It just shouldn’t.”

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A family shares a meal in Yemen with food provided by the UN World Food Programme (WFP). Credit: WFP/Saleh Hayyan

By Marco Ferroni
CHICAGO, USA, Jul 1 2022 (IPS)

From the worst drought in four decades threatening famine across the Horn of Africa to extreme heat in South Asia, the war in Ukraine and the unequal pace of pandemic recovery, global food systems are under extraordinary pressure.

The combined result is expected to leave more than 320 million people severely food insecure this year, compared to 135 million two years ago.

Until recently, efforts to bolster such an overstretched global food system have focused on a single aspect, such as developing hardier crop varieties, reforming subsidies or reducing food waste, but any system is only as strong as its weakest link.

New varieties, technologies or incentives to increase yields are meaningless if there is no water to irrigate the soil, or if the infrastructure is not there to get the harvest to market.

Policymakers and scientists are increasingly recognising the need for a new approach that considers all aspects from farm to fork, a philosophy that goes beyond individual commodities, and even beyond agriculture as a sector.

A “systems approach” allows for a greater understanding of the bigger picture by considering the broader context in which food is produced, distributed, and consumed, and how those systems function within related systems such as health and energy.

Just as the G7 agriculture ministers warned against short-term responses to the food crisis that come at the cost of medium and long-term sustainability, CGIAR believes a systems approach is necessary to minimise the trade-offs and unintended consequences that have contributed to food crises for decades.

Put simply, systems thinking is a holistic approach that accounts for the interplay of all elements, assessing and addressing both the potential benefits and harms of new developments.

For example, when applied to food, it raises questions such as: does this new seed or practice require additional natural resources and are they available? Is a particular innovation accessible and practical for women as well as men? What repercussions will it have for the environment, trade, food prices, livelihoods and nutrition?

Adopting such a framing can then inspire a so-called “innovation systems approach”, which fosters productive engagement between key actors, including farmers, governments, enterprises, universities, and research institutes, and directs more targeted investment towards effective innovations in line with the G7’s recommendations.

The major advantage of such a systems approach is that it can be applied at all levels.

At a global level, rebalancing food systems requires a complete understanding of our natural resources worldwide, and how they intersect with food production across different regions in different scenarios.

Research shows that agriculture, which produces fuel crops as well as food, is one of the major contributors of greenhouse gas emissions, meaning agricultural innovations must be considered alongside energy innovations to ensure one avoids jeopardising the other.

Understanding how innovations and decisions made in one country can have ripple effects thousands of miles away is made easier through models such as the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT), while connecting food systems with land and water systems through cross-disciplinary research can help manage agriculture’s contribution to climate change.

At a national level, addressing country-level priorities by understanding the different levers at play can unlock multiple benefits.

For example, when Bangladesh identified a gender gap in agriculture in 2012, the government worked with CGIAR scientists to develop the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) program to achieve its dual goals of greater women’s empowerment and improved nutrition.

The program featured agricultural training as well as nutrition behaviour change communication and gender sensitization trainings to increase women’s empowerment, diversify production and improve the quality of household diets.

Finally, a systems approach tackles localised needs more effectively by addressing the multiple factors that contribute to and compound poverty and hunger.

For example, bean breeders at the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) developed a demand-led research model that has resulted in more than 500 new varieties of beans according to the different needs, tastes and preferences of both farmers and consumers.

By refining agricultural research with an end-to-end approach, scientists developed the new varieties most likely to be successful with consumers and therefore adopted by farmers, doubling bean productivity in Uganda and Ethiopia between 2008 and 2018.

Ultimately, people do not only eat food: they grow it, sell it, buy it, cook it and share it. And so, food systems transformation requires dealing with such complexity by harnessing science and technology, learning from analysis and data, interpreting ambiguity and potential conflicts to develop multiple solutions to tackle interconnected challenges.

These benefits could be fully realised with greater investment into research across the agri-food system as a whole, which in turn starts with a shift in mindset towards more systemic thinking.

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Credit: FAO

By Jong-Jin Kim
BANGKOK, Jun 24 2022 (IPS)

It wasn’t that long ago that Internet connectivity faded the moment one left a populated area like a city or big town – “no service” was the take-away message back then. But thanks to 3G, 4G and now 5G mobile technology, coupled with widespread installation of cellular towers in rural areas region-wide, that little message shows up much less frequently.

Most importantly, the rapid spread of internet connectivity and mobile telephony, reaching into the most remote rural communities, has resulted in countless opportunities to help address chronic problems such as poverty, malnutrition and inequality.

Investing in an enabling environment to ensure equal access is key to ensuring the benefits of rural digitalization are enjoyed more broadly

From farmers to fishers to herders, digital technologies are increasingly relied upon to help transform and enhance livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people each day. From a smart phone in the hands of a woman or man checking optimal conditions to sow a field, or band together to rent a drone for aerial assessments, to a herder checking the weather, to fishers finding the best places to cast their nets, digital technologies are becoming increasingly accessible, useful and affordable for those in rural areas.

This paradigm shift offers great hope to get this region – and the world – back on track to meet the 2030 SDG deadline.

While this digital revolution sweeping rural areas of Asia and the Pacific holds great promise, not everyone is benefiting equally. Indeed, in some cases, digital technologies can even be disruptive, or lead to unintended consequences by widening, not reducing, the digital divide if their implementations result in a loss of decent work.

This needs to be addressed, and it’s in everyone’s best interests to do so. Policy makers in countries across the region do understand the added value, and they see the economic benefits digitalization of rural areas bring to their nations and people. Hence, investing in an enabling environment to ensure equal access is key to ensuring the benefits of rural digitalization are enjoyed more broadly.

Credit: FAO

Digitalization of rural areas needed now – more than ever before

Indeed, the move to accelerate implementation of digital technologies, equitably across the region’s rural areas couldn’t come at a more important time. The global pandemic hit rural communities disproportionately hard – particularly with respect to individual livelihoods. Now, as we try to recover from the devastation of COVID-19, we are facing the highest prices for many basic foods – the highest we’ve seen in decades. Higher food costs hit poorer and marginalized communities the hardest, particularly in rural areas, as they must spend a greater proportion of their disposable income to feed their families.

These challenges are compounding an already existing and alarming situation. Last year, prior to the inflation of food commodities, FAO and partners pointed out that many people – at that time – already couldn’t afford a healthy diet in Asia and the Pacific.

By leveraging the advancements offered by digital technologies we can find ways to counter some of these and other devastating negative effects that already existed such as severe weather related events, droughts and floods.

That is already happening in some countries in this region, and they are well on the road to digitalization of even the smallest and most remote villages and towns. And they have good examples to share with their neighbors.

At the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), we’ve been following these trends, policies and initiatives of our Member Nations in the Asia-Pacific region. We know the full scale of their desire and determination to embrace, and fully harness, the potential of digitalization.

For our part, FAO has pledged to assist in bringing together these existing good practices of our Members, and to create a space for others to share their digital solutions as part of FAO’s 1,000 Digital Village Initiative. A key component of this initiative is the Digital Village Knowledge Sharing Platform for Asia-Pacific that can act as a one-stop village square, where those working in the food and agriculture sectors can share their innovations and technologies with us all.

A digital village isn’t necessary a small place. It is a concept – one that is inclusive, operational, country-led and fit-for-purpose to deliver solid benefits to people.

At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to make things better for everyone.

Working together, and sharing together, this region’s digital village innovations and technologies can help lead us all to a world of better production, better nutrition, better environment and a better life – leaving no one behind!

Credit: FAO

More information on the Digital Village Initiative:

Join the Knowledge sharing and policy dialogue live (and recorded) – 27 June 2022, Bangkok, and more information about the Programme is here.

At G20, FAO’s Director-General calls for closing of digital divide.

FAO Video on Digital Village Centres empowering farmers in Bangladesh and a social media video here

For more information on FAO’s Digital Village work with our Members in Asia and the Pacific, see here.

For more information on FAO’s Digital Village work with our Members in Africa, see here.

For more information on FAO’ Digital Village work with our Members in Latin America and the Caribbean, see here.

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The World Food Programme (WFP) says 41 million people around the world, including in Nigeria (pictured) are at imminent risk of famine. Credit: UNOCHA/ Eve Sabbagh

By Danielle Nierenberg
NEW ORLEANS, Jun 24 2022 (IPS)

When I first met Dr. Roland Bunch, I have to be honest—he scared me. As one of the most well-respected leaders on agronomy and resilient land management, he offers extremely prescient predictions on how famines take root when soils fail—and also has an admirably clear-eyed view of what we need to do better.

When we first met in the mid-2000s, I was at the Worldwatch Institute and invited him to contribute a chapter to a book I was writing. He described how farmers in Malawi and other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were noticing their soil was getting tired.

Maize yields were unpredictable and decreasing year to year—problematic when that’s the crop you depend on most for both consumption and sale to earn your livelihood. Droughts were a major concern, but Dr. Bunch understood that farmers were, rightly, more worried about loss of soil fertility.

Droughts and depleted soils can be difficult to distinguish. While fertile soils can soak up and retain what little rain does fall, depleted soils become compacted and water simply runs off, so each problem accentuates the other.

Plus, when farmers are facing infertile soils, they are more likely to move to new areas of land, which unfortunately eats up arable land without regenerating it. And in some cases, folks give up farming altogether and move to cities, where it’s difficult for them to find jobs that match their skills.

He wrote this warning right around the 2007–08 food and financial collapse, which stretched into riots and famines around the globe over the next half-decade. And unfortunately, we may be back where we were then.
Dr. Bunch warns that the coming famine will be a “hurricane of hunger,” which sounds ominous to me and so many of us who work in this space. But things are not hopeless.

Over the past 20 years, one of the so-called solutions that’s been heavily promoted in places like Malawi are fertilizer subsidies and artificial fertilizers—which are not the answer.

We forget that artificial fertilizer should be used sparingly like medicine, to help get farmers over a hump or temporarily boost soil quality to allow for better use of organic matter.

But unfortunately, subsidies have led to farmers becoming dependent on artificial soil amendments and have actively disincentivized growing a more diverse set of crops or using organics to fertilize soils in countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and more.

One of the answers to what we’re seeing around soil infertility are cover crops and ‘green manure’ (which refers not to colorful animal poop but rather the practice of growing certain crops to turn or incorporate back into the soil).

These can be things like bushes, trees, and vines that help improve soil quality, control weeds, and retain water. Other great options are crops like cowpeas and scarlet runner beans, which people can eat.

This is something else we often forget when we’re talking about how to keep folks from being hungry: The foods people have depended on for generations are not only regenerative but also delicious! Farmers have an opportunity,

Roland says, to return to growing these indigenous crops—sometimes called forgotten crops or orphan crops—that are resilient to droughts, have deep root structures to keep water and nutrients in soils, grow perennially so they don’t need to be replanted every year, and taste really, really good.

Between crises like climate change, soil depletion, global conflicts, and Covid’s supply chain fallout, the bottom line—and it’s a sobering one—is that we’re facing a massive famine and that “hurricane of hunger” over the next year.

I’ve talked before in this newsletter about the power of citizen eaters and the participatory democracies Frances Moore Lappé advocates for—but for these ideas to actually translate into powerful results, we need governments that are actively engaging in agriculture.

Roland says it’s possible to end hunger in one generation, and quite inexpensively, but only if we have the will to do so. We’ll need action from leaders in policy, business, and more to invest in helping farmers adopt greener, more regenerative soil practices.

As he says, better soils lead to better lives—which is more urgent now than ever before.

I want to thank and commend Dr. Roland Bunch for his leadership and—seriously—for scaring me. His predictions not only frighten me but also give me hope. He tells us how bad things can be—but also how good things can be if, again, we have that political engagement.

I’ve included more writing from Dr. Bunch and other luminaries in the Learn More section below, and as always, please shoot me an email at danielle@foodtank.com with your perspectives and ideas for how we move forward.

Danielle Nierenberg is President of Food Tank and an expert on sustainable agriculture and food issues. She has written extensively on gender and population, the spread of factory farming in the developing world and innovations in sustainable agriculture.

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Salmon fishing. Credit: iStock

By Marla R. Emery, Jean-Marc Fromentin and John Donaldson
BONN, Germany, Jun 22 2022 (IPS)

You probably use wild species far more often than you realise. For many people, especially in more developed economies, the use of wild species sounds like something quite removed from their everyday lives – something perhaps more relevant to other people, in other countries.

It is a fact, however, that the use of wild species is a vital part of almost every human community. If you eat fish, they are most likely wild species. When you take cough medication, it’s likely to be derived, in part, from wild plants. Your wooden furniture may once have been a wild tree. Even the joy and inspiration you get from nature, such wildlife watching, is another use of wild species.

The 2019 Global Assessment Report by IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) alerted the world that direct exploitation is one of the main reasons that 1 million species of plants and animals now face extinction – many within decades. This should have been a wake-up call. Our human behavior is harming wild species, some of which we have relied on for centuries to provide nutrition, clothing, shelter, and more.

In other words, we use wild species to meet a wide range of human needs. By damaging them, we are also harming ourselves – and the policies and decisions we make about the use of wild species have consequences for our health, food security, livelihoods and general wellbeing.

This doesn’t mean that we have to stop eating fish entirely, give up on cough medication or find other materials for our homes – but what is needed, urgently, is better information and knowledge together with stronger institutions to ensure that our use of wild species is sustainable.

For this reason, four years ago, nearly 140 Governments tasked 85 leading experts, from every region of the word, with preparing a landmark new IPBES assessment report on the sustainable use of wild species – to help inform decisions about nature by governments, businesses, civil society, indigenous peoples and local communities – in fact by everyone whose choices and actions impact nature.

In the first week of July, this report – drawing on more than 6,200 sources, will be considered by the member States of IPBES. Once accepted, it will become the go-to resource to inform policy options and actions to promote the more sustainable use of wild species from the global to the national and even the very local scale.

One of the things that sets this report apart is the extent to which it draws on the expertise and experiences not only of the natural and social sciences – but also of indigenous peoples and local communities. For many local communities, the use of wild species is inextricably entwined with their culture and identity – with customs and practices evolved over millennia to ensure sustainable use.

The report will also have very immediate real-world relevance. Having been specifically requested by, among others, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), it will directly inform the decisions of the 19th World Wildlife Conference in Panama in November 2022.

Additionally, it will be taken up by the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in the negotiations later this year of the new global biodiversity framework for the next decade. The sustainable use of wild species is also closely related to our ability to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals and to deal with other global challenges such as land use and climate change.

Among the most important aspects of this new IPBES report is just how vital the sustainable use of wild species is to everyone – everywhere, in the face of multiple global environmental crises. It will offer better information and options for solutions that work – for people and the rest of nature.

Dr. Marla R. Emery is a Scientific Advisor with the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and retired Research Geographer with the US Department of Agriculture.

Prof. John Donaldson is an independent biodiversity consultant and previously Chief Director Biodiversity Research, Assessment and Monitoring at the South African National Biodiversity Institute.

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Hunger and food insecurity impact more than 38 million Americans. Black and Hispanic families and other minority groups including LGBTQ folks, consistently and disproportionally experience food insecurity.

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, USA, Jun 15 2022 (IPS)

This September, the White House will convene a conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Leading up to the conference, the White House is organizing several virtual listening sessions across America to hear firsthand from people impacted by food insecurity and to collect ideas about how to end hunger and hunger-related diseases and disparities.

Hunger and food insecurity impact more than 38 million Americans. Black and Hispanic families and other minority groups including LGBTQ folks, consistently and disproportionally experience food insecurity compared with their white and straight counterparts particularly. Thus, this attention to the issue is long overdue.

African Americans still trail Whites in the overall use of the internet; 34% of Black adults do not have access to home broadband and 30.6% of Black households lack high-speed home internet. In addition, racial minorities and those with lower education levels and income are less likely to have broadband service at home

However, the strategy the White House is taking – hosting virtual listening sessions – is problematic in many ways. As much as they have good intentions, it may not yield the much-needed input necessary to accelerate progress and make significant policy changes to end hunger.

Instead, sadly, the White House hearings will likely only provide a small picture of the problem as it will be an effort the privileged are most able to join. Participating in these hearings necessitates that you have access to the Internet and you are aware of the listening sessions.

This likely means you are part of networks or have access to channels where the announcement was disseminated. Most importantly, joining the listening sessions is something that one must have the privilege of extra time to attend.

Unfortunately, Americans who are impacted hardest by food insecurity – the people President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris need to hear from – may not have one or all of these privileges. For instance, if we look at Internet access, according to Pew Research Center Report,

African Americans still trail Whites in the overall use of the internet; 34% of Black adults do not have access to home broadband and 30.6% of Black households lack high-speed home internet. In addition, racial minorities and those with lower education levels and income are less likely to have broadband service at home.

Moreover, according to Pew Research, 10 percent of Americans that do not use the internet live in rural areas– areas where food insecurity is prevalent. The major reason many Black families living in urban and rural communities do not have access to the privilege of having internet access is the cost.

Unsurprisingly, because of persistent racial inequities, African Americans and other minority groups that are most impacted by hunger may not have the privilege of time, since many have to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet.

Worse still, for many African Americans, despite working more every year, they hold much less wealth and experience higher rates of unemployment and have no tangible economic advancements.

Thus, rather than hold virtual listening sessions only to create a national plan on how to address hunger and food insecurity, the White House should consider adding other creative platforms to be more inclusive.

The most obvious one to implement is bringing the listening tours offline to the people in the communities and spaces where food security impacted people live in.

The easiest way to do this is to hold meetings and convening gatherings where people already go. As an example, the White House could convene in-person roundtable listening sessions at food banks across America, where according to Feeding America, close to 60 million Americans who are food insecure visit regularly.

Doing so would require the White House to partner with food banks and other organizations where people impacted by food security get food from.  Another prime location for listening sessions would be churches. Churches have an existing relationship with their participating members and can be used as a platform to solicit for stories and ideas.

The Center for Disease Control and other groups  that worked to increase the number of people that got vaccinated successfully undertook this same tactic and saw an increase in the number of people agreeing to be vaccinated. As an example, partnering with Black and African American churches in areas with low vaccination rates resulted in an increase in the number of people getting vaccinated.

Additionally, rather than hold a few virtual listening sessions that have set dates and times, the White House could partner and coordinate with hunger and food insecurity community-based organizations that have existing relationships with the people so that they hold multiple listening sessions.

These groups can create ways for additional feedback and ideas to be shared with the White House, and at the same time, the White House can use these community-trusted organizations to share additional updates on future White House efforts to end hunger. It’s a win -win.

Without a doubt, solving complex problems like hunger and food insecurity needs to be a united effort where everyone’s input, voice, and ideas are listened to and considered.

Achieving that necessitates that the White House considers other creative ways to solicit ideas and stories from those who have been impacted by hunger and food insecurity and to center the ideas they provide in the national plan outlining how America will end hunger. It is the right thing to do.

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices.

Lawrence Akena had never dreamt of owning a cow. BRAC believes ownership of assets like livestock can get people out of extreme poverty. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
Oyam & Gulu, Uganda , Jun 14 2022 (IPS)

Lawrence Akena was born 32 years ago with microcephaly. Because of his neurological condition, he didn’t go to school or benefit from skills training.

The exclusion meant Akena survived on handouts and was one of the young persons living in extreme poverty in Kamdini sub-county, Uganda.

“He would leave home early morning for Kamdini corner just to loiter in the township. At times he would spend nights there until I picked him (up and brought him) back,” says Akena’s mother, Lili Iram.

Akena’s condition, microcephaly, affects children born with a small head or a head that stops growing after birth. It can result in epilepsy, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, hearing loss and vision problems.

The 76-year-old mother says things have changed now. BRAC, the largest NGO in the Global South, selected him among persons with disabilities to benefit from Disability Inclusive Graduation (DIG) project.

BRAC Uganda, the National Union of Women with Disabilities of Uganda (NUWODU), and Humanity & Inclusion (HI, formerly Handicap International) have implemented DIG in selected districts in once war-torn Northern Uganda since 2018. UK Aid has funded DIG through the Inclusive Futures initiative, Cartier Philanthropy and Medicor Foundation, and Sight Savers.

DIG is designed to ensure that Graduation’s four key elements, including meeting people’s basic needs, providing training and assets for income generation, financial literacy and savings support, and social empowerment, are adapted to ensure inclusion for persons with disabilities.

BRAC supported Akena with primary livelihood assets like goats, cattle, pigs, and cash for petty trade. Humanity & Inclusion and NUWODU ensured that DIG’s services, including coaching, were effectively designed to support people with disabilities.

Ownership and control mean that people with disabilities, like Akena, can create a pathway out of extreme poverty and become socially included.

“DIG has helped us a lot. We did not own a cow. We didn’t have goats and chickens. Akena is (now) always at home looking after them,” Iran says when asked about how the program affected her son.

As Iran describes her son’s transformation, Akena enters the loading shed to set his goats free so they can graze alongside two brown zebu cows. According to Iram, he suffered a major setback when his pigs died of African Swine Fever last year.

But when IPS visited Iceme village, where he lives with his mother, Akena had bought another pig which now lives in the pigsty he constructed.

BRAC Project Assistant, Derick Baguma visits Lawrence Akena and his mother, Lili Iram, to assist with their farming ventures. Credit: BRAC

By owning the household assets like cows, goats, and chickens, Akena is graduating from the extremely poor,” says Derick Baguma, a Project Assistant with BRAC.

Baguma has provided household-based coaching to persons with disabilities in Iceme and other villages in Oyam’s Kamdini sub-county to record their assets.

Asked by IPS whether he had witnessed any changes, he said the difference was visible.

“This is not how this household was. And the way Akena appears now is not the same as he was. Do you see those shelters for goats and pigs? Lawrence Akena made over 80% of the contribution to ensure they are the way they are,” Baguma says. “And yet this is a person who was spending nights at verandas in Kamdini.”

Iram told IPS that she is working hard to ensure the assets multiply so that she can invest for her son’s future survival. She and her son are regular savers in their Village Saving Loan Association (VSLA), an informal, local financial institution that relies on its members’ savings to provide loans for emergencies and to support members’ enterprises.

“I had always wished to do something for my son, but I had no support. I plan to buy a piece (of land) and plant trees for his future from the savings in our village saving box,” she says.

Asked what lessons there were to learn from the DIG model, Baguma, who lives with Down syndrome, said there was a need for extra support for households with persons with disabilities.

“That when you are designing a project, you should include persons with disabilities. And it is possible. We shouldn’t look at the expenses. At times people say it is expensive. But we should look at the end results. How impactful is it going to be? If you don’t bring in that perspective of disability, then you are not reaching every person,” he said.

Uganda’s Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development 2020 study found that households with a person with a disability spent close to 39 percent more than other households.

“Future interventions to address poverty and wellbeing needs to ensure that the gap does not widen, leaving people with disabilities and their families behind. This may, therefore, necessitate the provision of additional resources to those households,” said the report.

Finding innovative solutions allows people living with a disability to support themselves and their families. Credit: BRAC

DIG has also provided rehabilitation, psychosocial support (PSS) needs and assistive devices for persons with disabilities, such as railings for entryways, modified latrines and artificial limbs.

One of such recipients is Denis Aboke, who lives in the village next to Akuna’s. Aboke, a cancer survivor, says that he now has an artificial limb 18 years after losing his leg to cancer.

He told IPS that without DIG’s intervention, he would still be using wooden crutches.

“Amputation from cancer had rendered me completely useless. I could not go into the garden. Now I can do some farming. I’m now able to support my family. The children are going to school,” he says.

Apart from the primary assets,  Aboke also received a diesel-powered grain milling machine as part of the DIG program, earning him extra income from fellow villagers. While Aboke sees a brighter future for himself, he hopes to see organisations continue to support people with disabilities.

“My brother, I can tell you that nobody cares about people with disabilities. Landmines disabled many people, but there was no support. Health centres here have nothing to offer,” shares Aboke.

Rwot Ma Miyo Village Savings Loan Association members meeting. BRAC ensures that meetings take place at residences of persons with disabilities, so they can be included. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

Aboke’s rehabilitation was performed at Gulu Regional Referral Hospital, over 65 kilometres from his village. The hospital’s orthopaedic workshop serves clients from Northern Uganda and South Sudan.

Principle Orthopaedic Technologist Senvume Kavuma Abbey told IPS that the workshop is overwhelmed by demand, yet orthopaedic care services are least funded in Uganda.

“The government last supplied us with materials ten years ago. So, if DIG had not come in, we wouldn’t be able to provide services to those who benefitted,” explains Senvume.

Program staff arranged community outreach visits linking orthopaedic services with people with different forms of disabilities.

“We were able to see where those people were coming from, and so we designed appliances customised to their environment and their nature of work, and what they desire to do,” said Senvume

While the DIG model is relatively new to Uganda, the program partners think it can be adopted elsewhere as a tool for improving livelihoods for people with disabilities.

Shammah Arinaitwe, a Technical Specialist with BRAC Uganda, told IPS that Graduation is good for reaching poor households. She explained that it considers the recipient’s needs and what they can do and uses their experience to forge the path out of poverty.

“I will give an example. If you cannot afford 60-70 cents of a dollar per day, the project gives you a boost,” explains Arinaitwe. The comparison of someone who has benefitted from DIG is that the assets gained through their participation in the project mean they end up being able to support themselves and grow.

“If I have one cow, eleven goats, and thirty chickens, you can’t compare me with someone who does not have any,” explains Arinaitwe. “I’m glad to tell you that the same model of the project is being started in Tanzania, drawing from the lessons from Uganda.”

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Souta Oshiro, Seoul, Korea. “This is a meme that I created. It is about donating foods that you overbought to food banks. I tried to make it funny and effective.” Credit: Souta Oshiro

By Sungjoon Ham, Souta Oshiro and Alex Yoon
Seoul, Tokyo, Boston, Jun 13 2022 (IPS)

Johnny, living in the United States (US), goes to his school and gets free breakfast and lunch there. There may not be enough food for dinner at home. But he knows that he can get fed at school. Sadly, however, after the pandemic, schools were closed, which meant no breakfast and no lunch for him.

Living in the United Kingdom (UK), Peter faces the same problem. He is lucky because he has a caring teacher who painstakingly walks five kilometers every day to deliver his meals. But not everyone is as lucky as Peter.

Farmers produce about 4 billion tons of food globally, but 1.3 billion tons (about one-third) are wasted and lost. Can you imagine how much that is? 100 kg of food loss and waste for every person on the planet!

Are you surprised?

Did you think that the issue of hunger concerns children in developing nations only during COVID-19?

Hunger now extends to countries like the UK, South Korea, Japan, and the US.

In other words, especially during the pandemic, hunger is not their problem but OUR problem.

Therefore, the urgency in solving this issue has become more apparent to those living in developed countries. We hope to inspire a movement of change through our efforts and inspire others to fight hunger by stopping food loss and waste.

We have to ask a fundamental question: Why does Johnny have nothing to eat while Sam in the neighborhood has too much food to eat?

Extending this question to an international level, why are children in Somalia starving while children in the US have obesity problems for overeating? What causes such inequality? And what can we do about it? We know that it sounds like a daunting challenge. How can kids like us, young and inexperienced, make a difference in world hunger?

A contingent of adults thinks we have neither the experience nor the expertise to bring changes to the “real world”.

No one said stopping hunger would be easy, especially during this pandemic. But it’s necessary, and it’s worth it.

From our research, the solution to world hunger, especially during COVID-19, can be two-fold. Firstly, the redirection of excess foods towards those in need, and secondly, the ‘untact’ method.

Let us start with the redirection of excess foods. There is a saying: “Someone’s trash is someone else’s treasure.” In other words, the food that Sam wastes can feed Johnny’s entire family.

Let’s take it to a global level. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the food currently lost or wasted in America could feed 300 million people, and in Europe, 200 million people.

If food could be redistributed to people or nations in hunger before it is wasted or lost, we would end the hunger pandemic.

Indeed, many countries are running soup kitchens and making donations of food. But after the COVID-19, many countries closed their borders, banned social gatherings, and even eating-in facilities.

Furthermore, a survey from the Borgen Project revealed that half of the people surveyed had concerns about exposing themselves to the virus in these eating spaces.

So not only less economically developed countries (LEDC) but also more economically developed countries (MEDC) are facing a hunger pandemic due to COVID-19.

According to Feeding America, an estimated 42 million people, or one in eight Americans, faced food insecurity in 2021.

How can we solve this hunger crisis during the COVID pandemic? We are suggesting our second solution: using the ‘untact’ method.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, a new term, ‘untact’ (a combination of the prefix’ un’ and the word ‘contact’), has been floating around our society to indicate contactless movement in our daily affairs.

Can we somehow use the ‘untact’ method to redirect and redistribute foods before they are wasted or lost?

We find the answer in technology – in apps. For example, COPIA is an app created in the US to redistribute surplus food to feed the hungry.

This is how it works: Any restaurants, hotels, hospitals, cafeterias, and other businesses with food can use COPIA’s app to schedule pickups of their surplus food. Then a COPIA donation delivery driver picks up their excess food and delivers it safely to a local nonprofit recipient.

But COPIA’s job doesn’t stop there.

They track surplus trends for those donors so that they can reduce their food waste and loss.

Businesses can also get significant tax savings by using COPIA: For every $1 a company invests in food waste reduction, they can expect a $14 return on investment.

So, it is a win-win situation for all.

And this kind of ‘untact’ technology via an app is observed in other parts of the world: Wakeai app in Japan, Damogo in South Korea, Makan Rescue App in Singapore, Karma app in the EU and the UK, JustNow app in Africa, Flashfood app in Canada, Bring Me Home app in Australia and the list goes on.

We see this ‘untact’ technology as a possible solution that can reduce food loss and waste worldwide. We hope people try these apps and join our efforts to fight the hunger pandemic.

Besides the apps, there are practical solutions that we exercise in our daily lives as middle school students. We will share them here, hoping our actions can inspire others to do the same.

Alex Yoon inside the Stop and Shop, Massachusetts, USA. “I found these unwanted ugly fruits in this cart and decided to buy them to show that I am trying to reduce food waste instead of throwing them away. I blended them and made juice out of them.”

“When I go to a grocery store, I go for the unwanted ugly fruits because most people want to buy perfect-looking fruits only, and those ugly fruits end up in a trash can later because nobody wants them. I bring those ugly fruits home and make juice out of them. I find that they taste the same! So, I am holding up a sign in front of a fruit corner saying, ‘Aesthetics should not matter in produce selection!’, hoping to inspire people to buy all fruits regardless of their appearance,” says Alex Yoon.

Alex’s public campaign in the grocery store encourages many to follow suit by making mindful choices when choosing what to buy.

Souta Oshiro, Seoul (Raemian APT, Due Cose Hannam Branch, Shinsegae Department Store). “I am teaching food waste and loss to my friend. Some tips include buying food that has a shorter shelf time, eating everything on my plate, and planning for dinner to reduce food waste.”

Looking at Souta Oshiro’s efforts, we can see how beneficial food loss education can be on a personalized level.

“I run a private campaign with my friends. I go to their homes and educate them about food loss and waste issues in the world. In addition, when I go to a grocery store, I opt for foods that will expire soon and be wasted rather than freshly new products. When I come home with these foods, I feel so good because I saved them from going to a trash can,” Souta says.

“This feeling of satisfaction in preventing food from being wasted does not end here. As a household, when we purchase too much food during our weekly shopping, we choose to donate the extras to a food bank. This encourages us to not only be mindful during our shopping but also beyond the exit doors of the grocery store. The waste is not in landfills but in someone’s mouth. This simple redirection of excess foods means my family is relieved that our surplus will not end up in the trash.”

Sungjoon Ham, Seocho Middle School, Seoul, Korea: “I am holding up a large sign to passionately champion the increase of awareness on the severity of the hunger issue.”

Sungjoon Ham has chosen to participate in a public campaign in front of his school grounds so that his peers and teachers can be swayed to make mindful choices in their own lives. He aims to make students, who are hungry at lunchtime, think twice before piling up excess foods. These foods are not likely to be eaten because the students are too full. Furthermore, he hopes this can allow all those more fortunate to take a step back and reflect on being a part of the solution rather than the problem.

“During my campaign efforts, I hoped to increase awareness through my actions and artistic choices, which was why I decided to make my poster large with bold lettering. However, I did not want my efforts to end there. I hope that my actions can spread throughout social media with the help of my friends. Through inspiration from the Ice Bucket Challenge, I plan to upload this picture with the tag #NoFoodLoss. This process will allow many more people to join my campaign that will hopefully not end in Korea but spread worldwide,” says Sungjoon.

After looking at our efforts to end food loss and waste, we hope to encourage others to take part and spread awareness.

We agree that everyone should stop wasting food. However, this cannot be solved simply through a proclamation.

Therefore, we focused on compiling extensive research and explored the depths of this issue, which we found to be enjoyable.

Sadly, many people are not aware of hunger and food waste.

In conclusion, we hope that through reading this article, the depths of food waste and loss are understood and will encourage our audience to develop forward-thinking solutions for the betterment of our future.

Sungjoon Ham, Souta Oshiro, and Alex Yoon are middle school learners living in the USA and Asia. They participated in a joint APDA, and IPS training on developing opinion content. Hanna Yoon led the course and edited the opinion content. 

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