Author: Steve Hansch

AI for Food Security: New Insights

September 15, 2026    The use of artificial intelligence to improve food security is the focus of an increasing number of problem solvers.  On September 15, the International Food Policy Research Institute presented a series of speakers who gave examples of applications of AI, and emerging trends in their potential in a webinar, “AI Policy Considerations for Food, Land, and Water Systems.”

IFPRI argues that AI has significant potential to transform policy research in food, land, and water systems by enhancing accessibility, efficiency, and responsiveness in policy analysis, only if tools are rigorously tested, made transparent, and appropriately integrated into research and decision-making processes.  AI-enabled economic models can make complex policy analysis more accessible by allowing users to simulate shocks or investments conversationally and rapidly interpret effects on poverty, diets, production, and other outcomes, but their outputs still require expert scrutiny.  Speakers shared how:

  • AI offers important opportunities to improve food security, from modeling the consequences of price shocks and agricultural investments to supporting crop breeding, advisory services, and policy decisions.

  • Accessible AI interfaces can lower the technical barriers to using complex economy-wide models, enabling a wider range of users to explore policy scenarios and identify trade-offs among growth, poverty reduction, nutrition, and environmental goals.  These tools should not be treated as automatic policy engines: users need access to underlying assumptions, data, simulation files, uncertainty, and reproducible workflows, while human analysts remain responsible for validating conclusions.

  • Agricultural AI often fails when models trained on curated or internet-sourced data are deployed in real farming conditions involving low-cost devices, variable lighting, differing crop varieties, changing seasons, and diverse ecological zones.

  • Effective systems should therefore be co-designed and trained with farmers, local organizations, agronomists, and governments, using contextual data and delivering information in local languages and accessible formats such as voice.  Accurate advice alone is insufficient, because farmers can act on recommendations only when they can obtain affordable inputs, credit or vouchers, market access, follow-up support, and trusted channels for discussion and learning.

  • AI’s greatest value may be as part of an integrated delivery system—for example, combining fertilizer recommendations with government action to expand product availability and programs that enable farmers to afford the recommended inputs.

  • Governments and development partners have a crucial role in setting responsible-AI rules, interoperability and data-sharing arrangements, evaluation standards, connectivity and maintenance systems, and targeted support for groups the market is least likely to serve.  Ultimately, combating hunger with AI requires judging success by real changes in farmer decisions, livelihoods, equity, and food security.

See also:  https://www.ifpri.org/topic/artificial-intelligence-ai/

AI and EARLY WARNING

Separately, a new article in Nature Food journal, by Weston Anderson et al., “Responsible Use of Aritificial Intelligence and Machine Lerning for Food Security Early Warning Systems

Food-security early-warning systems such as FEWS NET and the IPC already guide billions of dollars in aid that can avert or shorten famines. The article argues that AI and machine learning can strengthen those systems and therefore reduce hunger, when they are used to speed up data collation, remote-sensing monitoring of crops and hazards, and short-term weather or yield forecasts. Faster, more complete information on prices, conflict events, and production shortfalls lets analysts issue earlier, more precise alerts so that limited humanitarian resources reach the populations most at risk before a crisis becomes a famine.

The same article, however, warns that replacing expert judgment with unvetted AI models would undermine rather than advance famine prevention. Direct machine-learning predictions of food-insecurity phases still show only modest skill, struggle with data-scarce or rapidly changing settings, and lack the accountability mechanisms (such as famine-review committees) that currently prevent erroneous public declarations. Mis-targeted or delayed aid that results from such errors could leave people without food at critical moments or waste scarce funds, thereby increasing rather than reducing the risk of famine.

The practical implication is therefore selective, analyst-in-the-loop adoption: use AI to free experts from repetitive digitization and search tasks so they can concentrate on reconciling conflicting evidence and issuing accountable forecasts. Combined with continued investment in the underlying data infrastructure, this approach offers the best chance of making early-warning systems more timely and cost-effective without sacrificing the human oversight that remains essential for life-saving decisions.

See:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-026-01400-6

FUNDING

Also this week, the Gates Foundation committed $1 billion to expanding access to AI.  Their announcement notes:  “Doctors, farmers, teachers, and developers need opportunities to learn how to evaluate AI tools and adapt what works to their own contexts. They also need affordable access to the technology, which will require action from technology companies as well as investment from governments and philanthropy.”

See:  https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2026/09/goalkeepers-report-equitable-ai

-contributed by WHES board member, Steven Hansch

Ukraine, War and Food Exports

September 13, 2026    Another global food crisis is emerging from Ukraine due to expanded conflict with Russia, reducing food exports.

When Russia invaded the Ukraine (a sovereign state) in February of 2022, this blocked Ukraine’s large foodgrains exports and caused a global food crisis.  A compromise U.N.’s multi-country initiative, the Istanbul Joint Coordination Center (based in Turkey), responded and helped move approximately 32.9 million tons of grain and foodstuffs. WFP transported more than 725,000 tons of Ukrainian wheat to Afghanistan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.  That ended in July 2023 and Ukraine subsequently established its own maritime corridor.  As of January 2026, Ukraine had shipped an additional 100 million tons of grain overseas.

However, that recovery is ending as attacks and a de facto blockade in mid-2026 have again sharply reduced shipments, while the operational mechanism is gone and the underlying risk has returned.  During August 2026, Ukrainian grain exports were reportedly about 75% below the 2025 levels as Russian attacks constrained Black Sea shipping. Odesa, Ukraine, was still being attacked on September 13.  More than 90 percent of exports normally depend on the Odesa hub.

At this same time, inside Ukraine, a useful food-security/logistics intervention is reaching its application deadline today. FAO, WFP, Mercy Corps and the Ukrainian Red Cross are distributing free grain-storage sleeves to eligible grain and oilseed producers in nine frontline and conflict-affected oblasts, with support from Canada, the EU, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the U.S. Department of State.  The need is substantial: Ukraine’s effective storage capacity is estimated at about 59 million tons, and FAO warns that the country could face an 11-million-ton storage deficit by November as wartime damage and disrupted Black Sea exports cause inventories to accumulate.

These sleeves are lare airtight polyethylene tubes laid horizontally on prepared ground; each sleeve holds about 200 tons of wheat, maize, barley, sunflower seed or another commodity.  Properly sealed, the sleeves protect grain from rain and substantially reduce insect and moisture damage.  These are needed now, as the flow out of Ukraine has slowed.

The U.N. separately reports an historic pattern of threats to ships and their crew in, noting “Ukraine’s grain ports are receiving only one or two vessels a day during harvest season, compared with the normal 20 to 30″.  This posting quotes the head of the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization about how attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, the waters off Somalia, and the Black Sea is unlike anything the sector has previously encountered. “Commercial shipping has become a deliberate instrument of geopolitical leverage between States.”

Photo credit:  © FAO/Genya Savilov

-Contributed by Steven Hansch of the World Hunger Education Service.

Hunger & U.S. Congress: An Update by Bread for the World

September 12, 2026     Public updates about U.S. elections, Congressional oversight and legislation related to hunger was convened on Thursday Sept 10  by Bread for the World (a Christian, Washington-DC based, nonprofit institute).  The timing was especially important because Congress was nearing the September 30 fiscal-year deadline. Participants said the House and Senate had agreed to a continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the federal government funded at current levels until December 11, 2026, reducing the immediate risk of a shutdown. Yet the CR effectively postponed final decisions on fiscal-year 2027 spending, leaving anti-hunger advocates with a short window before a likely year-end negotiation.

The briefing framed American hunger policy as a domestic and international agenda rather than a choice between competing priorities. Speakers argued that SNAP and WIC support U.S. families’ ability to obtain nutritious food, while Food for Peace, McGovern-Dole school feeding, PEPFAR, Gavi, nutrition programs, and humanitarian assistance form part of the same broader effort to prevent hunger, malnutrition, disease, and instability abroad. The organization’s faith-based advocacy model was presented as a way to connect direct service to longer-term policy reform.

The presentation’s central message was that advocacy had preserved important openings, such as for SNAP, WIC, Food for Peace, McGovern-Dole, global health, and African trade.  But that many of those gains remain provisional, subject to unresolved appropriations, Farm Bill negotiations, agency implementation decisions, and electoral change

Farm Bill and SNAP dispute

Bob Powers summarized developments in the current U.S. Farm Bill which did not get out of the Senate Committee.   The unresolved Farm Bill was the presentation’s most prominent domestic concern. The House had passed its version earlier in the year, while the Senate Agriculture Committee had failed to advance its own bill before the August recess. The key conflict concerned a new SNAP cost-sharing framework under which states would, for the first time, assume part of the cost of SNAP benefits, based on payment-error rates, as well as 75 percent of SNAP administrative costs. Bread for the World described the policy as a potentially major fiscal burden on states and stressed that payment errors are not synonymous with fraud.  Senate Democrats were said to be insisting on a two-year delay in the benefit cost-sharing provision; Senate Republicans had proposed a one-year delay.

On the table is a one or two year delay before implementing the cost-share provisions for SNAP, the federal program which now would transfer $17 billion in expenses to state governments.

The briefing included one guardedly positive Farm Bill development: both House and Senate texts would reauthorize the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, or GusNIP. Although neither version reportedly adds funding, continued authorization would preserve a program intended to make fruits and vegetables more affordable for eligible households.

WIC and lost hunger data

WIC emerged as another urgent but unsettled issue. According to the presentation, the House fiscal-year 2027 appropriations bill would cut WIC by $200 million and reduce the program’s fruit and vegetable benefit. Bread for the World argued that this would reverse demonstrable nutrition gains for pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and young children. The Senate had not yet acted, however, leaving open the possibility that final negotiations could retain current funding and protect the benefit.

A second WIC concern is the pending expiration of virtual certification flexibility. This allows participants to recertify remotely rather than arranging transportation, child care, and time away from work for an in-person appointment. Presenters said congressional leadership had signaled interest in making the flexibility permanent, potentially through a year-end appropriations package and the proposed Modern WIC Act, but no final action had occurred.

The speakers also called attention to the cancellation of USDA’s annual household food-security report, which has been written about here in Hunger Notes. They described this as the first interruption in three decades of consistent national food-insecurity estimates, occurring as hunger was said to be at a 10-year high and food banks reported elevated demand.

International programs and implementation

Internationally, the presentation identified meaningful congressional support but emphasized an unsettled implementation environment. The House Farm Bill would reauthorize Food for Peace through 2031, retain U.S.-commodity sourcing requirements, support ready-to-use therapeutic foods for severe child malnutrition, preserve development programming, and move Food for Peace authorities to USDA. The bill would also reauthorize McGovern-Dole through 2031; the latter program reportedly reaches about 2.5 million food-insecure children in 34 countries.

On funding, presenters called the House’s proposed $900 million for Food for Peace and $240 million for McGovern-Dole a significant achievement because the administration had reportedly sought to eliminate both. The House’s State Department and related-programs measure was also described as providing about $8.88 billion for global health, including $5.5 billion for HIV/AIDS programming, $300 million for Gavi, and $165 million for nutrition interventions. These amounts are not final: the Senate bills had not been released, and final appropriations remain to be negotiated

The most consequential uncertainty concerned Food for Peace execution. USDA had issued a May funding opportunity covering seven countries—Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, and Rwanda—and a July 14 agreement with Catholic Relief Services provided $235 million for emergency assistance in Sudan and Ethiopia. But presenters said it was still unclear whether the funding originated in fiscal year 2025 or 2026. They also noted that USDA was operating with temporary staffing and initially in only seven countries, compared with Food for Peace’s historical reach of roughly 45 million people in 35 countries.

That uncertainty matters because appropriated Food for Peace funds generally must be obligated within a two-year period. The presentation therefore raised a serious oversight question: whether funding will be awarded and obligated rapidly enough to avoid delays or possible lapses in assistance. Congressional report language and continuing engagement with USDA and the Office of Management and Budget were presented as mechanisms for pressing the administration to disclose spending plans and move funds more quickly.

Finally, Bread for the World views the American 2026 midterms as an institutional turning point. Presenters noted unusually high congressional turnover, with more than 80 House and Senate members—about 16 percent of Congress—reported to be retiring, losing primaries, dying, or running for other offices. They observed that the next Congress could include more than 100 new senators and representatives, requiring advocates to educate many officials unfamiliar with SNAP, WIC, Food for Peace, McGovern-Dole, PEPFAR, or Gavi.

The organization’s conclusion was deliberately nonpartisan: the immediate task is not to endorse candidates but to ensure hunger becomes an issue candidates must address.

see:  https://www.bread.org/

and Bread’s fact sheet

Separately, as reported by the Congressional Research Service, the Trump Administration’s budget request sought elimination of major programs including Food for Peace Title II international food aid grants at $1.2 billion, Hatch Act university agricultural research funding at $265 million, and the Rural Business-Cooperative Service at $81 million.  It also proposed deep cuts to conservation and rural development.

– reported by Steven Hansch of the World Hunger Education Service

 

Micronutrient Supplements from Kirk Humanitarian

September 10, 2026     One of the least known players in fighting global hunger is a quiet foundation based in Salt Lake City, Kirk Humanitarian, which buys micronutrient supplements from commercial manufacturers and donates them to UNICEF and to NGOs including Vitamin Angels, Direct Relief, Sight and Life, World Vision, and Americares, which in turn distribute them to mothers in lower-income countries.

Kirk Humanitarian, a private family foundation, acts as the leading advocate and donor for the UNIMMAP MMS formulation, shown at right, which it describes as a global gold standard for prenatal nutrition. It is a bottle for an entire course of pregnancy of 15 vitamin and mineral prenatal supplement formula, originally established by the WHO, UNICEF, and United Nations University in 1999.

Multiple Micronutrient Supplements (MMS) address widespread “hidden hunger.”  Sub-clinical (no outward signs) micronutrient deficiencies affect an estimated 2 in 3 women of reproductive age and 1 in 2 preschool children globally.  Sub-clinical deficiencies affect far more people than those with obvious signs, but impair essential metabolic, immune, and developmental functions during pregnancy.  The UNIMMAP MMS formula addresses these underlying gaps cheaply and effectively through key doses of 15 “essential” vitamins and minerals that every human requires.  Because fetal development relies on a full spectrum of micronutrients (including zinc, iodine, copper, selenium, and vitamins D and E), MMS has reduced the risks of low birthweight, preterm birth (<37 weeks), and small-for-gestational-age (SGA) births.  The vitamin C included is protected from degradation.  Vitamin C is notoriously difficult to fortify with as it does not survive well in sunlight or air.  The provided folic acid is beneficial, but the timing of the MMS provision is too late to prevent Spina Bifida.
…
Origins and Model:   Kirk Humanitarian was established in 2002 by Spencer F. Kirk and his wife, Kristen Kirk, as a family-funded private operating foundation.  Spencer Kirk is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who previously co-founded Megahertz Corporation in 1985 and served as CEO of Extra Space Storage, Inc. from 2009 to 2016.
…..

The Kirks identified maternal malnutrition and hunger as a critical, under-addressed gap in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).  They use family capital to make advance-purchase commitments with pharmaceutical manufacturers.  Over the past two decades, this model has scaled from small donation efforts to supplying millions of pregnant women across dozens of countries to replace traditional iron-folic acid (IFA) supplements.

The foundation tries to work with NGOs that collaborate with national ministries of health to transition from traditional iron supplements to UNIMMAP MMS.  It increasingly works through multilateral mechanisms like UNICEF’s Child Nutrition Fund (CNF).  Their MMS have been distributed in over 111 countries and it now targets 12 million more women.

Impact:  Over its tenure, the foundation has assisted 80 million pregnant women with 14 billion tablets.  This translates to Kirk Humanitarian having averted approximately 12-20 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) since 2002.

Of equal importance going forward, the foundation has driven the cost of MMS down on a global level, through their large-scale advance purchase arrangements.   It claims “a little over $0.01 per dose,” a cost-reduction roughly fourfold since their founding.

Collaborations and Programs:  In November 2025 Kirk committed an additional US$50 million in prenatal vitamins and minerals, accessible to more than 60 countries through the UNICEF-led Child Nutrition Fund, aimed at 23 million pregnant women, bringing the total to $92 million committed to UNICEF and the Child Nutrition Fund since 2024, providing product to 43 million women.

Kirk Humanitarian partners with groups like UNICEF and the Gates Foundation to improve manufacturing quality and standardize product labeling through a new USP verification program.  In 2024, the Eleanor Crook Foundation, Gates Foundation, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and Kirk Humanitarian jointly released an investment case/roadmap to scale MMS.  It works with the Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Consortium (Kirk is a founding member, plus a member of the MMS Technical Advocacy Group and Stronger Foundations for Nutrition).

Countries targeted: 

      • Asia:  Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and Sri Lanka;
      • Sub-Saharan Africa:  Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, and Tanzania;
      • Latin America:  Venezuela.

Note:  Kirk Humanitarian declined World Hunger Education Service’s request for an interview for this Hunger Notes article.

– by Steven Hansch, contributing member of the WHES board

Disasters and Malnutrition: a Global Study

September 8, 2026   A global study published this week finds that natural disasters in lower-income countries increase child malnutrition.  Publishing in Pediatric Research, the authors, Adriano La Vecchia, Eleonora Borrione, Benedetta Esposito, Mattia Baglioni, Carlo Agostoni, Cristiana Berti & Anna Comotti combine 26 studies to provide evidence that extreme weather worsens pediatric nutrition.

The article, “Floods and droughts and pediatric malnutrition in low-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis”. Pediatric Research, (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-026-05411-8) also calls for more standardized exposure definitions and nutritional surveillance.

It concludes:  “This meta-analysis provides the first pooled prevalence estimates of wasting, stunting, and underweight after droughts and floods:  19%, 39%, and 42%, respectively.”

Wasting was significantly higher in droughts than in floods.  .

The authors note that there had previously been no review to comprehensively examine extreme weather events, including droughts, floods, tropical typhoons, or wildfires, nor addressed their impact across the full pediatric age range (0–17 years).

“Considerable heterogeneity across studies underscores variability in exposure definitions, population contexts, and timing of outcome assessments.”

“Taken together, current evidence suggests that floods are more likely
to precipitate short-term nutritional crises, whereas droughts may
exacerbate chronic food insecurity, particularly in already vulnerable
regions.  The higher prevalence of wasting observed among drought affected
children suggests a distinct geographical and climatic pattern in the malnutrition–disaster relationship.”

“Across 26 studies including more than 320,000 children, the pooled prevalence of undernutrition following droughts and floods was substantial: 19% for wasting, 39% for stunting, and 42% for underweight. Wasting prevalence was significantly higher after droughts than after floods.”

Download the report at:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-026-05411-8

–  Contributed by WHES board member, Steven Hansch

Remembering Shlomo Reutlinger, Global Hunger Expert

Sept 6, 2026     “Build roads” to combat hunger was (Fritz) Shlomo Reutlinger’s simple, final advice, when he was speaking to a roomful of food experts in Virginia as he retired from a long career at the World Bank to move to Israel, where he then lived until his passing in 2019 at the age of 93.

He was born in Pforzheim, Germany, in 1925. His father, Louis Reutlinger, a veteran of World War I, sold construction materials.  Shortly before young Shlomo was to celebrate his bar mitzvah, the Kristallnacht pogrom broke out.  His teacher warned Shlomo to avoid school in time for him to escape, though many of his family’s friends were sent to concentration camps (Buchenwald, Dachau).

Fleeing Nazi killers, Shlomo escaped Germany as a child, fleeing to Belgium in 1939.  His younger brother Erich  (shown together in the photo at right)  went with him to Belgium, where they were separated.  Erich died in the Holocaust.

After reaching America, Shlomo Reutlinger eventually reunited in 1956 with his sister and parents, who had been interned in France before immigrating to the United States.

He went on to earn a degree in economics, studying at Cornell University and North Carolina State University.  He then worked at the World Bank in Washington, DC.

Dr. Reutlinger anchored food security analyses at the World Bank for decades. The World Bank is a very large organization, but for many years, Reutlinger and Alen Berg were the two individuals who pushed the World Bank to pay attention to nutrition and health outcomes among the poor.

Colleague Dale Miller Hill remembers:  ” I … was inspired by his emphasis on Hunger not being just a function of food supply, but also income, including from food production, and nutrition.”

He was known for his ability to analyze complex economic data and translate it into actionable policies that benefited developing nations.  During periods of economic instability, he was instrumental in crafting recovery plans that balanced short-term relief with long-term sustainable growth. His expertise was particularly valuable in regions facing severe economic downturns, where his insights helped shape policies that provided both immediate support and a path to economic resilience.

Throughout his influence in the World Bank, he was kind to his friends.  Hailu Mekonnen reflects:  “Shlomo was not only a food security guru but also a wonderful human being…a human being who “walked the talk” in the true sense of the concept…involving its ethical meaning.”

His early influential work, the 1976 World Bank staff occasional paper Malnutrition and Poverty:  Magnitude and Policy Options (co-authored with Marcelo Selowsky), provided new methodologies for estimating malnutrition across income groups and offered practical policy options centered on reaching the poor.  They estimated the hunger problem as universal, with 56 percent of the developing world’s population (roughly 840 million people) with diets deficient by more than 250 calories a day.  They defined the “target group” narrowly as the calorie-deficient poor identified through income-distribution analysis.  They recommended, on cost-effectiveness grounds, that narrowly targeted instruments (food stamps, self-targeting commodities, income transfers) were superior to universal urban consumer-price subsidies, which cost roughly $5 to deliver just $1 of additional food to the truly needy.

Reutlinger and Selowsky concluded that malnutrition was unlikely to disappear through normal income growth and food-production expansion alone. Under unequal income distribution, the absolute number of undernourished people could continue to rise with population growth—even if average income and food availability improved.

His subsequent classic World Bank report, Poverty and Hunger, co-authored with Jack van Holst Pellekaan (with assistance from Craig Lissner, Claudia Pendred, and Colleen Roberts) was a breakthrough at many levels, and the first mapping of where hunger occurred most densely in the world. It offered a clear useful distinction between two types of food insecurity, that has endured:

  1. Chronic food insecurity: Persistent inability to acquire enough food for an active, healthy life due to low incomes. In 1980, an estimated 340–730 million people (roughly one-sixth to one-third of the population in 87 developing countries, excluding China) had energy-deficient diets, depending on whether the threshold was set at 80% or 90% of FAO/WHO requirements.  Absolute numbers of the hungry were shown to be increasing even as proportions slowly declined.
  2. Transitory food insecurity:  Temporary shortfalls caused by fluctuations in production, prices, incomes, or import capacity (e.g., droughts, export-earnings volatility, or price spikes). Famines, the report stresses (drawing implicitly on Amartya Sen’s entitlement framework), often occur even when food is physically available locally—because the poor lose purchasing power or employment.

 Internationally, the report calls for accelerated growth-oriented adjustment lending, poverty-focused programs, better coordination of food and financial aid, multiyear food-aid commitments, and support for risk management (e.g., IMF compensatory facilities).

Food aid is portrayed by Reutlinger as most useful when integrated with development rather than used purely for relief.  It framed how World Bank lending can best reduce hunger.  Key instruments include:

  •   ¤  Raising incomes of the poor through employment generation and human-capital investments.
  •   ¤  Targeted transfers (food rations, public works, or cash) that minimize leakage to the non-poor.
  •   ¤  Selective consumer price subsidies (especially on processed staples consumed by the poor) rather than blanket general subsidies that strain budgets and benefit richer groups disproportionately.
  •   ¤  Trade policies that lower prices for net food buyers (urban poor, landless rural households) while compensating producers where needed.

Writing with food anthropologist Judit Katona-Apte (WFP, OCHA), in “The Nutritional Impact of Food Aid: Criteria for the Selection of Cost-Effective Foods”, they coined the term “alpha-value” to reference the nutritional benefit(s) of food aid, providing the framework for studies that showed where food aid was cost efficient, and where it was not efficient, compared to other interventions.  Reutlinger and Katona-Apte observe about how the poor make consumption choices  “On average, the food expenditure elasticity is 0.85, and the energy intake elasticity is about 0.50. The discrepancy between the food expenditure elasticity and the energy intake elasticity is the elasticity of the cost per unit of energy.  As income rises, people purchase more expensive foods per unit of energy.”

The report was refreshingly candid about administrative realities, leakage problems, and the political economy of subsidies. It incorporates household-level income variability data (e.g., from India and Nigeria) and recognizes that aggregate national food balances often mask severe intra-country and intra-household insecurity.

The poor’s status as net food buyers, net sellers, or subsistence producers should determine whether lower prices, higher farm prices, imports, agricultural production support, or transfers will improve food security.

Across his roughly two-decade World Bank career, Reutlinger’s thinking moved from a stark, quantitatively dramatic diagnosis of malnutrition toward an increasingly integrated, market-and-context-sensitive prescription for intervention.

Early on, he addressed malnutrition primarily as a magnitude-of-deficit calculation to be closed by targeted subsidies or trade stabilization alone.  He addressed specific groups such as landless laborers, small farmers, pastoralists, and especially children under five and pregnant or lactating women.

His “A Simulation Model for Evaluating Worldwide Buffer Stocks of Wheat”  recommends insurance-oriented storage rules for global food reserves.  He also argued that for most countries, particularly developing countries, trade liberalization and avoidance of protectionism would stabilize food supply and domestic prices more effective than buffer stocks of plausible size.  Buffer stocks became less useful at the margin as a country became more open to trade, while storage, financing, depreciation, and handling costs remained substantial.

Reutlinger’s work made a sustained case that nutrition was an economic-development issue, not merely a health-sector concern. His analysis linked hunger to productivity, education, labor capacity, and human-capital accumulation, creating intellectual support for bringing nutrition considerations into agricultural and rural-development operations.

Yet, he also observed that famines and acute food insecurity often stem from lost livelihoods and purchasing power, not simply a physical absence of food. His solution was to monitor shocks to employment, wages, terms of trade, harvests, and prices, provide fast cash, food, or employment relief to affected groups.

Reutlinger was also a strong proponent of education and capacity building. He believed that empowering local economists and policymakers was crucial for sustainable development. Throughout his career, he mentored numerous young economists, encouraging them to think critically and creatively about economic challenges. His legacy includes a generation of economists who carry forward his vision of development that is both inclusive and equitable.

His colleague at the World Bank, Hailu Mekonnen remembers:    “Over lunch,  Shlomo and I used to talk about books. The two that come to mind are Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations” and Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics,” on developing inner and outer peace and the second is on the ethically-driven good life.  Shlomo pursued both.   In the early 1990s, he told me that he and his wife saw, at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C., a production of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” and recommended that my wife and I see it.   [reflecting] our commitment…his and mine to promote the equality of women.”

Beyond his professional achievements, Reutlinger was remembered for his kindness and humility. Colleagues and friends alike recall his willingness to listen and his ability to inspire those around him. He had a unique talent for making complex economic concepts accessible and engaging, whether he was speaking to fellow economists or the general public.

At his retirement party, Reutlinger quoted Rabbi Hillel, who said “if I am not for myself, who will be for me?  If I am only for myself, what am I?  If not now, when?”  Upon retirement he returned to Israel where he lived immediately after WW II, with his wife, Blossom. Their two children made aliyah with their families as well.

Reutlinger passed away in in Israel.  He was survived by his children, Raanon Reutlinger and Elana Reutlinger, his sister Ruth, grandchildren, and extended family.

-Contributed by WHES Board member Steven Hansch

 

Bacteria Infect School Meals in Indonesia

September 5, 2026    The Government of Indonesia has been forced to close school feeding programs after 5,482 people were poisoned in 71 incidents just between July 22 and early September 2026, involving food from 62 kitchens.

The problem of food safety in the government’s Makan Bergizi Gratis (MBG, “Free Nutritious Meals”) program has grown worse this past week as almost 2,000 people fell ill between Tuesday and Thursday in suspected poisonings , including more than 770 at one Central Java high school.

Cumulative illnesses linked to the Free Nutritious Meals program since its 2025 launch now exceed 50,000. Authorities are reviewing about 27,000 distribution centers and have closed more than 800 kitchens for sanitation violations.

The evidence increasingly points to multiple bacterial contaminants rather than one single infectious disease.  This is a problem of  bacterial food contamination associated with inadequate temperature control, prolonged holding of cooked food, contaminated water, sanitation failures and poor food handling.   A March 2026 analysis in The Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia reviewing MBG outbreaks through the end of 2025 identified E. coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella and Staphylococcus among confirmed biological agents.  At a school in Lasem, Central Java, 752 students and 25 teachers became sick. Their grilled chicken had reportedly been cooked at about 3 a.m. and eaten around noon — roughly nine hours later. A food taster reportedly noticed that some chicken had become “slimy” before distribution.

There have been no deaths reported.  The illnesses appear so far to be mostly self-limited, but the scale has produced substantial hospitalization. In the early-September Sidoarjo episode, 512 students had received medical care at one point: 80 remained hospitalized, 312 had been discharged and 120 remained under observation. In the Lasem/Rembang cluster, 15 students and teachers were hospitalized among the 777 affected.

The school feeding program has been effective in encouraging attendance.  Early official reporting found a 2–3% increase in student attendance in pilot areas such as Bogor Regency and South Lampung, alongside teacher reports of better classroom concentration.

A Kemendikdasmen survey of more than 1.2 million students (baseline mid-2025 vs. endline late 2025) found that schools receiving MBG saw a larger drop in “learning disruption due to hunger” than schools that had not yet received the program—about 2.4 percentage points nationally and nearly 15 points in eastern Indonesia.  Teachers frequently report better focus, more questions, higher motivation, and less mid-morning lethargy. A mixed-methods study across three provinces (1,267 students) found the largest perceived gains among lower-income students: better concentration, more engagement, and less anxiety about being hungry at school.

–  Contributed to Hunger Notes by Steven Hansch

New National Nutrition/Malnutrition Survey Results From Haiti

September 4, 2026      The rate of life-threatening, acute (wasting) malnutrition among children in Haiti has grown from 7.2% in 2023 to 9% in 2026, alongside worstening dietary diversity, according to the latest national survey findings which began in January and were just released.

Most of the increase in malnutrition was in the form of moderate wasting malnutrition, from which most preventable deaths occur.  Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP), through its national food and nutrition coordination unit (UCPNANu), released preliminary results of the 2026 national SMART nutrition survey on August 28.  Data were collected from 1 to 16 July 2026 across 18 strata, the nine provincial departments, eight communes of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, and the balance of Ouest department, from a planned sample of 16,176 households in roughly 1,206 clusters, including 105 reserve cluster.

See:  https://weshare.unicef.org/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&STID=2AM40870CZ3M&_gl=&WS=SearchResults

Wasting malnutrition was the worst where gangs interfere with health care.  The Port-au-Prince metropolitan area records the highest malnutrition rate of any stratum at 8.8 percent, ahead of Artibonite (8.7), Reste-Ouest (7.8), and Grande Anse (7.2).  The traditionally food-insecure Nord-Ouest sits at 6.4 percent, while Nord, Sud, and Sud-Est cluster near 3.1 percent  the “low” band.

Applied to a population of roughly 1.1 to 1.2 million children aged 6–59 months, a 7.4 percent point prevalence implies on the order of 85,000 children wasted at any moment.

The government’s nutrition report adds that “UNICEF’s Haiti appeal was 87 percent unfunded at the end of the first quarter, and the nutrition sector was funded at 16 percent in 2025.  A survey documenting a 45 percent rise in child wasting has landed in a [ongoing aid] response that cannot currently treat the [full] caseload it already knows about.”

Within the metropolitan area the gradient is steep and tracks territorial control almost exactly.  Cité Soleil (gang-controlled) has 11.4 percent malnutrition, the only zone in the country in the UN’s “high” category, with moderate malnutrition alone at 10.5 percent. Delmas follows at 9.6, Port-au-Prince commune at 8.8, Croix-des-Bouquets at 8.7, Carrefour at 8.0; Kenscoff records 3.4.

Early initiation of breastfeeding rose from 48 to 68 percent, and exclusive breastfeeding under six months nearly doubled, from 17.5 to 33 percent.

UNICEF’s latest brief about their work in Haiti reports:  “To ensure the continuity of nutrition services despite ongoing humanitarian and logistical challenges, UNICEF supported the prepositioning of 34,222 cartons of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) including those sourced by local partner Meds and Foods for Kids (MFK) and essential medicines across the country’s ten Supply and Input Distribution Centers, followed by their onward distribution to health facilities to prevent stockouts.  Of this total, 19,909 cartons were strategically pre-positioned in priority locations across the country based on humanitarian and climate-related risks, while the remaining quantities were retained to support ongoing supply needs and replenishment efforts.
“As part of preparedness, risk mitigation, and response efforts, 9,750 cartons were strategically pre-positioned in the departments of Ouest, Artibonite, and Centre, which continue to face significant access constraints and humanitarian needs due to insecurity.  In parallel, 10,159 cartons were pre-positioned across the four
departments of the Grand Sud (Grand’Anse, Nippes, Sud and Sud-Est) and the Northwest department in preparation for the hurricane season.”

 

– Contributed by WHES Board member Steve Hansch

Economic Sanctions Create Hunger, But Not Political Change

September 3, 2026      An analysis published in the New Arab explains that economic sanctions, part of economic warfare, disproportionately hurt the poorest segments of populations, while rarely achieving intended political goals.  It cites decades of research about how sanctions increase hunger among the most vulnerable citizens.

The authors, Jamal I. Haidar and Seyed M. Karimi on Sept 1 describe how economic sanctions make foods unaffordable for the already-worst-off.  “These are not abstractions. They represent real losses in nutrition, health, education, and dignity for millions of families who have no voice in the geopolitical disputes that triggered their impoverishment.”

The article, “The Sanctions Illusion” elaborates that “anyone who claims to care about the ethics of coercive statecraft must confront its distributional realities with the same rigour applied to questions of military tactics.  …Cross-country research spanning decades has documented that economic sanctions reduce GDP growth, widen income inequality, increase child mortality, limit access to health care, and expand food insecurity in target states. These are not marginal effects.  …Another documented that UN sanctions reduced life expectancy by 1.2–1.4 years. These are statistics of mass harm, describing damage done to households, not palaces.”

The research of Sylvanus Afesorgbo is referenced.  Looking at global experiences, he finds:  “Sanctions significantly increases the composite index of global hunger index (GHI), and also adversely affect the availability and stability dimensions of food security.”

The authors note that the theory of sanctions is to pressure target governments in ways that do not happen.  Contrary to theory, authoritarian governments avoid the pains falling on their hungriest citizens.  “The question is not whether states should have foreign-policy tools, but whether any tool that imposes the scale of civilian harm documented in the sanctions literature can be considered legitimate under the same ethical and legal frameworks we apply to armed conflict.”

The authors argue that the laws of war do not allow disproportionate targeting of the poor, and therefore economic sanctions should be held to the same scrutiny.   “The civilian harm they inflict is treated as regrettable collateral damage rather than a direct moral consequence of the sanctioning state’s choices.”

The authors’ argument:  “financial sanctions, as currently practised, rarely achieve their strategic objectives, and they inflict predictable, severe, and regressive harm on civilian populations who bear no responsibility for the policies sanctions are meant to punish. Such harms are not more humane; they are harder to see and easier to ignore.”

About the authors: Jamal Haidar is the Chair of the Economics Dept. at the Lebanese American University (chartered in New York); and Seyed  Karimi is Chair of the Department of Health Management and Systems Sciences at the University of Louisville, based in Kentucky.

 

– Contributed by Steven Hansch

 

Food Needs from Nepal’s Glacial Lake Outburst Flood

September 1, 2026     The large flash floods that tore through the Himalayas on August 26, 2026 killed over 1,000 Nepalese, with another 5,000+ people missing.  Triggered by a catastrophic high altitude mountain collapse along the border of Nepal and China, a towering wall of ice, boulders, and mud cascaded down narrow valleys, completely overwhelming the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli rivers. As search and rescue operations continue.  Entire villages have been buried under thick mud, and massive infrastructure projects, including the Upper Trishuli 1 Hydropower Project where hundreds of workers are trapped, have been severely damaged or destroyed.  More than 900 workers in hydropower plants are unaccounted for as rescue teams combat tough terrain, difficult weather, and flood waters to try to find survivors following last week’s devastating flash flood. Many of the hydropower workers are feared trapped in the tunnels and underground areas of 11 facilities in the region. 

Unlike a classic glacial lake outburst flood, which typically occurs when a slowly expanding pool of meltwater eventually breaches its natural moraine dam after weeks or months of visible pressure buildup, this event was triggered by a sudden and massive ice and rock avalanche. Glaciologists note that high altitude ice and rock avalanches release significantly more kinetic energy in a matter of seconds, acting instantly to pulverize rock and collect immense volumes of debris as they plummet into river valleys. This mechanism creates a  very concentrated slurry of mud and boulders that causes far greater and more immediate (sudden, without warning) destruction than typical water floods.

The disaster began when bedrock gave way below a mountain glacier near the Langtang Lirung peak in the Himalayas. Part of this glacier, measuring almost a mile, split off from the mountain. Then, this fast-moving flood raised water levels along downsream rivers by 9 meters.

In recent years, Chinese and Nepalese scientists collaborated to build a cross border monitoring network designed to track glacial lakes and issue alerts. This system had successfully issued warnings for previous hazards, yet it missed the August 26 catastrophe. Researchers now understand that the existing water level monitors were primarily optimized for detecting gradual monsoon floods or perennial river swells. When the ice avalanche struck, the upstream monitoring stations in Nepal were instantaneously swept away by the force of the debris before a single alert could be transmitted. Mountain hazards experts have pointed out that even in a theoretical scenario where sensors remained intact, detecting an ice and rock avalanche upstream would provide a maximum of only twenty minutes of warning to the communities below. The disaster highlights a critical need to overhaul early warning systems in fragile mountain ecosystems.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the Nepali Red Cross stepped up as a leader in the emergency response. Coordinating the national humanitarian effort, the organization has led search and rescue operations across the hardest hit areas like the Rasuwa and Sindhupalchok districts. The Nepali Red Cross estimated that the catastrophe has severely affected as many as 93,000 people, leaving a vast population in desperate need of assistance. First responders from the organization have been working around the clock to establish emergency camps, providing displaced families with support, emergency shelter, and sleeping mats. Furthermore, the Nepali Red Cross has emphasized the immense psychological trauma inflicted upon the survivors, many of whom witnessed their families and homes swallowed by the earth in mere seconds. The organization is also actively monitoring the landscape for secondary flood risks, as natural debris dams created by the avalanche threaten to burst and unleash additional water on the already decimated downstream villages.

The needs of the survivors in terms for food aid is challenging given the geographical isolation caused by the flood. With at least 19 bridges and nearly 40 kilometers of vital roadways swept away by the surging rivers, traditional supply trucks cannot reach the most needy populations. Consequently, aid agencies are relying heavily on helicopters to airlift emergency food supplies, a method that is slow, expensive, and frequently disrupted by the unpredictable Himalayan weather patterns.

Before the flood waters ever rose, Nepal struggled with significant gaps in public nutrition. According to data from the World Food Programme, approximately 25 percent of children under the age of five in Nepal suffer from stunting due to chronic malnutrition.  Vitamin and mineral deficiencies remain widespread, with an estimated 43 percent of children under five being anemic from dietary iron deficiency.

The U.N. World Food Programme has rapidly mobilized its resources, dispatching specialized nutrient packed ready to eat food rations to the hardest hit areas. Because the displaced families have lost access to cooking facilities, cooking fuel, and clean water, standard rations of dry rice or lentils are currently useless to them in the immediate term. Instead, aid workers are distributing high energy biscuits that are fortified with essential vitamins and minerals.

Catholic Relief Services has mobilized its teams to provide emergency food, shelter, and water sanitation support to displaced families across multiple districts.  Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Caritas Nepal, who have already transported 2.5 tons of food supplies into affected districts such as Rasuwa.

Similarly, the United Nations Children’s Fund is deploying specialized emergency health and nutrition supplies aimed specifically at preventing pediatric malnutrition, while organizations like Convoy of Hope are prepositioning emergency food kits for distribution through local partner networks. 

The United States Government announced more than $3.6 million in humanitarian assistance, including up to three months of emergency food aid for up to 10,000 flood‑affected households.  CARE Nepal, Save the Children, and World Vision were among the fastest aid agencies to deploy

shelter and clothes. Because they run ongoing development programs in the hardest-hit provinces (like Koshi and Madhesh), they immediately pivoted their local staff to distribute pre-stocked emergency hygiene kits, water purification tablets, and shelter materials.

Future food production in the area has been set back.  The concentrated mudflow scoured the fertile topsoil from terraced mountain farms, replacing it with a thick, barren layer of rocks and glacial sediment. Thousands of livestock, which served as a primary source of protein and dairy for the mountain communities, were drowned in the deluge. The upcoming harvest has been wiped out, meaning the survivors will have no local crop yields to rely on for the brutal winter months ahead.   For the many villages cut off by the destroyed infrastructure, physical food deliveries remain a critical option over cash distribution.   This matters for Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, and downstream Bhote Koshi settlements.

Hazards like this may reoccur.  The Himalayas are warming twice as fast as the global average, degrading the permafrost that acts as the “glue” holding steep mountain slopes and glaciers together. This exponentially increases the frequency of ice avalanches and Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs).  Managed retreat to higher ground, while economically and culturally disruptive will be necessary for these populations.

Rebuilding warning networks:   ICIMOD (International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development): Based in Kathmandu, ICIMOD was one of the fastest actors in predicting the risk. Through their SERVIR Hindu Kush Himalaya initiative and their specialized flood early warning systems, they monitored real-time satellite imagery and river gauge data. They issued rapid alerts regarding the swelling of major river systems (like the Koshi and Bagmati) and the high risk of landslides in vulnerable hill districts days before the worst of the flooding hit.  This international NGO has spent years building community-based Early Warning Systems (EWS) in Nepal’s flood-prone Terai region and hill districts. Because they have pre-existing networks of local volunteers equipped with sirens, megaphones, and SMS networks, they were among the fastest at translating ICIMOD and government forecasts into immediate evacuation orders at the village level.

– contributed by Steve Hansch and the WHES Board