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Food Justice
RSS FeedGlobal: Biofuels and speculation driving up food prices
2011-10-12, Issue 552
A new report on global hunger pinpoints factors at the heart of spikes in food prices it says are exacerbating the unfolding food crisis in the Horn of Africa. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) points to climate change, growing demand for biofuels, and i...
Malawi: Farm subsidy programme shrinks
2011-10-13, Issue 552
More than 200,000 Malawian farmers who depend on government subsidies to grow enough food to feed their families will have to go it alone when the agricultural subsidy programme is pruned. During the 2010/11 farming season 1.6 million farmers receive...
Global: Food prices to be even more volatile, UN says
2011-10-10, Issue 551
Food prices are likely to become more volatile in coming years, increasing the risk that more poor people in import-dependent countries will go hungry, the United Nations said in an annual report on food insecurity published on Monday. Global food pr...
Africa: Small farmers in vanguard of agricultural development
2011-09-20, Issue 549
Agriculture, predominantly small scale, accounts for about 30% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP and at least 40% of export value. Having fallen out of favour in the development debate in the last decade, agriculture these days gets its own G20 summits and...
Africa: Challenges & opportunities for strengthening farmers organisations
Lessons from Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi
2011-09-21, Issue 549
Farmers’ organisations (FOs) are increasingly being asked to play a central role in driving agricultural transformation processes in Sub-Saharan Africa, despite their mixed record of success. As governments, donors and NGOs rush to promote the scalin...
Global: Climate conversations - micro-irrigation
A new way to beat hunger
2011-09-13, Issue 547
Fearing a repeat of hunger riots around the world in 2007-2008, international policymakers are putting agriculture high on the agenda. The G20 agriculture meeting in Paris in June issued an action plan aimed at increasing global agricultural producti...
Africa: How rising global food prices could affect Africa
2011-09-13, Issue 547
Africa Monitor reports (includes video) that higher global food prices are likely to spell trouble for aid organisations working to relieve famine in the Horn of Africa. Food prices are on the rise again, according to a new report issued last week by...
Africa: Famine in Africa
Can reforestation improve food security?
2011-09-14, Issue 547
Deforestation worsens famine in Africa, but drylands restoration could help. Millions of people across the Horn of Africa are suffering under a crippling regional drought and tens of thousands have died during the accompanying famine. The best hope i...
Africa: Helping Africa to feed itself
2011-09-15, Issue 547
Understandable concern exists over the state of hunger in Africa: almost one third of the population are estimated to be hungry, while more than a quarter of infants are underweight in the countries to the south of the Sahara. Moreover, parts of Afri...
Africa: Seed policies will boost food security in West Africa
2011-08-29, Issue 546
Institutions such as United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and pan-African rice research organisation AfricaRice are promoting the adoption of national seed policies that will support sustainable growth and development of the seed s...
Africa: IFAD president says Africa needs tools to feed its population
2011-08-30, Issue 546
Africa will conquer hunger when its governments give the citizens tools and resources they need to feed themselves, Kanayo F. Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), said on the eve of an international confere...
Mozambique: Food security outlook
2011-09-01, Issue 546
Although the 2010/11 agriculture season was affected by a number of shocks including localized floods during the first half of the season and midseason long dry spells, national staple food availability is estimated to have increased, as indicated by...
Kenya: The role of the U.S. in Kenya's embrace of GM crops
2011-09-05, Issue 546
Kenya has finally joined a growing number of countries in the world which have allowed the importation, growing and commercialisation of genetically modified organisms. The National Biosafety Authority (NBA) gazetted the final regulations that allow ...
Global: World Bank sounds alert on food prices
2011-08-17, Issue 545
The price of maize in the Horn of Africa has doubled over the last year, the World Bank has said. In Kenya, it has increased by 89 per cent, according to the bank’s Food Price Watch report. This is the fourth highest increase in the price of maize in...
Africa: Food security in East Africa gets research boost
2011-08-18, Issue 545
A consortium of East African institutes is researching new seed varieties better suited to dry areas to combat the effects of climate change in the region. The partnership, comprising seven universities and institutes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, a...
Africa: How would an investor export maize or rice from a famine-hit country?
2011-08-10, Issue 544
The drought and famine in East Africa is already throwing up some uncomfortable questions for the model of large scale agro-investment in a poor country for export, says this article on www.farmlandgrab.org 'How...
Kenya: Starving Kenyans stare at GMO dangers reality
2011-08-11, Issue 544
Forced to survive on wild fruits in the face of drought and food insecurity, hungry Kenyans could soon face the dilemma of eating genetically modified food. The verdict among the scientific community is that the poor are paying the price for runaway ...
Burkina Faso: Boost for smallholder farmers
2011-07-20, Issue 540
The government of Burkina Faso has responded to long-standing demands of farmers for greater support for small family producers with the launch of 'Operation 100,000 Ploughs'. Smallholder farmers say this will strengthen the country’s food security. ...
Global: Predicting food price volatility
2011-07-12, Issue 539
A new tool for measuring food price volatility in global agriculture markets could help poor countries or aid agencies like the World Food Programme (WFP) decide where and when to buy staples, says Maximo Torero, director of the US-based Internationa...
Burkina Faso: Cotton growers gain some victories and many promises
2011-07-12, Issue 539
Cotton production resumed quietly in the small town of Sara after farmers won a victory in their fight with SOFITEX, the leading company in Burkina Faso which buys and processes cotton, reports Farm Radio Weekly. The renewed interest in cotton contra...
Africa: Women and food sovereignty
2011-07-18, Issue 539
'Women and Food Sovereignty: The voices of rural women from the south' provides an overview of the situation of peasant women in the Global South. The document showcases the problems faced by these women, as well as their different forms of resistanc...
DRC: Urban farming takes root
2011-06-28, Issue 537
Urban farming in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is providing a livelihood for thousands of city dwellers, with vegetables bringing in good money for small growers and helping to alleviate high levels of malnutrition nationally, agricultural o...
Kenya: Re-discovering cassava during drought
2011-06-21, Issue 536
The current drought in Kenya and the Horn of Africa is expected to affect millions. Farm Radio Weekly has a story that tells how affected families in a semi-arid region of Kenya are changing their opinions about cassava. Once stigmatized as a crop fo...
Egypt: Ban proposed on export restrictions that undermine food security
2011-06-24, Issue 536
Egypt has initiated a proposal in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to ban export restrictions on farm products to poor countries that are net food importers. The Group of 20 has also exhorted the upcoming WTO ministerial conference to adopt a speci...
Global: Food summit meeting disappoints
2011-06-26, Issue 536
The agriculture ministers of major economies, rich as well as emerging, meeting for the first time as the world verges on another food crisis in only four years, have disappointed. Their decisions, summed up in a 24-page Action Plan on Food Price Vol...
Global: G20 ministers of agriculture must focus on smallholder farmers
2011-06-19, Issue 535
The first-ever official meeting of Ministers of Agriculture from G20 countries, to be held in Paris 22-23 June presents an extraordinary opportunity, says this IPS article. 'Tasked with developing an action plan to address price volatility in food an...
Africa: Industrial agriculture and GMOs are false solutions to the food crisis
2011-06-20, Issue 535
African farmers’ organisations, members of the International Movement of Peasants, La Via Campesina, and allied organisations denounce every attempt to adopt genetically modified organisms, GMOs, as being a false solution to the food crisis in Africa...
Ivory Coast: Rains arrive but farmers afraid to return to their land
2011-05-12, Issue 529
The rainy season is just beginning in Ivory Coast. But in many places, the rain will fall on unplanted ground. Although the post-election fighting is mostly over, many farmers, especially in western regions, have not yet returned to their land. The U...
North Africa: Maghreb addresses rising food prices
2011-05-06, Issue 527
Maghreb states need to find immediate solutions to the soaring food prices, said participants at a Tunis seminar, which ended Wednesday (4 May). The three-day event, organised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Arab Maghreb Uni...
Malawi: Subsidies not the only answer for Malawi's farmers
2011-04-19, Issue 526
The Malawian government's farm input subsidy programme was first implemented in 2005 after several years of drought and chronic food shortages left nearly a quarter of the population in need of food aid. President Bingu wa Mutharika hoped to avoid th...
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