Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture

Photo: A group of young farmers manage their own tomato business in El Salvador. Rapidly evolving agriculture and food systems have a huge potential for creating employment opportunities for rural youth. ©IFAD/Carla Francescutti.

The "Youth Bulge" Calls for Creating Jobs in Rural Areas

By Ronald Joshua

ROME (IDN) - "Rural areas are failing to provide opportunity and are losing their young people. This has major consequences at the local, national and global level. It can erode national economies, political stability, and food security," warned Gilbert F. Houngbo, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) at a recent conference hosted by the African Union Commission, the European Commission and the Estonian Presidency of the EU in Rome, Italy.

The conference on July 2, 2017 focused on Making Sustainable Agriculture a Future for Youth in Africa – against the backdrop that an estimated 440 million young people will enter the rural labour market by 2030 in Africa alone.

: Ronald Joshua; UN INSIDER; 12 August 2017

Photo: Every day too many men and women across the globe struggle to feed their children a nutritious meal. 795 million people – one in nine – still go to bed on an empty stomach each night. Credit: WFP Website.

A Long Way To Go Before Zero Hunger Appears Within Reach

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Hunger can be eliminated in our lifetimes: This was the underlying conviction when United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the Zero Hunger Challenge in 2012. The Zero Hunger vision reflects five elements from within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which taken together, can end hunger, eliminate all forms of malnutrition, and build inclusive and sustainable food systems.

Nearly two years after the international community adopted a set of 17 SDGs to be achieved by 2030, some "20 million people are on the brink of starvation", the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned. "We can only achieve Zero Hunger if we transform the rural economy, put smallholders at the centre and invest in sustainable agriculture and food systems," said Maria Helena Semedo, FAO Deputy Director-General, Climate and Natural Resources.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 30 July 2017

Photo: African ministers call for using and sharing agriculture data to boost food production and contribute to making Africa food secure. Credit: Justus Wanjala | IDN-INPS

Africa Embracing Open Data to Tackle Food Insecurity

By Justus Wanjala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Despite possessing huge potential for agricultural growth due to the availability of vast land and water resources, Africa’s food production sector is seriously under-performing.

Steps are now being taken in the direction of using and sharing agriculture data to boost food production and contribute to making the continent food secure.

Participants at the Ministerial Conference on Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition and 4^th Agritec Africa Exhibition, held in Nairobi from June 14-16, 2017, agreed that a new mechanism is needed to ensure rapid and sustained growth of food production and put Africa on the path of ending hunger and improving nutrition.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Africa; 05 July 2017

Leaders of the five largest Nordic countries announce support for sustainable development goals (SDGs). Credit: Nordic Cooperation

Nordic States Support Sustainable Development Goals

By Lowana Veal

REYKJAVIK (IDN) – Leaders of the five largest Nordic countries recently announced support of the Nordic countries as a whole for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed under UN auspices.

The initiative, called Nordic Solutions to Global Challenges, was initially flouted in 2015 when the Paris Agreement on climate change and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were adopted. As part of the Agenda, 17 SDGs were outlined.

Since the UN climate change in Paris in 2015 (COP 21), the programme has been further developed and was launched at a meeting of the Nordic Council of Ministers on May 30, attended by the Prime Ministers of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Europe & Central Asia; 18 June 2017

Photo: A researcher tests tomatoes at the IAEA’s Food and Environmental Laboratory in Seibersdorf, Austria. Credit: IAEA.

UN Agencies Explore Mobile Tools to Combat Food Fraud

NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are exploring nuclear applications to combat food fraud and contamination, which cause huge losses and pose a serious public health threat.

Traditional, professional laboratories can easily detect different types of fraud and contamination in food relatively quickly but such capacity is often limited in many countries and by their nature not very portable. The FAO-IAEA initiative is trying to fill this gap.

“The goal is to make available low-cost devices and methods for food authorities to use directly in the streets and markets, particularly in developing countries,” said Simon Kelly, a Food Safety Specialist at the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, who leads the project.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 11 June 2017

/Hermine Tomaino Ndam Njoya (right) is out to educate Cameroonians on the whole range of activities that can be developed along the coffee value chain. Credit: N.K. Chimtom

Blazing the Trail with Coffee Culture in Cameroon

By Ngala Killian Chimtom

YAOUNDE (ACP-IDN) – Hermine Tomaino Ndam Njoya is arguably Cameroon’s largest coffee farmer. Her farm spans some 150 hectares, and she depends on the labour of a whole village to keep the farm alive.

But what sets her apart is not just the size of her farm. What makes her different is that she is a woman excelling in a venture generally reserved for men.

Growing up in her native Noun commune in Cameroon’s West Region, she saw her parents tend their coffee farm with great care. “So I fell in love with coffee,” she says, smacking her lips after a sip of the aromatic drink.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Africa; 27 May 2017

Photo: A cow belonging to one of the villagers in Chikandakuvi area in Hwange lies dead on the ground in the bush with about half of its remains already devoured by stray lions after they pounced on the unfortunate animal. In another picture, a hide of a cow eaten by stray lions in Chikandakuvi is spread on the ground in the bush. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo | IDN-INPS

Lion Conservation at Odds with Zimbabwe’s Villagers

By Jeffrey Moyo

HWANGE, Zimbabwe (IDN) – “On the fateful night, I heard the lions roaring and coming closer to my cattle kraal and when I got up to find out what was happening, I saw Verikom being pulled to the ground by about five lions. I was afraid and just ran back into my bedroom hut,” says Mehluli Ncube.

“My wife begged me not to go outside again that night and the following morning we found Verikom’s carcass lying about 45 metres from our kraal, with half of the animal gone. We could only take what meat was left to eat at home.”

Verikom was the name of Ncube’s bull, and it had fallen victim to a pride of stray lions that had pounced on his kraal in Magoli, a village in Hwange in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland North Province.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Africa; 19 May 2017

Photo: Panellists speaking during the First All Africa Post-Harvest Congress held in Nairobi, Kenya from March 28 to 31, 2017. Photo taken on March 30 by Justus Wanzala.

Combating Aflatoxins to Curb Africa’s Post-Harvest Losses

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Forty percent of the food produced in Africa is lost, largely due to poor product handling, storage and processing practices, with aflatoxins often responsible for much of this loss in the post-harvest phase.

Aflatoxins are poisonous and cancer-causing chemical produced by certain moulds (Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus) which grow in soil, decaying vegetation, hay and grains.

At the 1st All Africa Post-Harvest Congress held in Nairobi from March 28 -31 to tackle the problem of post-harvest food losses in Africa, ‘aflatoxin management, food safety and nutrition’ was one of the issues on the agenda, with experts calling for improved post-harvest handling of food.

: Justus Wanzala; THE WORLD; Africa; 19 April 2017

Photo: Dr Richard Munang, Africa Climate Change and Development Policy expert with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom

‘Innovative Volunteerism’ Key to Africa’s Development Blueprint

By Ngala Killian Chimtom

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Africa’s present is defined by its vast but unexploited potential but the picture could be changed by leveraging catalytic sectors in which the continent holds comparative advantage, through dedicating available resources.

Dr Richard Munang, Africa Climate Change and Development Policy expert with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) believes that these resources – both physical (technological, institutional, financial and demographical, the dividend to be derived from having most of its population under the age of 25) and non-physical (including intellectual, partnerships, policies and networks) – could be utilised for a comparative advantage with a global competitive edge through what he calls “innovative volunteerism”.

: IDN-INPS Middle East & Africa Editor; OPINION; 22 March 2017

The Poor are Keen to Make Progress Despite Famine

By Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Once again the media is presenting us with the images of the mother of all famines – stretching from the Yemen to Somalia, to Sudan and South Sudan, to the Central African Republic, to northern Nigeria.

It’s a bad famine but there have been bad famines in the not so distant past – the great Ethiopian one in 1985, which triggered the rock star, Bob Geldorf, to organise a massive world-wide popular response. (I remember running with tens of thousands of other campaigners in London’s Hyde Park.) Before that, in 1974 at the World Food Conference, there was a real feeling that the world was running out of food and dramatic new policies must be put in place by the richer countries.