“Five Questions for…” Interview Series [The Global Food Security blog]
The Global Food Security blog will be running a “Five Questions for…” series beginning with Anna Lappé, co-founder of the Small Planet Institute and author of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of your Fork and What You Can Do about It. The format will consist of a short profile of the interviewee and their work, followed by five questions. “Five Questions for…” will be an occasional interview series where we hope to create a more immediate dialogue with those directly involved with global food security.
Africa Has the Means to Feed Itself But Does it Have the Support – And the Will? [The Guardian]
… “Many African farmers still rely solely on traditional knowledge when making planting and harvesting decisions, yet more extreme and erratic weather patterns are sadly making this traditional knowledge unreliable. The predicted increase in floods, droughts, heat-waves and salinity exposure in soils also make it imperative to invest in new agronomic techniques and improved inputs designed to tolerate these types of environments. In Katine, for instance, farmers are already receiving early-maturing and drought-resistant seeds to fight food insecurity. Katine farmers are also receiving post-harvest help through traditional granaries so that their harvests are not lost.”
Afghanistan & Sub-Saharan Africa Have World’s Greatest Food Security Risk: New Report[TreeHugger]
New analysis shows Afghanistan as well as several sub-Saharan African nations as having the greatest food security risk in the world, classified as ‘extreme risk’ (red in the image above). Furthermore, 36 of the 50 most at-risk nations in the world are found in Africa.
A To-Do List for Shoring Up Haiti [Los Angeles Times]
The earthquake that leveled Haiti exposed fundamental weaknesses in its state institutions. Worldwide pledges of $10 billion create an unprecedented opportunity to fix them. Haiti’s own plans for recovery, presented to its international donors in March, contained a broad vision but no road map to prioritize and fix urgent needs.
Food Security Expected to Top Agenda at Hunger Conference in New York [Irish Times]
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton are to co-host an international hunger conference in New York next month to which up to 190 nations have been invited.
Food Prices ‘Worsen’ Niger Hunger Crisis [Sky News]
Aid agencies say rising food prices caused by market speculators are exacerbating the worst hunger crisis in Niger’s history.
Much of Indian ‘Middle Class’ Is Almost Poor [Wall Street Journal]
Compared to China, India has more of its middle class precariously perched just above the poor, a spot from where it is very easy to tumble back into poverty.
