Author: Yusur al Bahrani
In order to prevent famine and end an existing one, it is crucial to understand what famine is. This introduction will help define famine and identify some of the causes. While famine is a preventable threat to the human population, it will not end if the root causes are not addressed.
According to the www.dictionary.com definition, famine is a “noun” that means: Extreme and general scarcity of food, as in a country or a large geographical area; any extreme and general scarcity; extreme hunger and starvation. This is a broad definition, which could include many countries and geographic areas hit by food insecurities.
However, famine is not a word to be used lightly. Therefore, international organizations have agreed on a scientific frame that would help them identify when to declare a nation to be suffering from famine. According to United Nations, a famine can be declared only when certain measures of mortality, malnutrition, and hunger are met. The measures are:
According to a report published by Oxfam, famine is caused by “multiple factors, compounded by poor (or even intentionally bad) policy decisions that make people vulnerable. When no one addresses this vulnerability, it leads to famine.” Let’s take a close look at the four countries to understand some of the factors that are beyond climate and drought.
In Nigeria, the conflicts between armed groups, mostly Boko Haram and Nigerian military, prevent farmers from growing food. According to a number of reports, farmers were unable to grow any food in some northeastern areas for almost five years. Boko Haram controlled northeastern areas, which made it challenging to get humanitarian aid to the people suffering. While the UN declared that famine had been “averted” in 2017, millions of people are still at risk, for armed attacks and conflicts continue to exist.
In South Sudan, famine is caused by civil war. Since the conflict started in 2013, more than four million people have fled their homes. According to 2019 report by Human Rights Watch, seven million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, most of them face acute food shortages. Again, the armed conflict means people are cut off from food supplies. All parties have attacked aid workers and restricted access to populations in need. At least 12 aid workers were killed in 2018, bringing the toll to over 100 since December 2013.
Unrest, war, and armed conflicts are the cause of the famine in Yemen. The war began when Saudi Arabia formed a military coalition and began airstrikes in 2015. While all parties, including the rebels, are responsible for casualties, the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for most attacks targeting hospitals, schools, and humanitarian organizations supplying food and medicine. The armed conflict continues. According to a UN World Food Programme report, published on March 2019, twenty million Yeminis (70 percent of the population), are food insecure. This marks a 13 percent increase from 2019. Yemen is now described as “the world’s worst crisis.”
In Somalia, a combination of conflicts and drought fueled the famine for 70 years. The conditions are not getting better. A report published by US on December 2018 warns that “many fear a repeat of the 2011 famine in which nearly 260,000 people died.” While the main cause is drought, this would not have happened without the conflicts that control access to food and medicine— scarcity is climate- and human-led by wars.
The UN Development Programme supported sand dams. For instance, sand dams in Puntland, Somalia, can harvest water above and below ground and help to build the resilience of local people. However, efforts to combat climate factors and drought have to be combined with measures to stop and prevent armed conflicts.
In summary, taking a look at all countries at the risk of or declared under famine, there are multiple factors and no one solution to help end this. For instance, drought is a factor that could be dealt with scientifically while raising resiliency in communities. But when dealing with armed conflicts and intentional causes of famine, there are many measures that need to be taken globally. For instance, the famine in Yemen could have been prevented if the conflict ended and arms sales seized. Famine could have been prevented if food and medical aid had found their way to the people of Yemen.
How to Post a Comment
1. Give your comment a title in ALL CAPS. If you are commenting on a forum or Peace Magazine title, please identify it in your title.
2. Please select your title and click “B” to boldface it.
You can:
• Italicize words by selecting and clicking “I”.
• Indent or add hyperlinks (with the chain symbol).
• Attach a photo by copying it from another website and pasting it into your comment.
• Share an external article by copying and pasting it – or just post its link.
We will keep your email address secure and invisible to other users. If you “reply” to any comment, the owner will be notified, providing they have subscribed. To be informed, please subscribe.
** If you are referring to a talk show, please mention the number
We produce several one-hour-long Zoom conversations each week about various aspects of six issues we address. You can watch them live and send a question to the speakers or watch the edited version later here or on our Youtube channel.
FEED A BEE!
You don’t have to be a tree hugger to respect the environment that you live in. For two million years, before the agricultural revolution, humans foraged the land and brought thousands of species of animals to extinction. We can say that millions of years ago we didn’t know better, but now we do.
Bees are pollinators, and without them, we wouldn’t be alive. They are responsible for feeding 90% of the world’s population. David Attenborough, the voice behind The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, warns “if bees were to disappear from the face of the Earth, humans would have just four years to live.” That may become a reality at the rate things are going.
Read more
In a heartfelt Instagram post, the 92-year-old documentary maker shared that “in the last five years, the bee population has dropped by 1/3.”
There is a way to make a difference.
David Attenborough says by leaving a teaspoon of sugar and water in your garden or lawn, you can help to re-hydrate them when they’re tired.
“This time of year bees can often look like they are dying or dead, however, they’re far from it. Bees can become tired and they simply don’t have enough energy to return to the hive which can often result in being swept away. If you find a tired bee in your home, a simple solution of sugar and water will help revive an exhausted bee. Simply mix two tablespoons of white, granulated sugar with one tablespoon of water, and place on a spoon for the bee to reach.”
That’s a fascinating lecture.
Bananas in Danger of Fungal Infection
I have heard that the banana industry is facing significant threats from the fungal Panama blight – which recently re-emerged in Latin America. The bananas that you bought several decades ago were a different species – called Gros-Michel – most of which died due to the fungal infection. The industry then switched to Cavendish bananas – which have a different taste and texture. There is concern of the vulnerability of this industry as Cavendish bananas do not contain seeds and are almost entirely reproduced via clonal cuttings. As such, virtually all the bananas have the same genome and thus same vulnerability to blights, disease, etc.
Read more
On the context of citrus industries – I heard that several years ago the lime industry was threatened due to irregular rain patterns – likely caused by climate change. Growers had smaller and/or poorly formed crops – causing supply issues and price fluctuations. Is it true that citrus are particularly vulnerable to drought? It is interesting to see how various agricultural species are faring in the face of climate change. I have heard cassava – a staple food for many equatorial regions – becomes more toxic (it naturally contains cyanide) during drought and extremely hot summers. Alarming news – and there have been reports of children being poisoned as a result of consuming this crop during these seasons.
Another interesting side note on the topic of agriculture is that several years ago Tuvalu tried to bring a lawsuit against the United States involving climate change related disasters – such as increased flooding and groundwater salinization on their island. The USA responded by accusing Tuvalu of growing too many pineapples – inducing ecosystem and regional climate change. This was perpetuated by British researchers who accused Japanese pineapple farmers of using too much groundwater in Tuvalu. The thing is – Tuvalu is thousands of miles from markets and has very limited land – and very limited market integration and transportation connections with surrounding regions. Many reports indicate that Tuvalu has never grown pineapples and the land is so low lying that growing pineapples would be a significant challenge regardless. In fact, Tuvalu made lots of money during the internet boom selling their website country code .tv to various companies and through licensing access to their fishing territories.
If this issue interests you, I suggest that you watch the talk show video or podcast that I did with Tony McQuail. Click the blue video button on the left side of this page.
Kelvin – Can you clarify what you mean by this?
CASH IS A GOOD WAY TO HELP THE HUNGRY
?itok=_KpXaNpI
Since the late 2000s, the World Food Programme has shifted its thinking from the concept of food aid to that of food assistance. This is a more complex understanding of people’s long term nutritional needs and of the diverse appoaches required to meet them. It is important to concentrate efforts on the most vulnerable in society. Besides the urgency of alleviating hunger now, there is a broader objective: ending hunger once and for all.
Often there is food available, even in the midst of a famine. What is lacking for most of the starving people is the money necessary to purchase that food. Hence it is often best to provide cash for short term assistance, even while pursuing development and climate change solutions aiming to sustain a durable solution to famine and hunger.
GLYPHOSATE, ROUNDUP, AND HEALTH
TESTING
If I want to send people here to post a comment, what is the URL I should give them to do it ?
Clean, renewable drinking water made straight out of thin air almost sounds too wild to be true.
But “hydropanels,” created by the Arizona-based company SOURCE, can do just that. The high-tech panels use the sun to extract moisture from the air, providing safe drinking water for many of the places around the world that need it most.
The technology is fairly straightforward. Fans on each panel draw in ambient air and push it through a water-absorbing material, trapping the vapor from the air. The vapor is then condensed into a liquid using energy from the sun, after which it’s collected in a reservoir. The water is then mineralized with magnesium and calcium to maintain quality and achieve a better taste.
While condensing air into water is not a new idea, the energy used to do it — all coming from the sun — makes these panels more sustainable than other, traditional methods.
Each panel, coming in at $2,000 each, produces about 1.3 gallons of water a day and can operate completely independently of other existing infrastructure, meaning the hydropanels can provide safe drinking water virtually anywhere.
“The challenges with water around the world are dramatic,” Cody Friesen, CEO of SOURCE, told CNN. “We aim to make safe water an unlimited resource around the world.”
Read more
And that’s a big deal. More than two billion people on Earth are living in water-stressed countries. This problem is only expected to get worse as a result of warming temperatures and population growth. UNICEF estimates that by 2025, 50% of the world’s population could lack access to drinkable water.
In water-stressed areas, bottled water is often a solution for safe drinking water. But with over 80% of plastic water bottles ending up in landfills, this can exacerbate our planet’s plastic waste problem. A single SOURCE hydropanel, however, eliminates the need for 54,000 single-use plastic bottles over its 15-year lifespan.
And it’s already working across the world. SOURCE claims its hydropanels are being used in 50 countries, providing water to some of the areas that need it most.
Link: https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/hydropanels-solar-water-vapor-drinking-potable/
Blanche McFarland
July 29, 2022 2:07 am
Blocking Export of Ukrainian and Russian Fertilizer
Besides grain, the Russian blockade is making it difficult for Russia and Ukraine alike to export fertilizer, though they are some of the main sources of it for the rest of the world. This will reduce the production of food in all the countries depending on fertilizer. About half of the world’s food exists only because of fertilizer, which is a mixed blessing.
Yes, we need chemical fertilizer, but it is also harmful to the soil in the long run, because it upsets the balance of nutrients, microbes, and fungi there. And it runs off into ponds and streams and eventually the ocean, creating algae blooms. We have to get away from dependence on fertilizer by using alternative, regenerative systems. But it takes training and experience to learn the alternatives. This is a good time to start promoting it. as a goal, but not imposing it as a new practice. For starters, farmers could at least become familiar with the blessings of biochar, which they can make at home from waste products.
Blocking Export of Ukrainian and Russian Fertilizer
Besides grain, the Russian blockade is making it difficult for Russia and Ukraine alike to export fertilizer, though they are some of the main sources of it for the rest of the world. This will reduce the production of food in all the countries depending on fertilizer. About half of the world’s food exists only because of fertilizer, which is a mixed blessing.
Yes, we need chemical fertilizer, but it is also harmful to the soil in the long run, because it upsets the balance of nutrients, microbes, and fungi there. And it runs off into ponds and streams and eventually the ocean, creating algae blooms. We have to get away from dependence on fertilizer by using alternative, regenerative systems. But it takes training and experience to learn the alternatives. This is a good time to start promoting it. as a goal, but not imposing it as a new practice. For starters, farmers could at least become familiar with the blessings of biochar, which they can make at home from waste products.
<p style=”font-size:1.5em;”>Russian-Ukrainian Agreement to Let Grain Be Exported</p>
Two days ago Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement to let Ukraine export its grain so the rest of the world doesn’t go hungry this winter. But then Russia bombed Odessa, the place where the grain must be sent. Does this mean that Russia won’t keep its word? Who is surprised by that?
Madagascar’s ‘Climate-Induced Famine’ Forces People to Eat Locusts and Cactus Leaves to Survive: Advocate
Facing a severe famine, people in Madagascar are trying to survive by selling their belongings for food, harvesting cactus leaves, and eating the locusts that descend on their failing crops.
Locals in the south of the island nation off East Africa say they’ve experienced the worst drought in 40 years.
The UN’s World Food Programme believes it could be the world’s first-ever famine brought on by climate change. The agency has scaled up ration and nutrition programs, but the next possibility for a harvest is not until April 2022.
The Current’s Matt Galloway discussed the dire situation with Tsina Endor, deputy director of SEED Madagascar, an NGO that works to alleviate poverty and foster education and development in the country. Here is part of their conversation.
Read more
How would you describe the situation in Madagascar right now?
This is the worst situation … in decades in the south part of Madagascar. This is the result of no rain at all.
And all of the lands where people are growing stuff have been covered with sand. And this is the result, the very severe famine that is happening in this area.
What does that look like? I mean, without the rain, what does that drought look like on the ground?
It is very bad. Like, the Malagasy people are eating rice three times a day, and growing rice in this part of the island. So it looks like the rice field is like a football place, where children [are] playing on. It should be full of water, but it’s dried like clay, like a sun on the rice field.
What are the lengths that people are going to in order to get any food that they can get their hands on?
People are selling all of their belongings to buy food. At the market, it’s very expensive for them to buy. And you see when there is a little rain, whatever is left on the field is eaten by locusts as well.
So they eat locusts, on top of the cactus leaves, so it’s really bad.
What about water to drink? I mean, water to water the fields is one thing, but where are people getting water to drink?
This is the most awful thing to say, but when there is rain and there is water that’s [pooling] on the road, people [collect that] water. Because where it is dried, there is no rainwater harvesting system … and the streams all dried as well.
So they’re getting stagnant water out of puddles off the road?
Yes, that’s what people [are] getting.
The United Nations has said this is the first climate-induced famine that could be unfolding in Madagascar. What role do you see climate change playing in what you’ve described?
In Madagascar, there are two different seasons. There is the summer, with lots of rain, and there is the winter, which is very dry. But there is not much difference between those two seasons now, anymore.
It’s like the drought carried on from April, even until now. We are in the start of November and we still have no rain in Madagascar.
What has that meant in terms of migration? Are people moving around the country to try and find somewhere where they can grow food, where they can find water and where the dust storms and the sandstorms aren’t as severe?
Yes, many people have run from the deep south of Madagascar to this area in Fort Dauphin, where I live.
About 10,000 people have emigrated from that part of the island to here in the hope to find even water, and to find somewhere, any places where people can find something to eat or can find a job to do, or can work someone’s land.
Some people … have sold their houses, they have sold their land, they have sold even the seeds that they meant to grow in the next plantation season. There is nothing for them [and they have moved] in the hope to find food, and in the hope to find somewhere else to stay, to survive.
Madagascar is not a huge driver of climate change, but you’re seeing this in real time. You’re seeing it right in front of you. So what do you want the rest of the world to know about what’s happening when it comes to climate change?
This instance is unexpected, but when people still have time, consider it as a really big problem [that] may bring, like, a fast impact to the population.
I think bringing food on people’s table is the solution, immediate solution. On the longer term, I’d like to give more understanding to people how to mitigate the climate change. More techniques and awareness of mobilization, with education, should be given to people.
Link: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-climate-migrants-the-current-for-nov-4-2021-1.6236735/madagascar-s-climate-induced-famine-forces-people-to-eat-locusts-and-cactus-leaves-to-survive-advocate-1.6237015
The following poem is for the countless people planet-wide for whom there’s nothing to be thankful on Thanksgiving Day—nor any other day of the year, for that matter—COVID-19 crisis or not …
GRACE
Pass me the holiday turkey, peas / and the delicious stuffing flanked / by buttered potatoes
with gravy / since I’ve said grace with plenty ease / for the good food received I’ve thanked / my
Maker who’s found me worthy. // It seems that unlike the many of those / in the unlucky Third World
nation / I’ve been found by God deserving / to not have to endure the awful woes / and the stomach
wrenching starvation / suffered by them with no dinner serving. // Therefore hand over to me the
corn / the cranberry sauce, fresh baked bread / since for my grub I’ve praised the Lord / yet I need
not hear about those born / whose meal I’ve been granted instead / as they receive / naught of the
grand hoard.
Madagascar on the Brink of First Climate-Induced Famine, UN Warns
Al Jazeera | 3 September 2021
“The island nation of Madagascar has endured four years of drought, brought on by one of the world’s first famines to be caused by climate change, with people forced to eat locusts and wild leaves to survive.
The country has long been prone to droughts and floods, but this time around, a roughly four-year spell of drought has pushed at least 30,000 people to level five of famine – the highest internationally recognised level of food insecurity, according to the UN World Food Programme. It fears that the figure could rise dramatically.
More than 1.1 million people in the East African island country are experiencing some form of severe food insecurity and require urgent food and nutrition assistance, the UN has said.
Drought effects have also led to agricultural losses of up to 60 percent in the most populated provinces.
While people have resorted to eating locusts, wild leaves, mud, and cactus fruits to survive, the UN has warned of a severe humanitarian crisis.
WFP spokeswoman Shelley Thakral said the drought is having a catastrophic effect on people, adding that this is now the fourth year when farmers had to wait for the harvest.
“These are people who live off the land, survive off the land, and have been displaced by drought. They’ve lost their livelihood, they’ve had to sell everything,” Thakral told Al Jazeera.
“The situation has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While some were looking for seasonal labour and tourism, there has not been any tourists coming into the country for the last 18 months,” she said.
“So this is a very critical time for people in the south, for communities who depend on whatever little land they have, which … sadly they are not reaping any benefit from.”
Madagascar produces 0.01 percent of the world’s annual carbon emissions, but it is suffering some of the worst effects, with unreliable rains and crop failures.
Meanwhile, the WFP executive director has called for funding to help alleviate the suffering in Madagascar. “If we get the support we need, the funds we need, we can stop the suffering.”
Link: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/3/madagascar-is-on-brink-of-first-climate-induced-famine-un-warns
Many migrants from the southern hemisphere are climate-change refugees, sometimes fleeing from climactic-change-related chronic crop failure mostly caused by the northern hemisphere’s chronic fossil-fuel burning, starting with the Industrial Revolution.
While the recent U.S.-border Haitian-refugee situation, for example, may not be climate-change related, the border-guard physical confrontations sound/look scary and definitely un-Christian. It’s as though they are perceived as being disposable human life, their suffering somehow less-worthy. I’ve been seeing so many mean-spirited posts about these human beings on numerous mainstream news websites. So many refugees are rightfully desperate human beings, perhaps desperate enough to work hard for basic food and shelter. And they very much want to work. …
I’ve noticed over decades the exceptionally strong work ethic practiced by migrants, especially in the produce harvesting sector. It’s typically back-busting work that almost all post-second-generation Westerners won’t tolerate for ourselves. Such laborers work very hard and should be treated humanely, including timely access to Covid-19 vaccination and proper work-related protections, but often enough are not.
While I don’t favor Canada-based businesses exporting labor abroad at very low wages if there are unemployed Canadians who want that work, I can imagine such laborers being much more productive than their born-and-reared-here Canadian counterparts.
I’m not saying that a strong work ethic is a trait racially/genetically inherited by one generation from a preceding generation. Rather, I believe, it is an admirable culturally determined factor, though also in large part motivated by the said culture’s internal and surrounding economic and political conditions.
UN Agencies Concerned By Looming Famine in Ethiopia, Calls for Urgent Life-Saving Action to Avert It. Over 350 000 People Already Face Catastrophic Conditions in Tigray.
World Food Programme | 10 June 2021
“The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF call for urgent action to address the dramatic acute food insecurity in northern Ethiopia. The three agencies are particularly concerned about the situation in Tigray region where the risk of famine is imminent, unless food, livelihood assistance and other life-saving interventions continue to be scaled-up, unimpeded access is guaranteed, and hostilities cease.
The call came in response to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, released today. The IPC is a global, multi-partner initiative – comprised of 15 UN agencies, regional organisations, and international non-governmental organisations – that facilitates improved decision-making through the provision of consensus-based food insecurity and malnutrition analysis.
According to the report, over 350 000 people are already facing catastrophic conditions (IPC 5, Catastrophe) in Tigray region. This is the highest number of people classified in IPC 5 Catastrophe in a single country in the last decade.”
Read more
Over 60 percent of the population, more than 5.5 million people, grapple with high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC 3-5) in Tigray and the neighbouring zones of Amhara and Afar. Of these, 2 million people are in Emergency level of acute food insecurity (IPC 4) and without urgent action could quickly slide into starvation.
The severity of acute food insecurity is expected to increase through September, particularly in Tigray, with over 400 000 people projected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC 5, Catastrophe) without urgent and unhindered aid.
The UN agencies are particularly concerned by the risk of famine in Tigray if conflict escalates and humanitarian assistance is significantly hampered. The lack of reliable and comprehensive data on people’s food security situation in western Tigray is also deeply worrying.
“Rural communities in northern Ethiopia have been particularly affected by the conflict. Many farms have been destroyed and productive assets such as seeds and livestock lost,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. “It is imperative that we help these communities keep their families fed, and support local food production, paving the way for a faster recovery. But to help people on the brink of famine, we need resources and access – both of which remain a problem.”
“The brutal reality for our staff in Tigray is that for every family we reach with life-saving food, there are countless more, especially in rural areas, whom we cannot reach,” said WFP Executive Director, David Beasley. “We have appealed for humanitarian access but are still being blocked by armed groups. The ability of people in Tigray to access vital services and for WFP to reach them with food assistance is essential to avoid a catastrophe. Access must be extended well beyond major cities to reach people in desperate need wherever they may be, with adequate assistance and without delay.”
“UNICEF is extremely concerned about the situation across Tigray as we see more and more young children and babies slide dangerously close to sickness and potential death from malnutrition,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “We are working with our partners to provide nutrition, health care and clean water support. However, without humanitarian access to scale up our response, an estimated 33,000 severely malnourished children in currently inaccessible areas in Tigray are at high risk of death. The world cannot permit that to happen.”
Causes of acute food insecurity
According to the IPC report, the key cause of acute food insecurity in Tigray is conflict as it has led to massive population displacement, widespread destruction of livelihoods and critical infrastructure, and loss of employment. Conflict has also limited access to markets.
An increase in conflict could push more people to flee their homes and prevent families from accessing food distribution points or other food and livelihood sources, noted the report.
Conflict-hit Tigray is already the most at-risk region with 4 million people – 70 percent of the population – experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC 3 or above). Bordering areas in neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions, which host a large number of internally displaced persons from Tigray, have 60 percent and 41 percent of their populations in high levels of acute food insecurity (over 450,000 and 1 million people respectively).
UN agencies and partners scaling up their response
Food assistance and nutritional support are expected to be scaled up and reach a large proportion of the population, but unhindered access and urgent funding are paramount for this.
WFP’s response:
FAO’s response:
UNICEF’s response:
Note to editors:
The term “high levels of acute food insecurity” refers to populations that are in IPC phase 3 or higher. Populations classified in IPC Phase 3 (Crisis), IPC Phase 4 (Emergency) and IPC 5 (Catastrophe) need urgent support so lives are saved and widespread death prevented, food consumption gaps reduced and livelihoods protected.
A risk of famine refers to the reasonable probability of an area going into Famine in the projected period. It is not a new classification, and it is not accompanied by population estimates.
Links to IPC analysis:
Link: https://www.wfp.org/news/un-agencies-concerned-looming-famine-northern-ethiopia-call-urgent-life-saving-action-avert-it
I hear that Madagascar is nearing famine. What is going on there that explains this? Is it caused by some foreign enemy or by climate change?
Suggestion Box: Breed Better Cows, Produce Milk for Sudanese Children
SadaBimh has posted this idea in the suggestion box:
“To use the Biotechnolgies AI&ETusing sexed animal frozen semen to cross the local sudanese animal milk breeds to produce improved heifers with high productivity.”
That’s an interesting idea, Sada. Please do come back and elaborate on it, since probably few of the people visiting this comment column know much about breeding cattle! This may be a very important proposal. You can post articles here too, if you like, or even photos.
Dear Metta,
Referring to our previous discussions concerning the community projects development partnership in developing countries of East Africa such as ” Burundi and Tanzania” where we are operating the projects. I would like require you for connecting us to the sponsors, donors or Investors who would be interesting to work with us in the above mentioned countries .
Therefore, as discussed the Burundi has 27834kms squares, 18 provinces and total populations of around 12.Millions. Among them the 86% of the populations are depending on the Agriculture and Farming. Our goal/aim is to Reach the Unreached Millions of poor people communities buy ” Fighting Against Diseases, Ignorance, Hunger/Starvation and Poverty which are surrounding and killing many people women, children and poor families around the world especially in developing countries of East Africa.
So, before starting the projects practices establishment, we do provide with the enough Trainings/Seminars for different groups of people to have enough knowledge/skills to know better how to develop themselves, their families, communities and country.
I am attaching some of suggested projects sectors pictures just to show you if there are some which would be interested, while our website is still under reconstruction.
Hoping hear from you soon,
Best Regards,
Revd. Joseph Cimpaye
President
Ph.(+358)402567045 ”WhatsApp” Finland.
” ” ( +257)68441548 ” ”WhatsApp” Burundi.
Ph. ( +255)
Email.reachunreachedm@yahoo.com
Email.visionafrica2030@gmail.com
Dear Joseph.
I enjoyed our conversation too. It is unlisted in YouTube because I will not edit it separately, but you can see it there with this unlisted URL: https://youtu.be/QAN6FXAZgV0. In a few days I will produce a composite show, a little over an hour long, and post it on Facebook and our website on a Monday evening. You are always encouraged to post comments and share articles on that website: https://tosavetheworld.ca.
Many thanks, and good wishes,
Metta
Southern Madagascar faces drought-driven hunger, threatening millions
United Nations World Food Programme | 30 November 2020
Southern Madagascar is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with 1.5 million people—half the region’s population—needing immediate emergency food assistance, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today. Three straight years of drought have wiped out harvests and hampered people’s access to food and COVID-19 is compounding their suffering.
Those experiencing “crisis” or “emergency” hunger conditions—three times the number forecast mid-year—are mostly children and women.
Of the ten hardest-hit southern districts, Amboasary is the epicenter; families barely scrape together enough food with raw mangoes and tamarind often their only food source. Mothers can no longer breastfeed and are forced to give their infants water which is in scarce supply. A WFP assessment in Amboasary last month found three out of four children had quit school – mostly to help their parents forage for food.
“The hunger and malnutrition we’re seeing is the result of three years of ruined harvests. Families across these drought-afflicted areas are adopting desperate measures simply to survive – selling precious belongings such as cattle, farm tools and kitchen utensils,” said Moumini Ouedraogo, WFP’s Representative in Madagascar.
Read more
In October, WFP began dispatching lentils, sorghum, fortified oil and rice for 320,000 severely food-insecure people in the 10 hardest hit districts, with hot meals for malnourished children and the elderly in Amboasary. But funding gaps mean food assistance fails to keep pace with growing needs.
“The situation in the South demands an urgent response. People are left with nothing to eat and we must support them before it is too late, but for that to happen, urgent support from donors is needed now’’ Ouedraogo said.
WFP needs $37.5 million to rapidly expand its response and prevent child malnutrition rates – already some of the highest in the world – from worsening further. Through food and cash distributions and malnutrition prevention, WFP seeks to reach 891,000 people through next June. It will also roll out emergency school feeding, so children can continue studying—an essential key to a better future.
With current resources, however, WFP can only reach about half-a-million people through December.
The latest hunger surge underscores the magnitude of food insecurity across Madagascar, where almost half of children under five are chronically malnourished, or physically stunted, meaning their brains and bodies may be irreversibly compromised.
Full article available here: https://www.wfp.org/news/southern-madagascar-faces-drought-driven-hunger-threatening-millions
I agree. Solein is an interesting experiment (we need all kinds of them) but ecological farmers are doing the most fundamental contributions that human beings have had to perform for each other for the past 6,000 years. (I guess that’s when agriculture began.). Thanks for feeding me, Tony!
I am skeptical of the technological solutions approach to the problem of climate change – Plants already make food out of “thin air and sunlight” and have been doing it for over a billion years enhancing the biodiversity, ecological complexity and beauty of our planet. I just watched the wizard of oz last night and it was a good reminder to be sure you are aware of the “man behind the curtain” turning the dials. The hype and hyperbole remind me of the nuclear industries “too cheap to meter” claims. I notice in the link to “carbon capture technology in the article” there is no discussion of the energy required to run the plants that take the carbon out of the air in the first place – and while I’m a fan of solar electricity – the making of photovoltaic panels has its own environmental impacts so claiming that the energy to then turn that captured carbon into “solein” is carbon neutral may prove inaccurate.
The problem is not the cow – but the how – how we manage our agriculture – it seems to me that a regenerative agricultural approach would be a lot more promising and have a lot less possible unexpected consequences than these technologies. They seem to divorce us further from the biological connection to our planetary life support system rather than increasing our sense of connection and interdependence. They also are being put forward as “investment” opportunities with big hype and claims – Which at my age reminds me of much I have heard before.
A healthy living soil is probably our best option for sequestering carbon AND producing nutrient dense food AND helping us be more resilient and buffered in the face of potential flood or drought. But this requires a widespread, dispersed approach and a change in MANAGEMENT – not patentable marketable technology.
So – Interesting but it doesn’t appeal to me and I’m not going to switch from being an ecological farmer to a solein factory technician. I think there is a lot more life, joy and good food in a garden than a vat.
I am skeptical of the technological solutions approach to the problem of climate change – Plants already make food out of “thin air and sunlight” and have been doing it for over a billion years enhancing the biodiversity, ecological complexity and beauty of our planet. I just watched the wizard of oz last night and it was a good reminder to be sure you are aware of the “man behind the curtain” turning the dials. The hype and hyperbole remind me of the nuclear industries “too cheap to meter” claims. I notice in the link to “carbon capture technology in the article” there is no discussion of the energy required to run the plants that take the carbon out of the air in the first place – and while I’m a fan of solar electricity – the making of photovoltaic panels has its own environmental impacts so claiming that the energy to then turn that captured carbon into “solein” is carbon neutral may prove inaccurate.
The problem is not the cow – but the how – how we manage our agriculture – it seems to me that a regenerative agricultural approach would be a lot more promising and have a lot less possible unexpected consequences than these technologies. They seem to divorce us further from the biological connection to our planetary life support system rather than increasing our sense of connection and interdependence. They also are being put forward as “investment” opportunities with big hype and claims – Which at my age reminds me of much I have heard before.
A healthy living soil is probably our best option for sequestering carbon AND producing nutrient dense food AND helping us be more resilient and buffered in the face of potential flood or drought. But this requires a widespread, dispersed approach and a change in MANAGEMENT – not patentable marketable technology.
So – Interesting but it doesn’t appeal to me and I’m not going to switch from being an ecological farmer to a solein factory technician. I think there is a lot more life, joy and good food in a garden than a vat.
I think this is interesting but it must come with some major caveats.
1. Nobody should think of this as a way of “using” excess CO2. The amount of carbon consumed by humans (and all other animals and microbes) is only a fraction (10%, maybe) of the amount fixed by plants. And almost 100% of everything animals consume is released back to the air! If we take adult humans as the obvious example, we don’t gain weight continually as we age (anyone who does would become morbidly obese, and would presumably die as a result!). So all (or 99.9%!) of the proteins, carbs and fats adult humans eat in a single day are respired, or excreted, within hours or days. (Children that are growing up would retain slightly more obviously—but adults are generally only maintaining their body mass.) When we die, whatever is left decomposes, leaving only bones (and animal bones are really not a significant carbon sink!!)
2. Assuming the energy used to synthesize the protein is 100% from renewable sources (wind, solar, etc) then it makes some sense.
I am all for using forests, agricultural systems and wetlands to take up CO2. But forests and productive soils are becoming increasingly degraded: the “natural carbon sinks” are small and must be managed carefully.
However, the fact is that photosynthesis is generally less than 1% efficient in turning light energy into carbohydrate. (Prob less than 0.1% for plant protein.)
Growing plants to generate electricity is even less efficient as the material has to grow, reach a useful size, and then be harvested and transported to a power generation facility. In comparison, solar panels are typically 15-20% efficient (currently—with potential for further improvements?). And once a PV panel is constructed and installed, the conversion from light photons to electrons is instant! So an optimized industrial process to use solar or wind power to produce synthetic protein should be many times more efficient (in terms of tonnes of protein per hectare of land (or ocean) per year) than growing grass to feed cattle or even rabbits or chickens.
3. Something in the story suggests a major error in reporting: if the factory produces 1000 tonnes annually, how does that equate to 500 million meals per year? 1000 tonnes is 1 million kg or 1 billion grams. That means each meal would contain an average of precisely 2 grams of solein! Not even a mouthful!!
Bottom line: solein sounds very interesting! But beware the hype! Hmm. Just occurred to me that “solein” sounds rather like a contraction of “soylent green”!!!
My first impulse is to have a very high concern about actual nutrition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_calories
Granulated sugar supplies energy, but no nutrition other than calories In human nutrition, the term empty calories applies to foods and beverages composed primarily or solely of sugar, fats or oils, or alcohol-containing beverages.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-empty-calories
When a food provides primarily calories, and little else of value to our health, we say that food has “empty calories.” Examples include beverages like sugary soda, and foods like buttery pastries. They provide little health value. You can get all the calories you need from foods other than these-foods that contain other healthful ingredients. Another problem with foods said to contain “empty… ”
—
Reminds me of:
2019-07-09 SoilAssociation: Ongoing intensification of global food production unlikely to solve nutrition crisis, says UN report
see:
https://soilandnutrition.org/
Growing the Movement Around Food Quality
The Soil & Nutrition Conference is offered by the Bionutrient Food Association.
http://www.bionutrient.org, 411 Sheldon Rd, Barre, MA 01005 CC: info@bionutrient.org
Some say that only by increasing biodiversity in our food systems will we help to increase resilience, improve nutrition and improve farming profitability — at the same time as we help to lead us on a path toward achieving Drawdown.
//:0
note also: “World Nutrition Day” happens every July 10
see also: https://www.academia.edu/34700168/Nutrition_a_contested_arena_in_food_sovereignty_struggles
Byron Jiménez Ponce
Nutrition, a contested arena in food sovereignty struggles
Worldwide, the double burden of malnutrition in all forms has become a centre of debates and arguments because the major states’ failures to fight it in different levels. Also, governments are easily influenced by international organizations to maintain productionist lines to satisfy the newly created patterns of food demands in benefit to the large agroindustrial sector. As a response, food and agrarian movements are claiming for greater state’s support to local networks and self production-consumption in nutritional frontlines and traditional diets making a strong emphasis in having different concepts of healthy food.
—
Ref website article:
https://tosavetheworld.ca/13-sdg-food-water/
Yes, as Ann writes, food supplies measured in calories, have been known to be in surplus for many decades. It is a wonder that it is so hard to penetrate wider awareness, although given propaganda about “feeding the world,” perhaps not a wonder at all. As the IPES food report concludes, “feeding the world narratives” are one of the lock-ins preventing change in the food system.
I have lectured on this at Metta’s request (old times in Science for Peace), including measurement, and also how the politics of surpluses beginning after WWII brought all this about (and at the expense of nourishing horticulture crops). Best wishes, Harriet
Harriet Friedmann
Professor Emerita of Sociology
Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy
University of Toronto
1 Devonshire Place
Toronto, ON, M5S 3K7
Canada
http://www.harrietfriedmann.ca
NASA’s idea for making food from thin air just became a reality — it could feed billions
Here’s why you might eat greenhouse gases in the future.
By ROBBY BERMAN
19 July, 2019
Jordane Mathieu on Unsplash
It’s not like you can make food out of thin air. Well…it turns out you can. A company from Finland, Solar Foods, is planning to bring to market a new protein powder, Solein, made out of CO₂, water and electricity. It’s a high-protein, flour-like ingredient that contains 50 percent protein content, 5–10 percent fat, and 20–25 percent carbs. It reportedly looks and tastes like wheat flour, and could become an ingredient in a wide variety of food products after its initial launch in 2021.
It’s likely to first appear on grocery shelves in protein shakes and yogurt. It could be an exciting development: Solein’s manufacturing process is carbon neutral and the potential for scalability seems unlimited — we’ve got too much CO₂, if anything. Why not get rid of some greenhouse gas with a side of fries?
Seriously sustainable
Solar Foods makes Solein by extracting CO₂ from air using carbon-capture technology, and then combines it with water, nutrients and vitamins, using 100 percent renewable solar energy from partner Fortum to promote a natural fermentation process similar to the one that produces yeast and lactic acid bacteria.
When the company claims its single-celled protein is “free from agricultural limitations,” they’re not kidding. Being produced indoors means Solar Foods is not dependent on arable land, water (i.e., rain), or favorable weather.
The company is already working with the European Space Agency to develop foods for off-planet production and consumption. (The idea for Solein actually began at NASA.) They also see potential in bringing protein production to areas whose climate or ground conditions make conventional agriculture impossible.
And let’s not forget all those beef-free burgers based on pea and soy proteins currently gaining popularity. The environmental challenge of scaling up the supply of those plants to meet their high demand may provide an opening for the completely renewable Solein — the company could provide companies that produce animal-free “meats,” such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, a way to further reduce their environmental impact.
The larger promise
The impact of the beef — and for that matter, poultry, pork, and fish — industries on our planet is widely recognized as one of the main drivers behind climate change, pollution, habitat loss, and antibiotic-resistant illness. From the cutting down of rainforests for cattle-grazing land, to runoff from factory farming of livestock and plants, to the disruption of the marine food chain, to the overuse of antibiotics in food animals, it’s been disastrous.
The advent of a promising source of protein derived from two of the most renewable things we have, CO₂ and sunlight, gets us out of the planet-destruction business at the same time as it offers the promise of a stable, long-term solution to one of the world’s most fundamental nutritional needs.
While company plans are always moderated by unforeseen events — including the availability of sufficient funding — Solar Foods plans a global commercial rollout for Solein in 2021 and to be producing two million meals annually, with a revenue of $800 million to $1.2 billion by 2023. By 2050, they hope to be providing sustenance to 9 billion people as part of a $500 billion protein market.
The project began in 2018, and this year, they anticipate achieving three things: Launching Solein (check), beginning the approval process certifying its safety as a Novel Food in the EU, and publishing plans for a 1,000-metric ton-per-year factory capable of producing 500 million meals annually.
The following poem is in consideration of the countless worldwide for whom there’s nothing to be thankful on Thanksgiving Day—nor any other day, for that matter—COVID-19 or not …
(Dis)GRACE
Pass me the holiday turkey, peas
and the delicious stuffing flanked
by buttered potatoes with gravy
since I’ve said grace with plenty ease,
for the good food received I’ve thanked
my Maker who’s found me worthy.
It seems that unlike the many of those
in the unlucky Third World nation,
I’ve been found by God deserving
to not have to endure the awful woes
and the stomach wrenching starvation
suffered by them with no dinner serving.
Therefore hand over to me the corn
the cranberry sauce, fresh baked bread
since for my grub I’ve praised the Lord,
yet I need not hear about those born
whose meal I’ve been granted instead,
as they receive naught of the grand hoard.
How do countries check their soil health? Is there an overseeing body, or is it up to agriculture corporations?
Mountains Of Food Wasted As Coronavirus Scrambles Supply Chain
By: Susie Cagle
9 April 2020
“Billions of dollars worth of food is going to waste as growers and producers from California to Florida are facing a massive surplus of highly perishable items.
As US food banks handle record demand and grocery stores struggle to keep shelves stocked, farmers are dumping fresh milk and plowing vegetables back into the dirt as the shutdown of the food service industry has scrambled the supply chain. Roughly half the food grown in the US was previously destined for restaurants, schools, stadiums, theme parks and cruise ships.
The impact could be up to $1.32bn from March to May in farm losses alone, according to a National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition report.”
Read more
“Agriculture officials insist that the supply itself is not in question, but matching that supply with demand and getting it to where it’s needed most is a new and urgent problem.
This time last year, half of Paul Allen’s green bean and cabbage crops at RC Hatton farms in Pahokee, Florida, would have been destined for food service. Now he’s plowing 5m to 6m pounds of vegetables back into his fields.
“Retail cannot absorb it,” he said. “Whatever else you’ve got just goes unharvested and you’ve got to mulch it back into the ground.”
Allen is far from alone. He laments the circumstances his tomato-growing friends find themselves in, with 80% or more of their crops previously bound for food service. “Everybody’s in the same situation.”
South Florida is a major producer of vegetables for US consumers, especially in the winter and early spring. Now, for many farmers, the cost to pick and pack that produce is higher than the market price.
“It’s all combined to just be a disastrous situation for south Florida growers, who actually had a bumper crop coming into the harvest season,” said Lisa Lochridge, director of public affairs for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association.
“This is really having a disproportionate effect on warm-weather states and smaller farms,” said Kara Heckert, California regional director for the American Farmland Trust. “It was kind of an overnight shift to at least a significant portion of the food system.”
Strawberries on the California coast and lettuce in the Salinas Valley “salad bowl” – which grows roughly 70% of the nation’s lettuce crop – have been hit particularly hard. And efforts to keep farmworkers safe and socially distanced in the fields mean even slower harvesting.
“There’s still a lot being left on the field, and a lot is being tilled underground,” said Heckert. More still is sitting in storage facilities.
Dairy producers in Wisconsin, Vermont and other states have taken to dumping excess milk en masse, flooding their fields or pouring it down drains in production facilities. The loss of food service business, particularly schools systems that are large buyers of dairy products, has left producers with a highly perishable glut that they can’t easily resolve.
Preparing and packaging food for retail as opposed to wholesale, and getting it packed and shipped on trucks, is an entirely new and expensive problem. And spring is an especially productive season for dairy cows, leading to even more supply in a time with even less demand. Over the last six weeks, US dairy futures prices have nosedived.
Still, said Heckert, there’s confusion over where the pipeline is facing the most stress. “A lot of the grocery stores are limiting how much milk people can buy, thinking it’s going to run out. There’s a disconnect there.”
Farmers filling the gaps
For farmers with direct-to-consumer produce box services, the chaos has been a boon. In the northern San Francisco Bay area, every farm delivery program is full, some with waiting lists in the hundreds.
“We’re using this as an opportunity to encourage collaboration and farmers working together to try to fill the gaps in this disruption,” said Evan Wiig, membership director at the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, which is working to pair farms that previously sold direct to schools and restaurants with already established delivery logistics.
“It’s been kind of a mad rush to figure out supply and demand and who needs what, who has what,” he said. “This is usually something that you do carefully over the course of an entire year. And here we are trying to do it in a matter of a week in order to prevent the closure of the farms, and also a lot of food waste.”
Before the coronavirus, nearly all of Brothers Produce business was food service and school delivery. In March, Brent Erenwert, CEO of the Houston, Texas, food distributor, created an entirely new model to keep his employees in business and his company afloat: selling produce boxes with fruits, vegetables, eggs and milk through co-ops in the region, and direct to customers online.
“Some consumers don’t feel safe going to the grocery store, unfortunately, because of too many people being there. I know how to get that product safely to a consumer’s hand,” said Erenwert. “The biggest thing was to keep my employees’ jobs and keep the supply chain moving – because if people see the supply chain stop, they go into even more of a panic.”
But that supply chain is missing a crucial link, bridging the gap between food that would be wasted and a growing need in food banks nationwide.
Many growers already reeling from huge losses in sales aren’t able to further eat the cost of harvesting, packing and transporting crops to needy food banks without any financial aid. Florida growers have asked the US Department of Agriculture to buy the surplus produce so it could be donated to people in need without further hurting farm finances. The California department of food and agriculture is partnering with the California Association of Food Banks to provide funding and resources for farm donations to feeding programs across the state.
Still, there’s only so much that food banks can take.
“What’s really weird right now in the supply chain is the grocery stores seem to be pretty heavy on product, farmers are throwing away stuff, and food banks are full. We don’t know where the demand lies,” said Erenwert.
“We’re working with the state to try to get it to charities. But quite frankly, a lot of those avenues are full,” said Paul Allen, a Florida vegetable grower. “They can’t absorb it all, no way.”
Food banks aren’t set up to be warehouses for such vast quantities of stranded and highly perishable food.
“Everything under the sun produce-wise is showing up. We’re getting the cream of the crop,” said Brian Greene, CEO of Houston Food Bank. “We have a potential bonanza – now we’re working on the ability to capitalize on it. All the food banks have to solve this puzzle. What are the partnerships we set up so we can utilize this? Because we’re not going to get the other things.”
With shelf-stable staple goods selling out at markets nationwide, food banks are finding it difficult to secure surplus dry and frozen goods. This influx of produce could help shore up a dip in donations, but it requires more workers and volunteers to sort and package the food when charities are in short supply of helping hands. There’s no doubt, said Greene, that much of this food will unfortunately still go to waste.
“The reality is what makes the food chain work normally is there are just tens of thousands of arrangements that have been developed over time in order to match supply and demand. Then you just suddenly break all that and you’re trying to, with voluntary relationships, piece something together in a very short timeframe,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of failure.”
These are excerpts from the article below:
Title: ‘A Disastrous Situation’ : Mountains Of Food Wasted As Coronavirus Scrambles Supply Chain
Author: Cagle, Susie
Publication(s): The Guardian
Date: 9 April 2020
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/us-coronavirus-outbreak-agriculture-food-supply-waste
The short documentary “How Chinese Refugees Saved the Sweet Potato” offers an interesting perspective on the importance of crop resilience (in this context kumara – a type of sweet potato). Crop resilience is a vital element of famine prevention.
More information below:
Read more
Title: How Chinese Refugees Saved the Sweet Potato
Author: Ajaka, Nadine
Publication(s): The Atlantic
Date: 19 August 2016
Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/496655/chinese-refugees-saved-the-kumara/
This Is the “Most Economically Important” Fern on Earth
By Sarah Sloat
One species of fern (Azolla) has potential as a biofuel and major carbon sink. Of note is that “millions of years ago, this fern “sequestered so much carbon that it switched the globe out of ‘hothouse’ conditions into the relatively cooler conditions that we experience now.”/
“Much like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, the fern Azolla filiculoides proves that the small can certainly pack a punch. This minuscule water fern, which has leaves the size of a single gnat, was the focus of a 2018 study published in Nature Plants. Scientists say the bright green plant is complete with unique capabilities — and has the potential to help us mitigate the effects of climate change.
Read more
In the study, an international team of scientists announced they successfully sequenced the A. filiculoids genome as well as the genome of another floating fern known as Salvina cucullata. Co-author and University of California Berkeley integrative biology professor Carl Rothfels, Ph.D. tells Inverse that having these genomes brings scientists one step closer to “understanding some of the crazy biology of these particular species.”
Rothfels says that one of the most “extraordinary features” of this fern is its ability to have a symbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria, which in turn gives it the ability to “fix” nitrogen. Nitrogen fixation is the process by which plants use the chemical element as a fertilizer: Most plants typically can’t do this alone, but the blue-green cyanobacteria that live in the Azolla leaves allow for this process to happen. In turn, Azolla can sustain rapid growth in favorable conditions.
That’s important for multiple reasons, the first being that the fern shows “great promise as a biofuel,” says Rothfel. While it’s been used as a fertilizer for rice paddies in Asia for the past 1,000 years, he and his team are now curious to know whether it could be used as a sustainable fertilizer elsewhere. Its ability to help agricultural crops is compounded by its resistance to pests: Farmers have noticed for decades that bugs generally don’t like ferns, and now the sequencing of the Azolla genome reveals it carries certain genetic mutations that allow it to repel insects.
All of this has earned Azolla the nickname “green manure,” and co-author and Cornell University assistant professor Fay-Wei Li, Ph.D. says it is “perhaps the most economically important fern that has ever lived!”
But Li and Rothfel both note that the fern’s incredible ability to grow and thrive could help humans save themselves from climate change. In fact, it’s actually helped out the planet before.
“There was a massive Azolla bloom in the Arctic 50 million years ago so large that geologists believe it drove down a significant amount of C02 (carbon dioxide) and helped cool the Earth,” says Li.
That means that Azolla, one of the fastest-growing plants on the planet, has the potential to be a significant carbon sink today. A massive rise in modern-day atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are directly linked to the warming of the planet and overall climate change.
Millions of years ago, this fern “sequestered so much carbon that it switched the globe out of ‘hothouse’ conditions into the relatively cooler conditions that we experience now,” says Rothfel. If we grow a huge amount of this tiny plant, we might be able to make that happen again.”
But you CAN tell if the food is bad. It tastes bad or smells bad or has mold on it. Well, at least you can tell if it is SPOILED. I admit, if you go abroad and eat everything you see on the menu of cheap restaurants, you may get dysentery or something. That not because of the age of the food but because the cook has a different microbiome than you have and you are not compatible. I don’t have any recommendations for preventing that, but it is an altogether different problem.
“Seed: The Untold Story”
For those of you looking for an interesting film to watch, I highly recommend PBS’ Documentary “Seed: The Untold Story.” The documentary discusses how an estimated 94% of vegetable varieties went extinct in the 20th century and the critical importance of preserving seed diversity for human security. It is noted in the documentary that many varieties of vegetables shown in old paintings and photographs have since vanished. There is hope that some seeds have been preserved.
Read more
Of note is that a loss of seed diversity and increased monoculture planting has opened up a number of avenues for agricultural diseases and pests to wreck mass havoc on food supplies. This is being seen already with banana crops, as almost all commercial bananas are clones and a fungus blight (Panama disease) is wiping out banana crops in a number of regions. This happened once before – in the mid-twentieth century – resulting in the shift from Gros Michel to Cavendish bananas – which were thought to be more resistant to the fungus (though an increasing number of Cavendish banana plants are succumbing to the blight). In monoclonal or monoculture agriculture, virtually all of the plants have the same and/or extremely similar DNA – leaving them open to the same vulnerabilities.
The PBS documentary “Seed: The Untold Story” additionally features a number of important individuals, including Jane Goodall, Will Bonsall, and Vandana Shiva – among others. Here is a link to the documentary website (including a trailer): https://www.seedthemovie.com/
Attached below is an article about Will Bonsall’s initiative. Mr. Bonsall has one of the largest private seed collections in the world – including many “lost,” heirloom, and rare vegetable varieties. These are important for a number of reasons, including cultural purposes (such as Indigenous cultural revitalization), as well as in that some varieties may be resistant to agricultural diseases, or are more resistant to changing climates and environments. Mr. Bonsall is noted to have donated a number of seeds to various institutions, including research and seed-saving organizations.
Title: The Maine Farmer Saving the World’s Rarest Heirloom Seeds
Author: Poppick, Laura
Publication(s):
Date: April 2020
Link: https://downeast.com/land-wildlife/rare-heirloom-seeds
Tell me if it’s spoiled
What if you can’t tell if the food is bad? Don’t you think it’s important for regulations to be in place to inform people of whether or not the food has gone bad, or at least to give expected dates? Sometimes, you just can’t tell!
COVID-19 Tests Resilience of Agriculture Community
By: Toban Dyck
March 16 2020
“In 1918, Canadian farmers seeded 17,354,000 acres of wheat, up from 14,756,000 the year before. Dry bean acres increased during the same period from 93,000 to 229,000, according to Statistics Canada.
Prime Minister Robert Borden’s Conservative government at the time urged Canadian farmers to increase production to feed our First World War soldiers in Great Britain and those at home while ensuring there were enough reserves to send overseas as aide to the nation’s allies.”
Read more
“In the spring of 1918, the federally operated and newly minted Food Board, a regulatory body in charge of ensuring food remained affordable and in good supply, bought more than 1,000 tractors and sold them to farmers at cost as a way to support the requested increase in production, according to Canada’s War Effort 1914 – 1918 , issued by the Director of Public Information in Ottawa in 1918. It was also the year the Spanish Flu spread across the nation, in the end killing more than 50,000 Canadians, most of them between the ages of 20 and 40.
This was a watershed year for agriculture in Canada. It was a year the industry increased its resilience. After the First World War, farm-gate sales changed from a representation of how hard a farmer worked to how well he or she could turn a profit in an increasingly global and regulated marketplace. Farmers became professionals in a way they weren’t previously.
Agriculture in 2020 needs its own dose of resilience.
The markets are poor. Talks with China over canola exports have been suspended over COVID-19 fears. Soybeans have suffered a similar fate at the same hand. That market isn’t rallying in any significant way, either.
Land prices remain high. Machinery costs, too, represent a time when companies felt vindicated in adding bells and whistles to new model years all at additional costs that profit margins could justify. It’s been a few years since that line of reasoning bore any meaningful connection to how things are on the average crop farm in Canada.
Transportation disruptions have cost the agricultural industry in ways it hasn’t fully seen yet. Demurrage is a cost that gets passed down the line to the primary producer — the farmer — and there is still a backlog of bulk vessels waiting at port. That expense line is still growing.
Amid these disparate and disruptive elements, there’s the seemingly galvanized skepticism towards our current government’s ability to draw and follow a proper roadmap for agriculture to thrive in Canada.
Then, as our cultural and political scaffolding of popsicle sticks come unglued and institutions like the NHL, NBA and awards ceremonies start to fall away over COVID-19, we’re left to make sense of another disruption. This one is not terrible, but social isolation is a hard thing for the average person to interpret as anything other than cause for panic, regardless of the fact that it should be far from panic inducing.
This will affect the markets. COVID-19 will affect things in ways that are difficult to foresee, as the news is changing every minute and regulators are making bold, unpredictable and immediate moves.
The industry will work on restoring markets. Machinery and land are ultimately vulnerable to what people are able and/or willing to spend. Canada and other affected countries will do their best to contain and control COVID-19, transportation systems will get back on-track and governments come and go.
The agricultural sector has a lineage of resilience. It has survived the Great Depression, two world wars and the high interest rates of the ‘80s (not without casualties, however).”
Title: The resilience of the agriculture community is being tested anew amid the COVID-19 outbreak
Author: Dyck, Toban
Publication(s): The Chronicle Herald
Date: 16 March 2020
Link: https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/business/perspectives-on-business/the-resilience-of-the-agriculture-community-is-being-tested-anew-amid-the-covid-19-outbreak-424674/
Notes:
Canadian Cacti: YUM!
Did you know that Canada has several native cacti species? These are all in the Opuntia family of cacti – commonly called prickly pears. Opuntia are more commonly found in Latin America, Mexico, and the Southwestern USA, though they grow throughout the Americas. Indigenous and Latin American peoples have used the species for centuries as sources of dyes, fibers, and food. One common cuisine produced from Opuntia are Nopales——grilled cacti pad. Cooks prefer thornless varieties. Prior to colonization, cacti were only native to the Americas.
Read more
However – attention has been drawn to the species in recent years due to its drought resistance and its potential to become an essential crop in areas presently facing and/or at risk of droughts. The cactis are a source of minerals and additionally store significant quantities of water in arid and desert environments.
Here is a report from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization about the benefits of Opuntia:
Title: Cactus pear deserves a place on the menu: Turning a useful food-of-last-resort into a managed and valuable crop
Author: Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations
Date: 30 November 2017
News Agency: Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations
Link: http://www.fao.org/fao-stories/article/en/c/1070166/
Article Excerpt:
“Climate change and the increasing risks of droughts are strong reasons to upgrade the humble cactus to the status of an essential crop in many areas,” said Hans Dreyer, director of FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division.
Cactus pear cultivation is slowly catching on, boosted by growing need for resilience in the face of drought, degraded soils and higher temperatures. It has a long tradition in its native Mexico, where yearly per capita consumption of nopalitos – the tasty young pads, known as cladodes – is 6.4 kilograms. Opuntias are grown on small farms and harvested in the wild on more than 3 million hectares, and increasingly grown using drip irrigation techniques on smallholder farms as a primary or supplemental crop. Today, Brazil is home to more than 500,000 hectares of cactus plantations aimed to provide forage. The plant is also commonly grown on farms in North Africa and Ethiopia’s Tigray region has around 360,000 hectares of which half are managed.
The cactus pear’s ability to thrive in arid and dry climates makes it a key player in food security. Apart from providing food, cactus stores water in its pads, thus providing a botanical well that can provide up to 180 tonnes of water per hectare – enough to sustain five adult cows, a substantial increase over typical rangeland productivity. At times of drought, livestock survival rate has been far higher on farms with cactus plantations.
Projected pressure on water resources in the future make cactus “one of the most prominent crops for the 21st century,” says Ali Nefzaoui, a Tunis-based researcher for ICARDA, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas.
Cherokee Nation Donates Indigenous Crops to the Global Seed Vault
“Earlier this week, the Cherokee Nation started to distribute its supply of heirloom seeds, which are free to any Cherokee. Last year, the Cherokee Nation Heirloom Garden and Native Plant Site distributed almost 10,000 packets of seeds to any Cherokee citizen who requested them. This seed bank was established in February 2006, and the number of participants who register to receive their two crops has steadily increased every February—although 2019 was its biggest year to date.
Read more
“Although the Global Seed Vault contains more than one million seed samples from around the world, this marks the first time that a U.S. Native American tribe has been invited to store its seeds inside the facility. Anadisgoi, the Cherokee Nation newsroom, reports that nine samples of heirloom seeds were collected to send to the vault, including Cherokee White Eagle Corn—which the tribe considers to be its “most sacred” corn—Cherokee Long Greasy Beans, Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans, and Cherokee Candy Roaster Squash.”
To read more about this article:
https://www.foodandwine.com/news/cherokee-indigenous-seed-vault-donation-norway
Micro Plastic Pollution on Mountaintops?
Do you think that these water sources are at risk of pollution or contamination? Given how there’s pollution, micro plastics and garbage even at the deepest depths of the ocean, does this also happen on mountain water towers?
Too many of us still recklessly behave as though we’re inconsequentially dispensing our non-biodegradable waste into a black-hole singularity, in which it’s compressed into nothing. Indeed, I, myself, notice every time I discard of trash, I receive a reactive Spring-cleaning-like sense of disposal satisfaction. [I even receive that sense, albeit far more innocently, when deleting and especially double-deleting email.]
It’s like it can always somehow be safely absorbed into the air, water, and land — out of sight, out of mind!
I’ll never forget the astonishingly short-sighted, entitled selfishness I observed about five years ago, when a TV news reporter randomly asked a young urbanite wearing sunglasses what he thought of government restrictions on disposable plastic straws. “It’s like we’re living in a nanny state,” he retorted with a snort, “always telling me what I can’t do.”
Astonished by his shortsighted little-boy selfishness, I wondered whether he’d be the same sort of individual who’d likely have a sufficiently grand sense of entitlement — ‘Like, don’t tell me what I can’t waste or do, dude!’ — to permit himself to now, say, deliberately dump a whole box of unused straws into the nearest body of fresh water, just to stick it to the authorities who’d dare tell him that enough is enough with our gratuitous massive dumps of plastics into our helpless oceans. He thus would give his figurative middle-finger at any new anti-plastic-waste government rule(s) with a closing, ‘There! How d’ya like that, pal!’
His carelessly entitled mentality revealed why so much gratuitous animal-life-destroying plastic waste eventually finds its way into the natural environment, where there are few, if any, caring souls to immediately see it.
Best Before Dates are a Scam!
The most important change we can make in our use of food is to reduce the amount of waste. And in Western societies, a major source of waste is the rule that food containers should state an expiration date, which it should be thrown out. This is ridiculous. People got along fine before that law came into effect. They looked at the food and if it seemed mouldy or yucky, they threw it out. Or they’d smell it or even taste it. Milk products often need to be tasted. But I know lots of people now who look at the label on the can an automatically toss it out. Food doesn’t go bad at a specific date. It depends on the environment it’s kept in. And the manufacturers dont know that. They just make up a date. It’s meaningless. Smell it and look at it before you decide there is something wrong with food!
How much of Canada’s produce is sourced from Southern Africa?
Southern Africa has routinely faced droughts and famines. I am routinely shocked to see how much produce in Canada comes from South Africa, such as apples, grapes, etc. – in addition to the water intense wine industry.
Is there an opportunity to source produce and wine from a more ecologically friendly region? What impacts would this have on the regional economies of southern Africa? Are these products coming from large – often international – corporations – or are they coming from small-scale, regional farmers? I am additionally shocked how many residents of Southern Africa (not just South Africa) are facing famine like conditions – such as the 45 million individuals with severely insecure food sources.
Read more
Pie Kamau recently released an article on this in Africa Agribusiness on 16 January 2020:
Link: https://africabusinesscommunities.com/agribusiness/news/southern-africa-in-throes-of-climate-emergency-45-million-people-facing-hunger-across-the-region-wfp/
“A record 45 million people, mostly women and children in the 16-nation Southern African Development Community are gravely food insecure following repeated drought, widespread flooding and economic disarray.
As the crisis deepens, the world must step up now to save lives and enable communities to adapt to climate change, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned. “This hunger crisis is on a scale we’ve not seen before and the evidence shows it’s going to get worse,” said Lola Castro, WFP’s Regional Director for Southern Africa. “The annual cyclone season has begun, and we simply cannot afford a repeat of the devastation caused by last year’s unprecedented storms”.”
It is important to note that many of the individuals facing food insecurity in this region have little direct involvement with the food being exported, it is still critical to question the role that large-scale agriculture in this region has and whether there is opportunity to better distribute these resources for the benefit of regional residents.
I keep coming across references to the usefulness of feeding seaweed to cows. How much does that reduce methane emissions?
Almond Milk Is Even More Evil Than You Thought
“In the past five years, almond milk consumption in the United States has exploded over 250 percent. The lower-calorie, vegan milk alternative is a staple in grocery stores and coffee shops across the country now, but its booming popularity comes at a heavy environmental cost. According to a new report from the Guardian this week, the titanic and growing demands of the California almond industry are placing a huge strain on the hives of bees used to pollinate their orchards, wiping out billions of honeybees in a matter of months.”
“The high mortality rate among bees who pollinate almonds, beekeepers believe, is due in part to the enormous quantities of pesticides used on almonds — far more than any other crop in California, whose Central Valley region is responsible for more than 80 percent of the world’s almond supply. What’s more, almond pollination is especially demanding for bees, because they need to wake up from their annual period of winter dormancy one to two months earlier than usual to begin. Then, once they start, massive numbers of bees are concentrated in small geographic areas, making it easier for diseases to spread among them.”
Read more
Link: https://www.thecut.com/2020/01/almond-milk-honeybee-deaths.html
Hi Doug,
Your comment is partially right in that cow burps (enteric methane) are the major source of methane from agricultural systems – we address this issue in detail in the actual report, which we would encourage you to check out if you haven’t already. On page one, and in Figure 2 on page 8, we note that enteric methane from livestock at 32% is the number two contributor to GHGs behind only N20 from fertilized soil. GHG from manure storage facilities (which is both methane and N2O) ranks as third at 14%.
Read more
A cow fed to maturity on pasture usually does release more methane than a cow in a feedlot mainly because the cow in the feedlot gains weight more quickly and is slaughtered sooner. But the total GHG footprint, using life cycle assessment, of feedlot cattle is much higher than cattle on management intensive grazing (MIG). Furthermore the vast majority of cows (94 to 97%) mature on feedlots, not on pasture, so the totals (even if just from enteric methane) are much lower from pasture than from feedlots. Lastly, improving forage quality in MIG has shown a 30% reduction in enteric methane (see pages 25-26 and page 38 of the report).
We apologize for the unclear description in the blog, and will adjust the sentence in question to more specifically refer to *recent increases in methane production.
WARNING: The Glaciers are Melting
Globally, between 1 and 2 billion people (20-22% of the world’s total population as of 2020) rely on “mountain water towers” – often interpreted as glacier meltwater – for their drinking and household water. These same water systems additionally have vital roles in natural ecology – supplying water for many ecosystems. These water sources are important in years of drought as they maintain a reservoir source of water even in the event of little to no rainfall. However, climate change is accelerating the rate of glacial melt – putting these whole systems and those reliant on them at risk. If global heating can be limited to 1.5°C, the world could retain 75% of its mountain glacier area and avoid the most significant impacts. Ultimately, these systems sit at the crux of geopolitics, environmental health, and human health.
Ben Cousins – a journalist at CTV news – offers a summary of concerns around these vital water systems: “An article in the journal “Nature” and in partnership with National Geographic and Rolex, found the world’s 78 mountain-based glacier systems, known as “mountain water towers,” are at risk due to climate change, over population and mismanagement of water resources.
Read more
These mountain water towers are critical to the world’s water supply because they store and transport fresh water to communities through glaciers, lakes and streams. The researchers, comprised of 32 scientists from around the world, assessed the 78 water towers and ranked them based on how much people in the area rely upon them. They found that the Indus water tower, located in the Himalayas and covering portions of Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan, is both the most relied-upon system and also one of the most vulnerable. The Rocky Mountains water tower was labelled as the most important in North America.”
Link: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/climate-change-threatens-water-resources-for-1-9-billion-people-study-reveals-1.4722622
Here is the link to the original article in “Nature” published December 2019 by Prof. Walter W. Immerzeel and a team at the University of Utrecht University and FutureWater – Netherlands-based research institutes. There whole project involves 32 researchers on the team – spanning several countries and institutes.
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1822-y
Jonathan Amos at the BBC additionally offered an interpretation of these findings.
“These are the 78 mountainous regions that are able to generate and then store vast quantities of water.
They deliver it in a controlled way to major populations living downstream.
The Dutch-led team finds Asia’s Indus basin – fed by the Himalayan, Karakoram, Hindu-Kush, and Ladakh ranges – to be the most important storage unit on the planet.
Its waters, produced at high elevation from rain and snow, and draining from lakes and glaciers, support more than 200 million people settled across parts of Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan.
But the Indus water tower, the researchers point out, is also the most vulnerable on their list of 78.
It’s subject to a range of current and future pressures, from ever greater demand – for more drinking water, for increased irrigation and industry, etc – to issues that could severely curtail supply. The latter will include geopolitical tensions, given the Indus intersects national boundaries; but the most obvious threat is climate change. A warming world will disrupt precipitation patterns and denude glaciers of their storage capacity.”
[…]
“Africa does not appear in this listing, principally because it is devoid of major glacier systems. Ice bodies do exist on the continent, in places such as on Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, but their contribution to downstream catchments is limited.
And one of the defining aspects of the towers is the way they are able to maintain essential water supplies to populations even in drought years through the steady melt of high-elevation ice in summer months.”
Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50707138
Furthermore, Dr. Bethan Davies – a lecturer in glaciology at Royal Holloway: University of London and a researcher affiliated with the team (of 32 researchers globally) who published the paper in Nature offers the following comments in an article in the Conversation:
“The Indus basin is the most important water storage unit in Asia. Fed by rain and snow high up in the Himalayan, Karakoram, Hindu-Kush, and Ladakh mountain ranges, the water that drains from lakes and glaciers here supports 206 million people across parts of Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan. Much of it is used for irrigating crops and in industry, as well as drinking water.”
[…]
“In Europe, the Alps is the most important water tower for the number of people dependent on its supply, followed by the Rhone, Rhine and Po basins. In North America, the Fraser and Columbia basins are the most critical water towers. The river Fraser has a high natural water demand in the downstream forest ecosystem, while the Columbia basin is rich in snow and ice and has high demand for irrigation from local farms. In South America, the South Chile, South Argentina, Negro, La Puna and North Chile water towers are the most critical suppliers of water to the thirsty South Atlantic and South Pacific coasts.”
[…]
“If global heating can be limited to 1.5°C, the world could retain 75% of its mountain glacier area and avoid the most significant impacts.”
Link: https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-mountain-water-towers-are-melting-putting-1-9-billion-people-at-risk-128501
It is vital to ask where these populations will get their water from once these mountain sources are depleted. One researcher recommended “towing” ice bergs for drinking water – but what happens when that resource melts away too? It is vital to analyze this present scenario to predict future trends in environmental and geopolitical instability as a result of water-based challenges, limitations, and trends.
Glacial Melt- An Important Source of Water
Globally, between 1 and 2 billion people (20-22% of the world’s total population as of 2020) rely on “mountain water towers” – often interpreted as glacier meltwater – for their drinking and household water. These same water systems additionally have vital roles in natural ecology – supplying water for many ecosystems. These water sources are important in years of drought as they maintain a reservoir source of water even in the event of little to no rainfall. However, climate change is accelerating the rate of glacial melt – putting these whole systems and those reliant on them at risk. If global heating can be limited to 1.5°C, the world could retain 75% of its mountain glacier area and avoid the most significant impacts. Ultimately, these systems sit at the crux of geopolitics, environmental health, and human health.
Read more
Ben Cousins – a journalist at CTV news – offers a summary of concerns around these vital water systems:
“An article in the journal “Nature” and in partnership with National Geographic and Rolex, found the world’s 78 mountain-based glacier systems, known as “mountain water towers,” are at risk due to climate change, over population and mismanagement of water resources. These mountain water towers are critical to the world’s water supply because they store and transport fresh water to communities through glaciers, lakes and streams. The researchers, comprised of 32 scientists from around the world, assessed the 78 water towers and ranked them based on how much people in the area rely upon them. They found that the Indus water tower, located in the Himalayas and covering portions of Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan, is both the most relied-upon system and also one of the most vulnerable. The Rocky Mountains water tower was labelled as the most important in North America.”
Link: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/climate-change-threatens-water-resources-for-1-9-billion-people-study-reveals-1.4722622
Here is the link to the original article in “Nature” published December 2019 by Prof. Walter W. Immerzeel and a team at the University of Utrecht University and FutureWater — Netherlands-based research institutes. Their whole project involves 32 researchers on the team — spanning several countries and institutes: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1822-y
Jonathan Amos at the BBC additionally offered an interpretation of these findings.
“These are the 78 mountainous regions that are able to generate and then store vast quantities of water.
They deliver it in a controlled way to major populations living downstream.
The Dutch-led team finds Asia’s Indus basin – fed by the Himalayan, Karakoram, Hindu-Kush, and Ladakh ranges – to be the most important storage unit on the planet.
Its waters, produced at high elevation from rain and snow, and draining from lakes and glaciers, support more than 200 million people settled across parts of Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan.
But the Indus water tower, the researchers point out, is also the most vulnerable on their list of 78.
It’s subject to a range of current and future pressures, from ever greater demand – for more drinking water, for increased irrigation and industry, etc – to issues that could severely curtail supply. The latter will include geopolitical tensions, given the Indus intersects national boundaries; but the most obvious threat is climate change. A warming world will disrupt precipitation patterns and denude glaciers of their storage capacity.”
[…]
“Africa does not appear in this listing, principally because it is devoid of major glacier systems. Ice bodies do exist on the continent, in places such as on Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, but their contribution to downstream catchments is limited.
And one of the defining aspects of the towers is the way they are able to maintain essential water supplies to populations even in drought years through the steady melt of high-elevation ice in summer months.”
Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50707138
Furthermore, Dr. Bethan Davies – a lecturer in glaciology at Royal Holloway: University of London and a researcher affiliated with the team (of 32 researchers globally) who published the paper in Nature offers the following comments in an article in the Conversation:
“The Indus basin is the most important water storage unit in Asia. Fed by rain and snow high up in the Himalayan, Karakoram, Hindu-Kush, and Ladakh mountain ranges, the water that drains from lakes and glaciers here supports 206 million people across parts of Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan. Much of it is used for irrigating crops and in industry, as well as drinking water.”
[…]
“In Europe, the Alps is the most important water tower for the number of people dependent on its supply, followed by the Rhone, Rhine and Po basins. In North America, the Fraser and Columbia basins are the most critical water towers. The river Fraser has a high natural water demand in the downstream forest ecosystem, while the Columbia basin is rich in snow and ice and has high demand for irrigation from local farms. In South America, the South Chile, South Argentina, Negro, La Puna and North Chile water towers are the most critical suppliers of water to the thirsty South Atlantic and South Pacific coasts.”
[…]
“If global heating can be limited to 1.5°C, the world could retain 75% of its mountain glacier area and avoid the most significant impacts.”
Link: https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-mountain-water-towers-are-melting-putting-1-9-billion-people-at-risk-128501
It is vital to ask where these populations will get their water from once these mountain sources are depleted. One researcher recommended “towing” ice bergs for drinking water – but what happens when that resource melts away too? It is vital to analyze this present scenario to predict future trends in environmental and geopolitical instability as a result of water-based challenges, limitations, and trends.
Thanks for the link.
How Eating Seaweed Can Help Cows to Belch Less Methane
Hi Metta,
The Yale Environmental Law Review published an article in July 2018.
Unfortunately, the article notes that only a specific species of seaweed reduces methane emissions in cows. This species, Asparagopsis taxiformis, (a type of red algae) is endemic to tropical waters. Traditional Hawaiian cuisine sometimes incorporates this seaweed into dishes. Apparently getting cattle to eat the stuff can be difficult at first – as some cattle are picky eaters – so researchers sometimes mix it with molasses.
The article additionally notes some regions such as Ancient Greece. 18th century Iceland, and modern day Prince Edward Island (Canada) would graze cattle along beaches — so it is possible that cows additionally ate seaweeds in these environments — though whether it was the right type to reduce methane emissions has yet to be determined.
Read more
If this seaweed is to become a popular additive in cattle feed it is important to consider how and where it will be grown and the environmental impacts of mass seaweed farming. Additionally, how will this seaweed — which grows in tropical waters — be shipped to distant regions around the world ? Does this seaweed have the same impacts on other large animals? How much seaweed is needed per kilogram of feed to generate this methane-reducing effect? The scientist noted in Mernit’s article mentioned methane emissions could be reduced 50-58% – but did not mention how much of this seaweed is required.
Scientists have tried other techniques to reduce cattle’s emissions as well – including selectively breeding less gassy cattle and the notion of vaccinating cows with a type of methanogenic vaccine – which would alter the cattle’s stomach microbiology and hopefully replace the methanogen bacteria which cause carbon and hydrogen to convert to methane in the stomachs. This vaccine (it technically is not a vaccine from the formal definition) would replace these bacteria with a type that produces less gas.
Title: How Eating Seaweed Can Help Cows to Belch Less Methane
Author: Judith Lewis Mernit
Date: 2 July 2018
News Agency: Yale Environmental Law Review (Yale University)
Link: https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-eating-seaweed-can-help-cows-to-belch-less-methane
…
Here is a scientific study examining the link between Asparagopsis taxiformis consumption and methane emissions in cattle:
Title: Effect of the macroalgae Asparagopsis taxiformis on methane production and rumen microbiome assemblage
Author: Breanna Michell Roque et al.
Date: 12 February 2019
News Agency: Animal Microbiome (BMC / Springer Nature Journal)
A Call for Climate-Focused Agriculture Policy
By Tara Ritter, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
The current Administration has gone to great lengths to suppress climate change research, weaken key research institutions, and scrub mentions of climate change from government websites and documents. Despite these efforts, American farmers already know that the climate crisis is on our doorstep because they’ve been experiencing the negative impacts of it for years. Agriculture is among the hardest hit sectors by the climate crisis, and yet U.S. farm policy is largely devoid of climate considerations, and most climate change policy proposals insufficiently address agriculture.
Read more
As part of our efforts to arm farmers and ranchers with the tools they need to meet the challenges of climate change mitigation and adaptation head on, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) last week released a policy position paper: Agriculture and Climate Change: Policy Imperatives and Opportunities to Help Producers Meet the Challenge. This paper, which was co-authored by several members of NSAC’s Climate Change Subcommittee, reviews the latest science on climate change and agriculture and lays out policy recommendations to advance climate action that will help farmers meet the challenge and be part of the solution.
Impact of Climate Change on Farmers
Agriculture and Climate Change synthesizes the latest science on climate change to deliver concrete practice and policy recommendations to help farmers and rural communities lead the way on adaptation and mitigation solutions. There is no doubt that agriculture will face future challenges as a result of increasingly extreme fluctuations in average temperatures, rainfall patterns, and pest pressures.
In the American South, for example, farmers across the region have been experiencing record low temperatures that have led to extreme losses for South Carolina and Georgia peach farmers, Florida citrus growers, and Georgia’s Vidalia onion farmers. This increasing volatility will destabilize crop yields, contribute to livestock and farmworker stress, and increase economic uncertainty for farmers already facing the most challenging farm economy since the 1980s.
These disruptions, all of which farmers across the country are already grappling, will have disproportionately heavy impacts on low-income communities, farmers and farmworkers of color, and other historically underserved populations. Despite the disproportionate burden these communities bear, they have also historically been at the forefront of climate change advocacy and engagement – particularly our indigenous communities, farmers, and organizers.
Agriculture’s Impact on Climate
Agriculture is both impacted by climate change disruptions, and also contributes to them as a source of direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. While agriculture is a relatively minor direct emitter of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions are a bigger problem. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, agricultural soil management was the largest source of N2O emissions in the United States, accounting for nearly 74 percent of total U.S. N2O emissions in 2017. N2O is also released through fertilizer application and other practices that increase nitrogen availability in the soil.
Increases in total agricultural greenhouse emissions in the past 20 years can largely be attributed to the increasing use of liquid manure storage lagoons found on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Manure lagoons emit substantial quantities of methane, and have a much larger GHG footprint than dry stacking, while aerobic composting or evenly distributed deposition on management intensive grazing pasture produce the lowest manure-related emissions. Agriculture also indirectly contributes to climate change as carbon stored in the soil is released. This happens when land is converted from forests, native prairie, and other grasslands to annual crop production with tillage and chemical inputs.
Where Does Ag Go From Here?
A fundamental rethinking of the structure of American agriculture – and the policies that created and sustain our current system – is needed if we hope to effectively address the climate crisis.
“U.S. agriculture has largely been designed to work with non-renewable fossil fuels, abundant freshwater reserves and a period of relative stability in the climate, all of which are now in question. The next generation of farmers and ranchers will need to switch to smarter agricultural systems…”
— Agriculture and Climate Change: Policy Imperatives and Opportunities to Help Producers Meet the Challenge (2019)
Achieving an agricultural system that both adapts to and helps to mitigate climate change requires focusing on systems-based approaches to agricultural practices. While individual practices such as cover cropping or no-till can help keep carbon in the soil, integrated systems of practices based on agroecology have the greatest potential to mitigate agricultural GHG emissions and create a productive and resilient agriculture system.
Farmers’ management decisions aren’t just based on a single factor like GHG emissions, however. Farmers make planting and other production choices based on a complicated web of factors, influenced by intergenerational habits and community social norms. Corporate consolidation also factor into the choices that farmers make, primarily by restricting them – today, farmers are often confined to using certain seed varieties, chemicals, animal genetics, and management practices to meet the requirements of what the industry is selling and buying.
As the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in an October speech: “in America the big get bigger and the small go out.” This “get big or get out” sentiment is unfortunately built into current farm policy and has left many farmers struggling. The good news is that these attitudes and the policies that underpin them can be changed. We have a path forward if we are willing to follow it, and many concrete recommendations for how we can support farmers in implementing climate-smart practices are outlined in the NSAC report.
Federal Policy Climate Solutions
In Agriculture and Climate Change, NSAC takes a comprehensive look at the latest in agricultural and climate science, summarizing their analysis into 14 key research findings. Based on these findings, the paper puts forward eight policy priority areas that each include detailed recommendations, which NSAC hopes policymakers will utilize as they continue to develop and debate policies and programs to address the climate crisis.
NSAC’s overarching policy priorities on climate change are:
NSAC will deliver their policy position paper to Congress as a blueprint for policy action, and as a challenge to the Administration’s false narrative that farmers neither want nor need strong climate action. The findings of the paper will also be used to inform recommendations to the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which undertook its first hearing on climate change and agriculture just this fall.
Neil Havermale says:
November 18, 2019 at 11:01 am
This policy paper has merit. I would also ask for 2019/2020 Ag Policy Debate to include the role of the private market to provide a market mechanism that will allow a carbon conservation and sequestration policy bridge between corporate enterprise requirements to present carbon neutrality to their stock-holders?
One pathway to accelerate a national carbon sequestration policy would be to provide agricultural lands tenants and landlords special tax incentives as might regards income and long term capital gains benefits from certified soil carbon sequestration. Nationally upwards of 40 percent of harvested lands have some form of land lease upon it; some Garin Belt states this percentage may exceed 65 percent.
Offering bold conservation benefits via these land contracts might create immediate incentives to improve the investment in long-term sustainable soil health as well as to provide new farm-gate income to literally hundreds of million of acres.
https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/a-call-for-climate-focused-agriculture-policy/
Has anyone read Julian Cribb’s new book “Food or War?” What are your thoughts on the book? I just saw this article this evening and thought folks here may find it interesting – though I have personally not read their book…
““The most destructive object on the planet,” Cribb writes, “is the human jawbone.” Our agricultural ingenuity has enabled us to masterfully exploit our natural resources, Cribb maintains, but looming food insecurity, thanks to desertification, topsoil loss, dead zones in the ocean, and other climatic hazards, will ultimately lead to wars.
[…]
Read more
“War itself, of course, also results in starvation. At least 105 million people have died from famine or forced starvation since 1870, more than half the total killed in combat. And wartime malnourishment can lead to still more conflicts, as in the case of roiling civil wars that have plagued Sudan since 1955. Like Ouroboros, the mythical snake that eats itself, war and famine are deeply interconnected. […] Because “Food and War” is so unsparingly bleak — at least initially — readers may find themselves suffering from “eco-anxiety,” a despairing helplessness about the future. But the book abruptly shifts tone in the final third, projecting optimism about the technology and scientific advancements that can break the cycle of war and famine. Cribb’s proposed solutions highlight ecofriendly trends in science, agriculture, and even the dining scene that might actually ensure human survival, as well as increased efforts to ensure farmers a living wage.”
Link: https://undark.org/2019/10/25/food-production-global-conflict/
Kenya is turning ocean water into drinking water!
Katerina Papakyriakopoulou writes an article on Kenya’s first solar plant that turns ocean water into drinking water.
About 2.2 billion people in the world do not have access to drinking water services that are managed safely. bout 2.2 billion people in the world do not have access to drinking water services that are managed safely. That occurs on a planet that is 71 percent covered by that essential element for life. What seems like a contradiction, maybe the critical challenge for the future of humanity: How to turn the seawater of the oceans into drinking water. Well, the answer is located in a small town in Kenya, near the border of Somalia.
Read more
This new solar water treatment plant was developed by the NGO (non-governmental organization) GivePower. The pilot test has already improved the lives of residents of Kiunga, a small town in Kenya, and they seek to reproduce the technology in other parts of Earth. In the end, you’ll find a bonus with figures on global water consumption and the value of using it responsibly.
One in every three people in the world does not have access to drinking water, according to a report published less than two months ago by UNICEF and the World Health Organization. The conditions are worse in sub-Saharan Africa. That’s why the area was chosen to install the first solar plant system that transforms the Indian Ocean’s saltwater into clean drinking water. It’s been in operation since 2018.
Kiunga is the name of the fishing town where the project is successfully operating. It was funded by the non-profit Givepower. Thanks to its achievements, the organization is planning on replicating the project in other countries such as Haiti and Colombia.
A typical desalination plant consumes high amounts of power, and the process is expensive. It can operate only in areas which have enough facilities to produce and distribute that much energy. The NGO solved those problems by using a technology called “solar water farms,” that involve the installation of solar panels that can produce 50 kilowatts of energy, high-performance Tesla batteries to store it, and two water pumps which operate 24 hours per day.
The system can generate drinking water for 35,000 people per day. Plus, according to GivePower, the water quality is better than that of a typical desalination plant. Besides, it does not even have the negative environmental impact the process usually causes as the extraction of salt produces saline residues and pollutants which are harmful to animals and plants.
After the rainy season produced by the monsoon wind, Kiunga becomes an area of extreme drought and its 3,500 residents were forced to travel for an hour to collect water. According to Brightside, the only source they had available came from a well located on the same channel that animals used for bathing. It was full of pollutants and parasites, which could potentially cause diseases like E. coli and even death.
By 2025, half of the planet’s population will live in areas facing water scarcity. The reuse of wastewater to recover nutrients or energy is becoming a central strategy. It is the same regarding the treatment of seawater. Only 2.5 percent of the planet’s water is freshwater, a number which is declining with the effect of global warming on glaciers and icebergs.
In such circumstances, the NGO has already started to install solar panels in over 2,500 schools, businesses, and emergency services in 17 countries, and it’s raising money to fund the construction of additional “solar water farms” to improve the health of the population and reactivate the economy of areas which have been devastated by drought.
“Kenya Installs The First Solar Plant To Turn Ocean Water Into Drinking Water As A Potential Solution To The Global Water Crisis,” by Katerina Papakyriakopoulou .
https://www.thinkinghumanity.com/2019/09/kenya-installs-the-first-solar-plant-to-turn-ocean-water-into-drinking-water-as-a-potential-solution-to-the-global-water-crisis.html
Is it Ethical to Eat Meat?
One extremely important controversy about reducing global warming is whether to eat meat — and whether to raise livestock. The overwhelming preponderance of opinion holds that we should give up meat and convert land to vegetable crops and forests. But an alternative point of view is represented by the followers of Allan Savory, who insists that soil degradation can be reversed by the proper use of grazing techniques. I’d like to encourage an intelligent discussion of this issue on this website, since the evidence so far seems very mixed — and the answer is hugely important. Here is a post from a regenerative agriculturalist posted elsewhere.
Read more
I’m currently doing a course on Planned Regenerative Grazing in Australia.. This is what I have learned, as far as I understand it.
It’s not how long you graze a paddock that’s important, but how much rest it gets before you come back to it.
2. Move animals based on gut fill or before they start to eat down to the litter layer.
3. Don’t graze a paddock until the grass is at the stage where the lower leaves are decomposing and creating litter. You want to trample this litter onto the soil to build new soil. This is fundamental.
4. Use practice areas to establish how much time it takes for pasture to recover fully. Rest will allow perennial grasses to come back from the soil seed bank.
5. The idea is to have a high density of animals in a small area for a short period of time and then give paddock a long rest. In our area that’s going to be around 6 months rest. (brittle environment, 600 mm rainfall)
6. That means you need lots of paddocks. At least 30 is recommended. (I have 17) Then strip graze away from the water point in each paddock if you can.
7. Dung is a good indicator of animal health.
8. Creating a grazing plan by working out how many days you are going to graze each paddock based on its size and productivity and that will allow sufficient rest before you come back to it.
9. The hardest decision you make will be to sell stock when you realise you are overstocked. This must be done immediately. Or you have to make a decision to supplementary feed which is often not economical. Most conventional farms are overstocked.
10. Use Holistic management it integrate your planned grazing into the big picture of what you are trying to achieve.
I’m sure I’ve missed some things, but that’s the nuts and bolts of it off the top of my head. I’m just starting to implement this on our sheep property in Central Victoria.
Walking with the Starving
Following in the footsteps of Strokestown’s missing 1490 famine victims, May 25th to May 30th, 2019
This event is past, so you can’t join it, but it’s a remarkable memorial to the horrible Irish famine of 1847.
The National Famine Walk will take place over six days from May 25th to May 30th 2019 when an international group of famine walkers will launch the National Famine Way walking trail. They will follow in the footsteps of the 1490 tenants from Denis Mahon’s estate who were forced to emigrate during the summer of 1847. We will walk 167 km from Strokestown and Clondra all the way along the Royal Canal to Spenser Dock, the Jeannie Johnson Famine Ship, and Rowan Gillespie Famine sculptures in Dublin city centre.
The event recreates the journey of 1490 tenants from the Mahon estate at Strokestown Park, now the site of the Irish National Famine Museum (http://www.strokestownpark.ie/), who were escorted by Bailiff Robinson to Dublin to ensure they boarded ship and did not return home. Their journey took place in May 1847 or ‘Black 47’, one of the worst years of suffering of the Great Irish Famine.
The story of the tenants’ fate after they left Dublin is a harrowing one. They travelled on open deck packet steamers to Liverpool where they waited in the cellars of quayside buildings at Liverpool docks to board their ships to Canada. The four ships they boarded – Erin’s Queen, Naomi, The Virginius and The John Munn – were badly fitted out and poorly provisioned. Almost half of those who embarked died aboard ship or in the ‘fever sheds’ at Grosse Isle when they arrived in Quebec. Of course, this was not known to them as they walked along the Royal Canal to Dublin, away from hunger and hoping for a better life.
Read more
In 2019, the Strokestown Famine walkers will follow in their footsteps, 172 years after their original journey and blaze a new National Famine Way walking trail along the Royal Canal between Strokestown and Dublin. The Famine walkers’ journey can be followed in real time at http://www.nationalfamineway.ie. We are inviting local people to join us for stretches of the journey between May 25th and May 30th. So why not walk awhile with us, for a short or long stretch. Or become an official Walker by registering on http://www.nationalfamineway.ie keep an eye on the Website for registration to open or browse the wonderful resource that it is with lots from the 2017 Pilot Walk. Or come welcome us at our May 30th arrival at Custom House Quay and join us in EPIC afterwards for the official Launch of the National Famine Way Trail
Staple Crops produce Cyanide?!
Cassava (aka Yucca)
Several staple crops such as cassava and sorghum naturally produce cyanide. The levels of cyanide in these crops increase with atmospheric CO2 levels and droughts. A case — several years ago in the Philippines — saw 27 children die at a school after eating toxic cassava.
“Staples such as cassava become more toxic and produce much smaller yields in a world with higher carbon dioxide levels and more drought, say Australian scientists.
The team grew cassava and sorghum at three different levels of CO2; just below today’s current levels at 360 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere, at 550 ppm and double at 710 pm.
Read more
Current levels in the air are approximately 390 ppm, around the highest in at least 800,000 years and up by about a third since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
“What we found was the amount of cyanide relative to the amount of protein increases,” says Gleadow, referring to cassava.
At double current CO2 levels, the level of toxin was much higher while protein levels fell.”
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/06/30/2612653.htm
We can protect famine by limiting the growing technology in the world, the growth of famine is now day resulted from our daily growing technology
If you don’t see your name …just try again on the platform for survival page and enter info into the form
Coordinate against drought
By Joe C Mathew | September 12, 2019
“The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) has called for coordination among UN organisations and intergovernmental efforts to develop a proactive drought management strategy to assist all countries to improve and solidify their drought policies.”
Excerpts:
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) has called for coordination among UN organisations and intergovernmental efforts to develop a proactive drought management strategy to assist all countries to improve and solidify their drought policies.
In a report presented at the 14th Conference of the Parties (COP-14) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification Conference (UNCCD) in Greater Noida, UNFAO explores various policy approaches that can be used to support drought-stricken populations and drought-affected activities, reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilience…
The report notes that in India, 330 million people were affected by the drought of 2015-16. “Women and children were among the most seriously affected, with increases in wasting among mothers, an increase in child labour and cases of trafficking and child marriages in some of the affected states,” it observed.
Read more
“It is time to change drought approaches from crisis to risk management based on prediction, planning and preparedness,” Mansur stressed.
At the Drought Preparedness Day …the FAO, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Secretariat of the UNCCD established a proactive drought policy based on three pillars – monitoring, forecasting and early warning, vulnerability and impact assessment and preparedness, mitigation and response.
It acknowledged the role of many international and national institutions in dedicated technology research in dry lands, including the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India, the Brazilian Company for Agricultural Research (Embrapa) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Lebanon. However, efforts to strengthen institutions and adopt new technologies usually come after an emergency has already occurred, the report observed….
The report highlights how practices that preserve ecosystems can also benefit drought preparedness. Sustainable land, soil and water management help increase resilience to droughts. Such practices also have other benefits such as capturing carbon, increasing water supply and protecting biodiversity, it states. It also points out that many countries are already adopting good practices, such as establishing integrated production systems that combine forestry and agriculture, or agroforestry-livestock systems that contribute to land use sustainability and increase drought resilience.
The report was developed by FAO in collaboration with UNCCD, WMO, Global Water Partnership and the Integrated Drought Management Programme as contribution to the Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture (WASAG.)
Twitter, September 12, 2019
Trans-African Water Pipeline
The proposed trans-African water pipe line aims to connect four solar-paneled desalination plants to a 1.5 meter diameter pipe running through 11 Sahel (African) nations. The pipeline would traverse some of the most politically unstable regions on the planet (Chad, Eritrea, etc.). What if someone decides to blow-up a section of this pipeline? How much water will be provided to the middle section?
Read more
The largest humanitarian civil engineering project of the 21st century, TAP will construct large-scale desalination plants on the west and east coasts of Africa, regional tank farms and pumping stations for water storage and distribution.
Using a combination of new solar technologies and wind turbines, TAP will be carbon-neutral, develop its own power sources, and pump approximately 400,000 cubic meters a day of clean, fresh water from each African coast across 11 Sahel countries.
The Trans Africa Pipeline Inc. is a not-for-profit organization working in collaboration with the 11-country Pan African Great Green Wall agency, with specific Sahel countries and with our U.S. charitable organization, the TAP Foundation U.S.
https://transafricapipeline.org/
Hmmm. Surface water or well water?
Have folks considered the trade-off between surface and well-water in various regions? Of concern is the source of drinking water in heavily contaminated areas. Chemical contamination can seep deep into the soil and contaminate wells. However, surface drinking water can be prone to pathogens – such as bacteria, parasites, etc. Several months ago there were a slurry of articles around straws with built in filters – but I question are these certified for a range of contaminants – such as arsenic vs. bacteria vs. parasites, etc.
Lake Erie toxic algae blooms
I am alarmed to hear of the repeated green algae blooms in Lake Erie. The algae is toxic and has caused bans on drinking tap water in several regions of the United States (in the vicinity of Lake Erie) in recent years. I have heard several theories as to the origin of these algae blooms. One is that it is a byproduct of agricultural run-off and antiquated drainage systems implemented in the nineteenth century.
A large portion of the area south-west of Lake Erie was formerly known as the Great Black Swamp and during colonization, settlers installed drainage pipes in their fields which drained into regional waterways like creeks, rivers, and swamps. This is exacerbated by the increased density of crops and livestock animals in recent decades – with fertilizers and manure eventually ending up in Lake Erie.
Read more
North Korean defectors are amazed at the food in Seoul
Lee Oui-ryuk was on the verge of dying of starvation when he stole a block of tofu in a market in North Korea at the height of a nationwide famine. Too weak to run away after he swiped the food, Lee continued eating as the seller cried and beat him with a metal rod, staining the white tofu red with his blood.
At nine years old he knew the theft would end in violence, but in his head he repeated over and over: “Even if you are beaten, keep eating.” He eventually passed out and when he awoke, took a morsel that remained on his hand to his sister.
“Even today I don’t have the words to describe the hunger,” Lee said. “My head was too big for my body because I was so malnourished and my neck couldn’t support the weight, which meant my head was always at a slant.”
Read more
“In North Korea every single thing I ate was related to my life, and even the smallest things would seem really big,” he said. “But here I just eat food because it’s a part of living.”
Many of the roughly 30,000 North Korean refugees living in the South are awestruck when they first arrive at seeing supermarkets stocked with items unseen back home. But they also find it difficult to cope with the plethora of choice and still carrying the trauma of growing up hungry.
North Korea has struggled to feed its people for more than two decades and a famine in the 1990s left as many as one million dead – about 5% of the population at the time. An ineffective state distribution system means more than 10m people are still undernourished according to the UN World Food Programme, which says “many people suffer from chronic malnutrition due to lack of essential proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals”.
While elites and top officials have access to imported foods like pizza and coffee, most people cannot afford staples such as rice, and eat mostly corn instead.
‘I can never throw away rice’
North Korea’s founding father Kim Il-sung promised his people prosperity in the form of daily meals of “rice and meat stew”, saying it was the “long-cherished desire of our people”. The phrase has been repeated by successive generations of the Kim family as a promise of a better future they have yet to deliver.
But as food, and especially meat, became scarce during the famine, North Koreans invented a slew of new dishes with names reminiscent of better times: tofu “sushi”, rice “meatballs” and manmade meat with rice, where the leftover dregs from making soybean oil are pressed into a paste, stuffed with rice and topped with chilli sauce, intending to mimic the texture of meat. The dish is so popular some restaurants in the South even illegally import ingredients from North Korea, risking heavy fines and possible prison time.
Kwon Taejin, an agriculture expert at the GS&J Institute, a government-funded thinktank, has adopted six North Korean children and said each one has gone through three stages of eating habits after arriving in the South.
“When they first arrive there are so many different options, that they don’t know what to eat,” he said. “But they always crave rice, so they pretty much eat mostly rice for the first two to three months, even if there are many other options available. And then after this phase, they start missing food they had back home.”
Kim, a waitress who asked to be identified only by her surname, only ate rice a few times a year when she was in North Korea, instead subsisting mostly on corn. When she first arrived in the South in 2017 she was “completely awed” by the supermarkets, eating a constant stream of spicy Jin instant noodles for months before she became sick of the taste.
“No matter how much I worked in North Korea I could never afford rice,” she said. “So now I can never throw away rice, even if I order too much.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/24/famine-to-feast-north-korean-defectors-awestruck-by-food-choices-in-south
Yes! Capture some fog!
Howard, the answer is YES! They can get water out of air in the desert too now. Here’s a link about the new technological innovation that makes it possible.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/8/17441496/fog-harvesting-water-scarcity-environment-crisis
Nitrogen Fixing Helps Soil Health
Nitrogen fixing is a vital component of soil health. This can be done artificially or naturally. The tree species which are planted can have a significant role regarding this. I recently wrote to Urban Forestry at the City of Toronto regarding the increased prevalence of Kentucky Coffee Trees (Gymnocladus dioicus) being planted in the City of Toronto.
These trees are apparently quite hardy, but they have another advantage: the trees are in the pea family and thus naturally fix nitrogen into the surrounding soil as they grow. This is quite the advantage in urban areas – as nitrogen is a vital nutrient for plant growth and thus ecological health. The trees are additionally quite unique – with the largest compound leaves in Eastern North America – and the seed pods likely date from the era of Woolly Mammoths – who may have chewed on them.
First Nations folks used the pods as a laxative and stimulant – in something not dissimilar to coffee. (The trees are not related to traditional coffee trees). The importance of nitrogen fixing in soil health related discussion cannot be ignored.
The Causes of Famine
Speaking to the issue at a local level I find it interesting that where I live rather than make use of the farmland we have to grow food, we take that land and hand it over to developers who start stuffing houses on it taking advantage of every square inch of property. As development continues the usable farm land dwindles while many of these houses and condos lie empty and steeply priced. At the same time food prices are rising quickly and it reminds me of Germany just before the onset of World War 2, with its massive inflation problems.
Read more
I don’t see famine as a lack of food but a lack of will to focus on the priority of keeping food available and priced appropriately. And then you have Nestle grabbing thousands of gallons of water which they bottle and sell to us when it was our water in the first place. And then the additional problem of water bottle waste is growing worse every day. Thankfully some people have developed ingenious solutions to the problem which is giving us a reprieve from choking on our own garbage. I see that to conquer famine one must rearrange ones priorities so one is not part of the problem but part of the solution.
The Risks of Reliance on Monoculture Agriculture
I often wonder about the risks associated with our increasing reliance on monoculture agriculture. Several years ago, PBS released a fascinating documentary called “Seed” which examined the role of heirloom seed varieties in relation to the rise of monoculture agriculture. It was horrifying to learn that 75-85% of fruit and vegetable varieties have gone extinct in the last 200 years. The increasing use of monoculture — the planting of the same variety on large-scale farms, year after year — leaves regions and societies incredibly vulnerable to famine via blights, diseases, pests, etc.
Read more
An example is Panama blight – a fungal disease which impacts bananas. Bananas are a clonal crop – with no seeds – and reproduced via clonal reproduction. As such, virtually all of the plants on large scale production farms are genetically identical – leaving them with the same vulnerabilities to blight, disease, and pests. In the mid-twentieth century, the Gros Michel banana almost went extinct due to Panama blight, and was replaced with the Cavendish banana. Could you imagine the catastrophe should a blight, disease, or a pest impact a staple crop, such as corn (maize), rice, or taro? Crop rotation appears to additionally be on the wayside of many large-scale farms – requiring manual replenishment of soil nutrients. Traditional agricultural methods – such as the “three sisters” (beans, corn, and squash) – offer a perspective on attempting to balance soil nutrition with yield output – though it would be interesting to hear whether this method is adaptable for large-scale agricultural productions.
Interesting image at the top of this page. It is the Dublin side of the Ireland Park Memorial. There are mirrored sculptures in Toronto at Ireland Park (near Billy Bishop Airport). The sculptures commemorate the victims of the Irish famine, many of which died on ships and/or at the quayside in Toronto during the nineteenth century.
Ha ha ha. Who would think of feeding saccharine to bees? I don’t think many of us will feed them sugar either. I’d never think of such a thing. But for sure, nobody is going to give them artificial sweeteners. But it might be an interesting experiment for a beekeeper with a scientific bent.
Please explain earthworms. I had heard that they were very good for the soil — presumably all soil. But now I have learned that Canada never had earthworms until recently. They are an invasive species and biologists worry about them. Should we worry?
Are bees sensitive to artificial sweeteners? This may work as an emergency energy boost – but what impacts do artificial and refined sweeteners have on bees vs. the molecules naturally found in nectar?
How does the UN plan on doing this for countries that are experiencing prolonged conflict? That’s where people have the least access to food and water…
I saw something recently about harvesting water from fog. They put up textiles which capture the moisture and collect it. They were even talking about using it in the desert. Does anyone know whether there is enough water in dry air to make such a scheme workable?
‘Environmental bastardry’: Looser grassland controls slammed
By Peter Hannam, August 5, 2019
The Sydney Morning Herald
A dispute is raging in Australia about managing grasslands in the state’s south just weeks after a scientific committee deemed them to be critically endangered, a move which has been blasted by environmental groups.
Famine as a War Crime
Famine Isn’t Just a Result of Conflict—It’s a Cause
By Justa Hopma
The relationship between food insecurity and conflict is almost so logical that it appears to state the obvious: Conditions of food insecurity contribute to the outbreak of social, political and military conflict, which in turn produces further food insecurity.
Many studies concerned with making sense of food insecurity and conflict focus on these causal linkages blaming one on the other in an attempt to identify ways of breaking through the vicious cycle. But it’s more helpful to view the creation of conditions of food insecurity (or food security) as a broader social and political process, by which food and agriculture are controlled by a powerful group—whether that is the state or private interests.
In this way, food has long been used as an instrument of power—and a quick glance at the historical record shows that the ability to control food production, distribution and consumption constitutes a form of power that lets populations live or die.
Read more
History throws up countless examples of this. Take the way that, in the Middle Ages, walled cities under siege could be starved out to force their capitulation. More recent history gives us the systematic deprivation of food, including the well-known German Hungerplan of World War II, that involved a deliberate policy decision to rob millions of Soviet citizens of their food. Or the lesser-known, long-term British occupation of the port of Aden from 1839 to 1963, that allowed it to control Middle Eastern food distribution channels, with sometimes devastating consequences that weakened independent forces in the Arab region.
So creating or exploiting different kinds of what we now describe as “food insecurity” have long been an integral part of conflict.
The case of north-eastern Nigeria is a harrowing present-day example that clearly shows how food security is implicated in longer-standing social and political conflict. In explaining the rise of religious extremism both today and in the 1980s, Nigerian scholars Abimbola Adesoji and Elizabeth Isichei stress the links between poverty, a lack of educational opportunities, widespread corruption and receptiveness to militant Islam in Nigeria’s northern region.
Since 2012, however, the conflict between government forces and the jihadist organization Boko Haram has escalated into widespread violence. Agriculture has often been a direct target in the infliction of violence and Boko Haram has attacked farmers and farm resources, including land and livestock. Large numbers of livestock have been killed and farmers murdered. Crops have been destroyed and land mines have rendered land unusable.
The resulting shortfall in food production has not only contributed to scarcity in the north-eastern region, but is also linked to price rises for food in southern Nigeria and neighboring countries Niger and Cameroon.
In January 2017, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported that: “More than 4.8m people are in urgent need of food assistance and 5.1m are predicted to be food insecure if not supported by the humanitarian community.”
Regional humanitarian coordinator Toby Lanzer appears somewhat reluctant to use the word “famine”, but warns that such extreme prolonged and general scarcity of food is but one step away in northern Nigeria.
Language matters
In spite of the clear indications that it’s almost always a combination of social, political and environmental factors that leads to situations of widespread hunger, many news outlets continue to represent famine through language that uses natural metaphors.
The Huffington Post, for example, speaks of a “perfect storm” of contributing factors while other publications outline how drought and war “spark” famine or contribute to its “outbreak”.
The consistent use of such language suggests that the onset of famine is rapid and calamitous, like a fire or infectious disease. But the reality is very different. As the cases of both Nigeria and South Sudan make clear, the development of famine is a dynamic social and political process with a long build-up.
The continued representation of famines as disastrous events largely sprung upon populations by the forces of nature, prevents us from understanding famine—and food insecurity—as a socio-political process, even though doing so is especially important for realising its future prevention.
Famine as a war crime
South Sudan is in a similar situation to north-eastern Nigeria. A lengthy conflict has produced a situation in which 4.8m people are facing “severe” food insecurity and “more than 8m people “face some degree of food insecurity”. Referring to the situation there, Leslie Lefkow, deputy director at the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, has written that creating some mechanism of accountability is one of the only hopes of resolving the conflict there. Lefkow recognizes that:
There is no offence of ‘creating a famine’ under international law but in a conflict—civil or international—’objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population’ may not be attacked. They have a protected status as civilian objects and because their protection goes hand in hand with the prohibition on using starvation of the civilian population as a weapon of war.
Put this way, willingly contributing to the increased food insecurity of populations can be linked to war crimes. Importantly, recognising that famine—but also various other conditions of food insecurity and food security—results from socio-political processes is a prerequisite for developing such legal accountability.
Once we do this, we’ll be in a better position to acknowledge the power embedded within the ability to organize and control food production as well as the multiple ways in which food products circulate the planet. And this is as true during times of war as it is in times of peace.
For more on understanding famine as a socio-political process, see Whose Hunger? Concepts of Famine, Practices of Aid by Jenny Edkins & Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa by Alex de Waal.
This article is part of a series by The Conversation on food security.
Justa Hopma is Research fellow at the University of Sheffield
This is an excellent piece on soil degradation and the possibilities of reversal. It includes a very interesting section on perennial grain crops as developed by The Land Institute.
http://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/follow-the-food/why-soil-is-disappearing-from-farms/
Amazon Deforestation up 60%
(CNN) Amazon deforestation accelerated more than 60% in June over the same period last year, in what environmentalists say is a sign that the policies of President Jair Bolsonaro are starting to take effect.
The rate of rainforest destruction had been stable during the first few months of Bolsonaro’s presidency but began to soar in May and June, according to Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (INPE), a government agency whose satellites also monitor the Amazon.
Read more
769.1 square kilometres were lost last month – a stark increase from the 488.4 sq km lost in June 2018, INPE’s data showed. That equates to an area of rainforest larger than one and a half soccer fields being destroyed every minute of every day.
More than two-thirds of the Amazon are located in Brazil and environmental groups blame far-right leader Bolsonaro and his government for the increase, saying he has relaxed controls on deforestation in the country.
Why Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro has environmentalists worried for the Amazon
“Over the past six months, Bolsonaro and his environment minister have been devoting themselves to the dismantling of the Brazilian environmental governance and neutralizing regulatory bodies”, Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the environment NGO network Observatorio do Clima (Climate Observatory) told CNN.
Greenpeace called Bolsonaro and his government a “threat to the climate equilibrium” and warned that in the long run, his policies would bear a “heavy cost” for the Brazilian economy. “Bolsonaro already accounts for gigantic setbacks for the environment and for Brazil’s image”, Márcio Astrini, a spokesman for Greenpeace in Brazil said in a statement on Friday.
CNN asked the Brazilian Environment Ministry for comment on the recent numbers but has not received a response.
Delivering on a campaign promise
During Bolsonaro’s election campaign, he promised his government would focus on recovering the Brazilian economy and said he would look at ways of exploring the Amazon’s economic potential. Six months after his inauguration, the populist president is certainly delivering on his promises.
“The strong indication of the increase in the deforestation rate during the government of Jair Bolsonaro shouldn’t surprise anyone,” Rittl said. “It’s, after all, the accomplishing of a campaign promise: Bolsonaro was the first president in all of Brazil’s history to be elected with an openly anti-environmental and anti-indigenous speech”.
Rittl says loggers, farmers and miners emboldened by Bolsonaro’s pro-business stance have jumped on the opportunity, taking advantage of reduced controls and less oversight to seize control of a growing area of land within the Amazon forest.
Meanwhile, the government is hampering the efforts of those who are supposed to keep deforestation in check.
The Brazilian Environment and Renewables Institute (IBAMA), the country’s environmental enforcement agency, has seen its budget cut by $23 million, and six months in, the government has only nominated the heads of four of IBAMA’s 27 state offices. None of those four are located in states with jurisdiction over the Amazon rainforest.
In addition, official data obtained by Observatorio do Clima and sent to CNN shows the number of operations IBAMA has conducted in 2019 has gone down since the beginning of the year, around the same time Bolsonaro was sworn in.
“The explosion of the number of [deforestation] alerts in the past couple of months should lead to an intensification of inspection operations, but that hasn’t happened,” Rittl said.
He also put some of the blame on some European countries. “As much as European leaders have made ‘beautiful’ speeches showing concern about Bolsonaro’s environmental policies, and even though the [Paris Climate] agreement has environmental safeguards, the EU is signaling that it is at least tolerant with the ongoing anti-environmental agenda”.
International criticism
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have both said they were concerned about the erosion of environmental protections in Brazil, but neither France, Germany or the European Union have gone beyond words. Last Friday, the European Union struck a deal with the South American trade bloc Mercosur, which includes Brazil, a move environmentalists say will only put additional pressure on the Amazon and its fragile ecosystem.
The Amazon forest is often referred to as the planet’s lungs, producing 20 per cent of the oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere. It is considered vital in the ongoing efforts to slow down global warming and it is also home to uncountable species of fauna and flora. With roughly half the size of the United States of America, it is the largest rainforest on the planet.
Its area has been steadily shrinking over the past century with deforestation reaching its peak in 1995, when 29.059 km² were lost. The rate of destruction had then been decreasing, reaching its lowest point in 2012.
It has been accelerating ever since.
Terra Preta is a rich black soil in the Amazon that was created by Indians who lived there a thousand years ago. They created charcoal from their household waste and buried it. This removed carbon from the atmosphere and sequestered it permanently. We need to do the same. It’s the best possible soil for agriculture.
Mother Earth, our soil, can not only feed us but absorb the excess carbon we’ve poured into the atmosphere. But we have to respect it and treat it right. Charcoal, added to the soil or even spread on top, can sequester carbon for thousands of years and improve the fertility, enabling abundant food to be produced.
Paul Stamets, The Future is Fungi [how to save the planet]:
Probably one of the most interesting hour and a half science related lectures you will ever watch. Packed with all sorts of invaluable information. I have created a new youtube channel for all mushroom related things, please subscribe there:
Read more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwLviP7KaAc&feature=share
“Food Security Act: How are India’s Poorest States faring?”
By: Jean Dreze
A survey of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was conducted during 1-10 June 2016 by student volunteers in six of India’s poorest states: Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal. As expected, Chhattisgarh emerged as the leading state in food security matters. Chhattisgarh enacted its own Food Security Act in December 2012, and implemented it without delay. PDS distribution is far from regular and leakages remain high. In Bihar, especially, many households reported that they had to skip an entire month’s PDS ration from time to time as corrupt dealers siphoned it off.
Read more
It is important to mention that even in Bihar and Jharkhand, the PDS is improving.
https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/governance/food-security-act-how-are-indias-poorest-states-faring.html
Another example of extinct squash being revived in Salem County, NJ.
https://www.heirloomgardener.com/organic-gardening/squash-varieties-zmaz12fzfol
Hilal Elver. “2018: Right to food in the context of natural disasters (A/HRC/37/61)”
Using country-specific examples, the Special Rapporteur contextualizes the direct and indirect impacts of natural disasters on the right to food and people’s livelihoods. This report addresses how disasters contribute to hunger and recommends solutions for reducing human rights violations and environmental degradation. This report also underlines the importance of achieving a convergence between emergency food aid, food assistance and development cooperation in order to ensure the full realization of the right to food.
https://hilalelver.org/resources/thematicreports/natural-disasters/
Students and researchers at the Canadian Mennonite University additionally uncovered 800-year old squash seeds at an archaeological dig. They planted some and had success in growing a species extinct for centuries. Really interesting!
https://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/blogs/students-revive-extinct-squash-800-year-old-seeds
Solar vs. Nuclear Desalination: What’s better?
This photo of a solar plant is in Curacao
The idea of converting ocean water to potable water is not new- they’ve been doing it in Israel with desalination plants. What’s more efficient, and environmentally friendly? Desalination plants, or solar power plants, to convert ocean water into drinkable water?
“Citrus Farmers Facing Deadly Bacteria Turn to Antibiotics, Alarming Health Officials”
By: Andrew Jacobs, in New York Times Magazine,
May 17, 2019
In its decision to approve two drugs for orange and grapefruit trees, the E.P.A. largely ignored objections from the C.D.C. and the F.D.A., which fear that expanding their use in cash crops could fuel antibiotic resistance in humans.
Read more
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/health/antibiotics-oranges-florida.html
Check out the PBS Documentary “Seed: The Untold Story” – which talks about biodiversity and heirloom seeds. It mentions elements pertaining to this. It is a fascinating story. Some seed archivists – alongside the Svalbard seed vault – are collecting rare varieties to preserve for future generation. Historic images are show in the documentary – and in the paintings, photos, etc. over 80% of the displayed varieties are now extinct. Some varieties – such as specific type of corns – have cultural and spiritual importance for Indigenous groups.
Save our Food. Free the Seed
Just 50 years ago, some 1,000 small and family-owned seed companies were producing and distributing seeds in the United States; by 2009, there were fewer than 100. Thanks to a series of mergers and acquisitions over the last few years, four multinational agrochemical firms — Corteva, ChemChina, Bayer and BASF — now control over 60 percent of global seed sales.
Read more
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/07/opinion/sunday/dan-barber-seed-companies.html?smid=tw-share
Hilal Elver, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food has regular website to report her findings. One is her recommendation, along with the World Peace Foundation, for a global convention that gives States and the international community clear legal mandates to prevent famine and protect people’s right to adequate food, among other recommendations to States.
Read more
“How Can International Law Advance the Prevention, Prohibition and Accountability for Mass Starvation?”
https://hilalelver.org/media_coverage/famine-watch/
“South Sudanese facing famine in all but name, warns UN food agency”
Gabriela Vivacqua share from World Food Programme, June 14, 2019
Some seven million people – face acute food shortages, while more than 20,000 are close to famine, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned. According to Friday’s food insecurity report, an estimated 21,000 South Sudanese will likely face a “catastrophic lack of food access” by the end of July, in the middle of the rainy season.
More than 1.8 million are set to endure “emergency” food shortages, while five million are expected to be in “crisis”.
Read more
Today, WFP assists more than 2.7 million people in South Sudan, but it plans to scale up aid to 5.1 million by December, to meet seasonal needs, using a combination of food and cash distributions.
For the first time in many years, WFP has also prepositioned 173,000 tonnes of food in some 60 areas ahead of the rainy season; some 66,000 tonnes more than at the same point in 2018.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/06/1040491
“The Grain that Binds”
Tomson Phiri shared in the World Food Programme Insight:
Sudan used to be one big country. In 2011 it split into two. South Sudan, the newly independent state, was born. But Sudan and South Sudan share more than a name. Take the simple grain farmed in the north and exported to its southern neighbour, for example. It is cementing an age-old relationship.
In 2014 Khartoum and the South’s capital, Juba, signed a treaty to open transport-corridors for food supplies to reach the more vulnerable South Sudanese by both road and through the River Nile which connects the two vast countries. Along with the much-needed relief supplies to millions in need in South Sudan, the corridors, provide smallholder farmers with much-needed business during what are financially hard times.
Read more
Following a reasonably good 2018 harvest, WFP purchased 110,000mt of sorghum from the Strategic Grain Reserve of Sudan. More than half of the sorghum was shipped to South Sudan. This year, WFP is due to purchase a further 120,000 metric tons of sorghum to support its activities in both Sudan and South Sudan.
https://insight.wfp.org/the-grain-that-binds-c0125a3f06f5?_ga=2.185895401.1328919655.1561848646-2069502837.1561848646
Climate change ‘cause of most under-reported humanitarian rises’
Shared by Arthur Nelsen, The Guardian, Feb 21, 2019.
Climate change was responsible for the majority of under-reported humanitarian disasters last year, according to analysis of more than a million online news stories.
Whole populations were affected by food crises in countries ravaged by by drought and hurricanes such as Ethiopia and Haiti, yet neither crisis generated more than 1,000 global news stories each. Around the world, extreme weather events claimed about 5,000 lives in 2018, and left almost 29 million people in need of humanitarian aid and emergency assistance.
Read more
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/21/climate-change-cause-of-most-under-reported-humanitarian-crises-report-finds
Ten million Yemenis ‘one step away from famine’
From World Food Program: Annabel Symington, March 2019
U.N. News report- “Ten million Yemenis ‘one step away from famine’, UN food relief agency calls for ‘unhindered access’ to frontline regions.”
With Yemen now in its fifth year of conflict between pro-Government forces and Houthi rebels, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is calling for “unhindered access” to the most desperate areas in the frontline regions.
In the last six months, the number of people displaced by violence has increased sharply from 203,000 to around 420,000. WFP is scaling up this year to reach 12 million people each month; a 50 per cent increase over its 2018 targets, including eight million with food rations; 2.4 with commodity vouchers and, eventually, 1.6 million with cash assistance.
Read more
WFP’s ongoing rapid-response food rations have been able to support over 5,000 families and Hajjah governorate has around 200 food distribution points covering 1.5 million people.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/03/1035501
“$10 billion worth of fish annually comes from a place other than where it was caught”
Emma Bryce posted:
Ninety percent of the world’s fish are caught within countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs), and so countries tend to manage fisheries along these national boundaries. Yet, not much is known about where these fish originate from. So the researchers on the new Science study developed a particle-tracking system to mimic the movement of fish larvae from over 700 commercially-fished species, based on knowledge about the location of their spawning grounds in different EEZs around the world. Then they simulated seasonal ocean currents to study the movement of these eggs between 249 global EEZs.
This revealed that most countries depend on the provision of larvae from other parts of the world to prop up their fisheries—and this ‘donated’ fish benefits economies to the tune of several billion dollars annually.
Countries in the Caribbean, West Africa, Northern Europe, and Oceania were found to be most vulnerable: essentially, a large degree of their economic wellbeing and food security is dependent on the maintenance of spawning grounds that other nations have under their care.
Read more
When fisheries are mismanaged or breeding grounds are not protected, it could affect food security half a world away,” the researchers say.
http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2019/06/10-billion-worth-of-fisheries-comes-from-a-place-other-than-where-it-was-caught/
The sale of permits to fish in EEZs is a particularly significant component of the economy of many Oceanic nations.
Book available here: https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/food-or-war
Dispensing Liquid Manure
I appreciate the article, and the points it makes, as well as several of the comments. However, there is an important technical error. The article says that methane, which is one of the most important ag GHGs, is mainly from increases in CAFO liquid manure. Although manure is a source of methane, it is actually much less than from ruminant digestion (“cow burps”). And the biggest source of methane from ruminant digestion is cows grazing on pasture.
Read more
Less comes from CAFO grain feeding. This has important implications for GHG accounting in ag, so it is not a trivial issue. CAFOs are terrible for may reasons, good cow pasture management has many benefits over CAFOs, and when soil carbon sequestration is taken into account, may even be much better for the climate overall than CAFOs. But for a number of reasons, it is important to get the science right.
The Currency of Connections
The Einstein International Center, Tufts University, posts this reference to a new publication by Alex Humphrey, Vaidehi Krihnan, and Roxani Krystalli, ‘The currency of connections: Why local support systems are integral to helping people recover in South Sudan,”
This report describes variations in households’ social connectedness and their related abilities to benefit from local support systems. Additionally, it considers the different obligations that households and economic actors have to support others in their communities and whether such support is reciprocal.
Read more
https://fic.tufts.edu/publication-item/currency-of-connections/?fbclid=IwAR0QFW_-KB1otRkQ5c-TLE3PEFxpdubuKM2SEa-s15YvuywETFUJEiR6Jec
“The Effects of Foreign Aid on Rebel Governance: Evidence from a Large-Scale U.S. Aid Program in Syria”
Feinstein International Center, Tufts University, posts this analysis on the effects of foreign aid on rebel governance in Syria, by Allison Carnegie, Kimberly Howe, Adam Lichtenheld, and Dipali Mukhopadhyay.
A summary of this work: “Most research underscores the inefficacy of foreign aid as an instrument for influencing local perceptions of governance in countries affected by conflict. In contrast, we argue that aid can improve public perceptions of governing institutions during civil wars when those institutions arise from popular uprisings against authoritarian regimes. To evaluate our theory, we analyze new perceptions-based data, both quantitative and qualitative, which was collected from residents of 27 opposition-held communities inside Syria from 2014 to 2016. We find a positive statistical relationship between aid and perceptions of local institutions, but only when the populace does not believe the institutions were imposed by an outside actor. These results are further supported by placebo tests and a case study of Raqqa City, in which we show that aid boosted citizens’ views of the local councils until ISIS took over.”
Read more
https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/effects-foreign-aid-rebel-governance-evidence-large-scale-us-aid-program