UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Thirty four countries — nearly 80 percent of them in Africa — don’t have enough food for their people because of conflicts, drought and flooding, according to a U.N. report released Wednesday.The Food and Agriculture Organization’s Crop Prospects and Food Situation report said conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and the Central African Republic have taken a heavy toll on agricultural production, worsening the humanitarian crisis in those countries.
Author: WHES
Berta Lives! The life and legacy of Berta Cáceres
I began writing a eulogy for Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores years ago, though she died only last week. Berta was assassinated by Honduran government-backed death squads on March 3. Like many who knew and worked with her, I was aware that this fighter for indigenous peoples’ power; for control over their own territories; for women’s and LGBTQ rights; for authentic democracy; for the well-being of Pachamama; for an end to tyranny by transnational capital; and for an end to US empire was not destined to die of old age. She spoke too much truth to too much power.
Dietary guidelines ignore broad U.S. support for sustainablity
A national survey of 800 Americans shows that 74 percent of adults believe the newly released Dietary Guidelines should include environmental provisions and support sustainable agriculture practices. The survey–commissioned by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research–found broad support for the inclusion of sustainability language, despite the decision by the Administration to exclude any reference to sustainable agriculture in the final 2015-2020 Guidelines.
Female farmers in 90 nations face discriminatory land laws
TORONTO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Women in more than 90 countries still lack equal rights to own land, hurting food production and efforts to tackle poverty, Rwanda’s former agriculture minister said.Nations in eastern and southern Africa have considerably improved their laws to grant land ownership rights to female farmers, Agnes Kalibata said.
Eating leaves, and other ways besieged Syrians try to survive
Medical workers in parts of Syria have been forced to let the wounded bleed to death for lack of bandages, and have opted to use catheter bags meant for urine to administer intravenous fluids to newborns because proper drip bags are gone.Expectant mothers in areas vulnerable to shelling and bombing give birth by cesarean section rather than risk natural childbirth in an attack. Malnourished children are eating animal feed and leaves, in some cases only miles from warehouses full of food. Families are burning mattress stuffing and plastic scraps for heat.
Bananas, corn and beans facing a bleak future as staple African crops decline
Bananas, maize and beans could be among crops consigned to history in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, with drastic consequences for people who rely on beans as a vital source of protein.Climate change will leave swaths of sub-Saharan Africa unable to produce staple crops such as maize, bananas and beans by the end of the century, according to a report that calls for an urgent transformation of the region’s agriculture.
Was a USDA scientist muzzled because of his bee research?
Jonathan Lundgren is buying a parcel of land — a scrubby, 30-acre plot just north of Brookings, S.D. — from which he hopes to lead a revolution. An entomologist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, based in a South Dakota lab, Lundgren plans to start two businesses: Blue Dasher Farm, a for-profit enterprise he describes as a model for sustainable farming; and Ecdysis, a nonprofit science lab for independent research.
More than half a million could die as climate change impacts diet – report.New research shows global warming’s effect on the quality of food available could kill more than 500,000 people a year around the world by 2050
Climate change could kill more than 500,000 people a year globally by 2050 by making their diets less healthy, according to new research published in the Lancet.The research is the first to assess how the impacts of global warming could affect the quality of the diets available to people and found fewer fruit and vegetables would be available as a result of climatic changes. These are vital in curbing heart disease, strokes and diet-related cancers, leading the study to conclude that the health risks of climate change are far greater than thought.
Berta Cáceres, indigenous activist, is killed in Honduras
MEXICO CITY — An indigenous activist in Honduras who won a prestigious international environmental prize for fighting a dam project despite continued threats was assassinated on Thursday in her hometown, officials said.
Mozambique’s movement to end land grabs
To corporations, the forest is only business. To communities, the forest is everything: trees, medicine, culture, spirituality. Land-grabbing and the removal of communities from forests and land breaks the community, displaces access to food and water, and uproots the connection to nature and [local] knowledge. If the community structure is broken, if the land – the means of food production – is lost, we lose everything.
