CAADP and Fisheries Policy in Africa: are we aiming for the right reform?

Future Agricultures 2011/09/19

An estimated 200 million people in Africa rely on fish as their main source of protein, but ineffective policies and a lack of governance in the fisheries sector is endangering future access to this food source and is leading to the potential over-exploitation of some fish resources.

THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS REPORT

UN 2011/07/19

Progress towards the eight Millennium Development Goals is measured through 21 targets and 60 official indicators. This report presents an accounting to date of how far the world has come in meeting the goals using data available as of June 2011.

Reforming Forest Tenure – A Guide

FAO 2011/07/15

Reforming forest tenure systems and securing forest ownership rights can significantly improve peoples’ livelihoods and enable them to gain income from forest products, said FAO in a newly published guide, Reforming Forest Tenure.

Deal for School Gardens

FAO 2011/07/12

Governments and international development partners are increasingly interested in school gardens. These have traditionally been used for science education, agricultural training or generating school income. Today, given the urgent need for increased food security, environmental protection, more secure livelihoods and better nutrition, perceptions of the potential of school gardens are changing with the belief that school gardens can become a foundation for a nation’s health and security.

Fish Farming Answer To Rising Meat Demands

Conservatory International 2011/06/15

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that over 84% of the world's fisheries are either depleted, over- or fully exploited, which means that wild fish in oceans are too weak to meet the growing needs of an expanding, increasingly affluent global population.

Price Volatility And Food Price Responses

UNCTAD 2011/06/14

No attempt is made here to define extreme or excessive price volatility. Suffice it to say that volatility becomes an issue for concern and for possible policy response when it induces risk-averse behavior that leads to inefficient investment decisions and when it creates problems that are beyond the capacity of producers, consumers or nations to cope. What constitutes excessive volatility depends very much on the situation of the individual or nation. Poor consumers in less developed countries without access to adequate social support are most immediately affected by price surges. Small resource limited farmers face particularly severe problems when prices fall.

Growing A Better Future

Oxfam 2011/06/02

Niger is the epicenter of hunger. Here, it is chronic. Corrosive. Structural. Systemic. Over 65 per cent of people survive on less than $1.25 a day. 1 Nearly one in two children is malnourished. 2 One in six dies before they reach the age of five.

Fighting Starvation In The Age Of Plenty

Christian Aid 2011/06/01

Hunger. It is a scourge that has many causes. Some are natural: cyclones and tsunamis; volcanic eruptions and earthquakes; too much rain in some places, too little in others and sometimes a combination of both within one country in a matter of months. Then there are the pressures on food supplies from myriad causes for which we alone are entirely responsible.

Food as the Basis for Development and Security

Clemens Breisinger, Olivier Ecker, Jose Funes and Bingxin Yu

IFPRI 2011/02/12

Yemen has been facing severe development challenges in recent years, but rapidly depleting oil and water resources combined with large population increases and a lack of job-creating growth are making a difficult situation even more complicated. In order to provide opportunities for Yemenis to escape the current situation of widespread poverty and food insecurity, the Government of the Republic of Yemen, under the leadership of the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, has developed a strategy to help all Yemeni people gain access to sufficient and nutritious foods in order to live active, productive, and healthy lives.

Reproduced with permission from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Keywords: food security schemes, Yemen, development, poverty, challenges

Guide for Policy and Programmatic Actions at Country Level to Address High Food Prices

FAO’s Initiative on Soaring Food Prices

Food and Agricultural Organization 2011/02/12

In May 2008, as the world faced an acute food crisis brought on by rising food prices, FAO developed a “Guide for immediate country level actions” through its Initiative on Soaring Food Prices (ISFP). In August 2008, food prices reached their highest level in years. Despite the severity of the crisis, it was hoped that prices would eventually drop to less extreme levels.

Keywords: food security schemes, crisis, price

Thematic Paper on MDG 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY AND HUNGER

United Nations Development Programme 2011/01/03

Between 1990 and 2005, the share of the population in the developing world living below US$1.25 a day fell from 42 per cent to 25 per cent, reducing the number of poor by 445 million (from 1.82 billion to 1.37 billion). Global poverty reduction has been led by China, which cut its poverty rate from 60 per cent to 16 per cent between 1990 and 2005. In the rest of the developing world, the headcount ratio fell from 36 per cent to 28 per cent.

Keywords: food security schemes, MDG, China, Africa, Asia, India, world, poverty, population

The Role of Emerging Countries in Global Food Security

Shenggen Fan and Joanna Brzeska

IFPRI 2010/12

Global food insecurity remains a serious problem. In 2010, more than 900 million people are still hungry, and progress toward reaching the first Millennium Development Goal of halving the world’s proportion of malnourished people is off track by a wide margin. But the global environment within which food insecurity persists is changing in important ways.

Reproduced with permission from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Keywords: food security schemes, Brazil, global, environment, MDG, hunger

STATE OF THE WORLD: Innovations that Nourish the Planet

THE WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE

Food and Agricultural Organization 2011/01/03

Along the shoreline of the Gambia River, a group of women has achieved rare success in reducing hunger in their communities. It revolves around a certain briny mollusk. To boost their incomes and safeguard a source of nourishment, the 15 communities in the Women’s Oyster Harvesting Association—a total of nearly 6,000 people — agreed to close one tributary in their oyster territories for an entire year and to lengthen the “closed” season in other areas.

Keywords: food security schemes, river, mollusk, innovation, planet, people, communities, territories

Making the Food Aid Convention meet the realities of the 21st century

Food and Agricultural Organization 2010/10

Emergency situations have become increasingly frequent over the past 25 years, often coupled with acute and chronic food insecurity in the affected countries. International responses to these crises have generally focused on addressing immediate humanitarian needs, as evidenced by the growing share of food aid that is channelled to emergencies. However, achieving lasting food security would often require an integrated development approach that combines short-term relief measures with longer-term mitigation strategies. A reformed Food Aid Convention could provide the institutional framework for more effective interventions.

Keywords: food security schemes, framework, reform, development, mitigation, strategy, aid, convention, humanitarian

GROWING FOOD for nine billion

Food and Agricultural Organization 2010

FOOD PRODUCTION WILL HAVE TO INCREASE BY 70 PERCENT TO FEED A POPULATION OF NINE BILLION PEOPLE BY 2050. THAT MEANS A STAGGERING ADDITIONAL ONE BILLION TONNES OF CEREALS AND 200 MILLION TONNES OF MEAT WILL NEED TO BE PRODUCED ANNUALLY BY 2050. IN ORDER TO INTENSIFY PRODUCTION BY THAT MUCH ON OUR FINITE EARTH, IMMENSE EFFORT WILL HAVE TO GO INTO NEW, BETTER AND MORE INTENSIVE WAYS OF PRODUCING OUR FOOD. WE WILL HAVE TO REFLECT ON THE WISE WAY FORWARD AND SUPPORT WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE.

Keywords: food security schemes, earth, support, production, cereals, million, grain, produce, hunger