Women play a vital role in providing food security in all societies, and with Mother’s Day coming up on May 13th, the World Food Program USA (WFP USA) is hosting a webcast, “Mothers Rule the World” to “discuss the critical role mothers play in improving household food security and the nutritional wellbeing of their children.”

The webcast will take place on Thursday, May 10th at 10:00 AM EST and will feature Isatou Jallow, the UN World Food Programme’s chief of women, children and gender policy and Rick Leach, World Food Program USA’s president and CEO.

“This interactive webcast will allow you to ask questions about how gender issues affect the fight against global hunger. Isatou will describe WFP’s efforts to put food and other resources in the hands of women to improve their lives and how WFP’s Gender Innovation Fund is making a difference. Rick will talk about WFP USA’s commitment to promoting women’s empowerment as a key to improving food security for all.”

Register for the webcast to hear these experts and to ask questions of the speakers “about how gender issues affect the fight against global hunger.”

Image credit: The Daily Star (Bangladesh)

“Starvation is a brutal but little-discussed reality in India” is the summary offered to describe the impetus behind the six-part series from The Wall Street Journal’s India Real Time blog, called “Starving in India.”  The series, based on research conducted by journalist Ashwin Parulkar and a colleague from the Centre for Equity Studies, profiles cases of starvation deaths in India and the effectiveness of the Indian government’s response.

The first part, “The Forgotten Problem,” addresses the disparity between the image of India as both an economically rising country and a “food surplus nation” with the reality that deaths caused by starvation persist.

“India is a nation that prides itself on having been self-sufficient in food production for decades and having leaped forward economically over the past 20 years. So it isn’t surprising that public officials and even many in the media are reluctant to face up to the painful reality that hunger persists in 2012. Starvation doesn’t fit neatly into the story of a ‘shining’ India.

The second part, “A fight for life in Bihar,” Parulkar profiles “a family catastrophe” among  members of the low-caste Bhuyia community in the impoverished state of Bihar.  In the profile of Tulsi Manjhi’s family, the men work for a daily ration of rice, no enough to keep the family from an enduring cycle of poverty and a susceptibility to starvation deaths.  In fact, his wife, daughter-in-law and granddaughter die in childbirth, weakened by hunger, in one night.

The third part, “Surviving on toxic roots” looks at how people of another vulnerable group in Indian society, indigenous tribes, face dire choices to avoid starvation.  In this case, members of the Birhors tribe must choose between eating roots of poisonous plants rather than starve outright.  Poverty and a lack of access to food are major factors, but the story deepens into how federal government policies to provide for hungry are rendered ineffective by the incompetence of local officials.

Part four, “It isn’t all about food” offers an example of how the starvation deaths in one night of the two men of the Lohra family from the village of Heta illustrate how public programs and the officials charged with delivering them can mean the difference between life and death when chronic hunger conditions are present.

“In 2007, several factors conspired to precipitate the household’s tragedy. First, the government’s ‘public distribution system,’ which is meant to give out discounted grains to the poor, was hopelessly defunct in the area. The local ration shop was closed most days, even though the Supreme Court has ruled in its landmark ‘right to food’ case that shops should be open every day. When the shop was open, the dealer claimed he didn’t have grains to distribute, local villagers said.”

A profile of journalist Amit Kumar is the subject of part five of the series, “A scribe tries to save a life, ” reinforcing how journalists in India play an important role in drawing attention to starvation deaths and problems with the government programs intended to prevent them.

“In our travels, Mr. Kumar was the one journalist who stood out. Based in the Barachatti region of Bihar’s Gaya district – not far from Bodh Gaya, the place where the Buddha found enlightenment – the 31-year-old writes about people who are chronically ill and starving. He reports on their struggles and how the ‘right to food’ the Supreme Court says they enjoy is violated in myriad ways.”

In the final article in the series, “Legislating food security,” Parulkar observes that the cases outlined in the previous five articles underscore the need for  a “new legal framework for dealing with chronic hunger and starvation” to be adopted by India.  Parulkar analyzes the proposed National Food Security Bill making its way through India’s Parliament.

Finally, in this video, Parulkar talks about his reporting on the series.

Image credit: Wall Street Journal’s India Real Time blog

Even before 2011 when recent tribulations involving the military and local factions broke out, the conditions facing the population were already dramatic. On top of the fighting that took place, droughts continued to plague local farms, prices for foods kept rising, and rampant unemployment exacerbated the inability of most Yemenis to afford food.

To make matters worse, in late 2011 the government decided to curtail subsidies for fuels, making an already troubled country that much more deprived. This has led to many people, like Anisa, a young widow whose story is told within the article, to buy food on credit, then accumulate major debts, which of course are expected to be paid off; all while any likelihood for finding any job opportunities are close to nonexistent.

International agencies like UNICEF point out that 30% of children in Hodeida, a poor rural town in Yemen, are “‘acutely’ malnourished”. Yemen will soon be the subject of a donor appeal by aid agencies hoping to stem the crisis.  The article describes how “Yemenis like to keep things behind closed doors; failure to care for children is seen as shameful and meetings with people like Anisa remain a rarity.”  The quiet building of the crisis makes the success of such an appeal look less-than-hopeful.

Posted by: Andres Santamaria

Image credit: Peter Salisbury/The Economist

According to AFP, UNICEF has not fully acquired the funds it requested in December to resolve the Sahel famine, the third to burden the region in ten years. With 15 million malnourished people and 1 million children at risk of dying, UNICEF addressed the global community, “appealing for an end to global indifference” and stressing the danger of a “humanitarian disaster” in the Sahel area.

Recognizing the frequency of crises in Africa, UNICEF executive director, Anthony Lake, acknowledged that there is a “certain fatigue” among the world’s population as individuals far-removed from the crisis become accustomed to news of the Sahel’s struggle. The recurring troubles have also made it harder for the people of the Sahel Region to cope with the current famine, as the 2010 drought forced many to sell their food reserves. Margaret Chan, World Health Organization Director-General emphasized prompt action, setting a July deadline for aid and declaring that with an immediate response 95% of children can still be rescued.

Posted by Yekaterina Fomitcheva

Image credit: © FAO/Souleymane Traoré

A recent article in The Economist discussed the effect that rising food prices played in the unrest leading up to the Arab Awakening, and how efforts to combat high food prices continue to affect governments in the Middle East.

Record prices during the global food crisis of 2007-2008 brought unprecedented food riots to countries like Egypt, where dissatisfaction with the government became a focal point of the Arab Awakening protests in 2011.  The autocratic governments offered high subsidies on basic food items because nearly half was imported.  The new governments have continued subsidies, further bloating public spending and engendering new dissatisfaction.

“These subsidies are having perverse effects. According to the Gallup World Poll, between a half and three-quarters of Arab populations say they are dissatisfied with their government’s poverty-reduction efforts. And cheap calories are bad for people’s health. Arab countries are seeing some of the biggest increases in obesity in the world. About 30% of Egyptian adults and 35% of Jordanians are obese. Most of all, subsidies are unaffordable, at least for oil importers.”

Recognizing the need for some food subsidies in the short term, the article discusses a proposal by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for these countries to adopt targeted subsidies on food items rather than blanket subsidies on all food.

Image credit: Wired

The Global Conference on Women in Agriculture, which aimed at discussing women’s critical role in food production and promoting gender sensitive agricultural research, was held in New Delhi, India from March 13^th to the 15^th .

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Farming First, women, on average, constitute 43% of agricultural workers in developing countries and as much as 75% of the agricultural workforce in countries like Kenya and Uganda. However, most agricultural researchers are men who tend to focus more on fostering productivity than considering women’s lifestyles and preferences. For example, while some crop varieties may produce bigger yields, they are difficult for women to harvest while caring for children. The conference discussed how conducting gender sensitive research incorporating these concerns can enhance the output of women farmers.  

Another major impediment for women farmers in many countries is the inequality in property laws and resource distribution. This disparity diminishes women’s productivity and may explain why increasing the amount of food produced in South Asian countries, such as India, has not led to improvements in nutrition for the population. Research from the FAO shows that if women had comparable access to resources like land, fertilizers and technology, the increase in food production could reduce the world’s hungry by 12% to 17%  With greater success with their crops, women could raise their incomes, and as primary caregivers in many developing societies, elevate the nutrition of children in their care.

 The conference brought together researchers, policy makers, women farmers and other stakeholders in hopes of developing strategies “for addressing gender issues in agriculture at the local, national, regional and global level.”

Posted by: Yeketerina Fomitcheva

Image credit: Mark Edwards, Hard Rain Picture Library

On a recent edition of BBC Africa Debate, the issue of “the acquisition of millions of hectares of prime of farmland in Africa and the developing world by foreign investors” was subject of a panel discussion hosted by the BBC’s Alex Jakana and Justin Rowlatt that took place in Freetown, Sierra Leone.  The debate centered around whether these acquisitions are “development opportunities for these countries or just  land grabs.”

Focusing on the larger issue by using Sierra Leone as an example, the panel was composed of mostly local representatives from all sides of the issue.  These included Ali Badara Mansaray, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Sierra Leone; Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute; and Joseph Rahall, Executive Director for Green Scenery.  In addition an audience of government officials, activists, students and others contributed viewpoints during the debate.

A slideshow of images was prepared to accompany this debate, some of which can be viewed in this post or in full, here.

The debate put forth the following questions:

• What is driving these mega land deals?
• Who benefits from land grabs?
• How are these deals made?
• Who owns the land anyway?

The panelists discussed a wide range of issues that included the conflict over water access between companies that buy large tracts of land and local farmers, the quality of jobs created by foreign companies, the transparency of contracts negotiated between companies and governments, how much people know about the contracts being negotiated and whether a fair price is paid for farmland by foreign companies.

An analysis of the issue accompanying the debate identified that land grabs are “now one of the biggest issues in Africa.”  The analysis presents several pros and cons about these large land acquisitions, and summarizes the views from both sides as:

“Many commentators have raised concerns that poor villagers will be forced off their land and agribusiness will marginalise family farming.

Others say that foreign investment can help African countries create jobs, increase export earnings and use more advanced technologies.”

 The BBC analysis explains that there is a significant imbalance between the access to international law protections for those who acquire land and local people who feel that the deals are a violation of their rights.  One conclusion of the analysis offers that agriculture in Africa has not been properly funded by governments for a long time, but large-scale land sales puts the opportunity for local farmers to rebuild this sector further out of reach.

Image credit: Alfredo Bini/Cosmos for BBC

The goal of the partnership is to draw attention to global hunger through a special “The Hunger Games” website, managed by WFP, where fans and the public can watch an appeal by the films stars (also below), make donations in support of WFP’s work and take a hunger quiz for a chance to win “The Hunger Games” signed memorabilia.

Based on the first of a trilogy of popular novels written by Suzanne Collins, the film version of “The Hunger Games” will open on March 23rd.

Image credit: The Hunger Games/WFP website

In a recent speech in Rome, Bill Gates addressed the global agriculture community, encouraging a revitalization of the world’s agriculture and food system.  Stating that the current system is “outdated and inefficient,” Gates argued that increasing coordination among international food agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP), and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is crucial to reversing the decline in agricultural productivity growth, which has fallen from 3% in 1990 to 1.5% in recent years. With a new director general of the FAO and a new executive director of the WFP, Gates stated that now the perfect climate exists to improve the international agriculture system.

Gates proposed utilizing “public scorecards to measure how countries, food agencies, and donors are contributing to the overall goal of reducing poverty.” In his view, scorecards will significantly help the international agriculture community achieve its poverty reduction goals because the cards will measure the success of food aid and food production plans, directing donor money to those plans that are effective.

Gates further supported his idea by comparing it to the achievements of programs dedicated to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have been relatively successful because it is easy to measure their progress.  Also, leaders are aware that their country’s progress on MDGs are compared to those of others, encouraging them to devote more resources towards achieving their goals, in effect, “creating a sort of race to improve.”

Bill Gates solidified his commitment to this race as he announced $200 million in grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation “to fund agricultural development that works.”

Posted by: Yekaterina Fomitcheva

Image credit: European Parliament/Flickr

Both governments and international food aid agencies are shifting their approach to hunger relief by focusing less on simply increasing the supply of food and instead focusing on nutrition, according to a recent article in The Economist.  While the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s attacked the leading problem of its day – an increasing global population and lower crop yields – the last 15-20 years have seen the problem of access to nutrients through food as the larger problem.

“Underlying all this is a change in thinking about how best to improve nutrition, with less stress on providing extra calories and food and more on improving nutrition by supplying micro-nutrients such as iron and vitamins.”

The article points out that among the global population, the problems with how people access food does not fall into only one category; with hunger, obesity and malnutrition each taking a significant share.  “It is a damning record: out of the world population of 7 billion, 3 billion eat too little, too unhealthily, or too much.”  Within the global population, malnourished people constitute a “hidden hungry” because they suffer secondary impairments, starting in childhood, which people cannot immediately recognize or trace their origin.

The affects of malnutrition are more acute for children, and when they occur undetected in the first 1,000 days of their life, they can cause irreparable damage to a child’s development.

“More than 160m children in developing countries suffer from a lack of vitamin A; 1m die because they have weak immune systems and 500,000 go blind each year. Iron deficiency causes anaemia, which affects almost half of poor-country children and over 500m women, killing more than 60,000 of them each year in pregnancy. Iodine deficiency—easily cured by adding the stuff to salt—causes 18m babies each year to be born with mental impairments.” [Also, see chart above]

Whereas solutions to low crop yields and changing the eating patterns of the obese take greater time and cost, the article points out that “The good news is that better nutrition can be a stunningly good investment…Nothing else in development policy has such high returns on investment.”  These solutions may range from iron supplements for pregnant women, programs promoting breastfeeding and developing bio-fortified foods that fit into local diets.

Underscoring the need for making childhood malnutrition a target for international policymakers, Save the Children released a report saying that 2.6 million children die each year as a result of malnutrition.  An article in The Guardian drew a hopeful perspective from the reports findings, saying that while, “Soaring food prices are identified as an aggravating factor…these damaging trends can be halted and reversed using tried and tested solutions if political will exists and public awareness is raised.”

Image credit: The Economist

Surging tides from the Indian Ocean, linked in part to climate change, have pushed salt water into Tanzania’s Rufiji Delta, home to the world’s largest mangrove forest and where “more than 90% of households…make their living from rice farming” according to a report from Altertnet by Kizito Makoye. Due to the destruction of rice crops by the intrusion of salt water, farmers have moved in search of fresh water and better land. However, better land is increasingly difficult to find because changing weather patterns have decreased the amount of arable land in the delta.

As a result, many farmers have started cutting down trees and cultivating rice in government-protected mangrove forests.  This has led to conflicts with government officials who fear that the destruction of these forests will undermine biodiversity as well as increase carbon dioxide emissions, worsening the effects of climate change. According to the chief executive of the Rufiji Basin Development Authority, Aloyce Masanja, the situation will worsen as program officials “have done many studies, and they have proved that this problem will certainly spread, threatening [the Rufiji Delta’s] food security.”

Posted by: Yekaterina Fomitcheva

Image credit: ALERTNET/Kizito Makoye

Buffered by a signature Obama administration goal to fight childhood obesity, the final piece of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was implemented on January 25th.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the final set of nutrition standards enacted include:

• Ensuring students are offered both fruits and vegetables every day of the week;
• Substantially increasing offerings of whole grain-rich foods;
• Offering only fat-free or low-fat milk varieties;
• Limiting calories based on the age of children being served to ensure proper portion size; and
• Increasing the focus on reducing the amounts of saturated fat, trans fats and sodium.

While these changes are a substantial improvement, there are still some items that were not excised from the menu.  Although Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, described the menu as the “best ever”, she is still disappointed that Congress did not allow for the removal of french fries from school menus, nor the designation of pizza as a vegetable.

Bettina Elias Siegel points out “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly” of the new food standards.  On the “Good” side, the new guidelines is that it brings caloric requirements more in line with acceptable levels for children and eschews the “nutrient standard” system for determining school lunch offerings, which included foods that did not necessarily draw nutrients from the right foods.  In the “Bad” category, she highlights how Congress will have a difficult time funding the program.  For the “Ugly” dimension of the new rules, Elias Siegel points to the continued role of the food lobby in keeping foods like french fries and pizza on menus.

Writing in the Atlantic, Marion Nestle applauds the new standards, but observes that the work to improve child nutrition is not done.  “Good work. Now let’s get busy on the next challenges:

• Set nutrition standards for competitive foods in schools — those sold outside of the lunch program as snacks and meal replacements.
• Teach kids where food comes from.
• Teach kids to cook.”

While these new measures take aim at identifiable problems with child nutrition, other factors may continue to influence strategies for keeping kids healthy.  A recent study from Penn State suggests that there is “no correlation at all between obesity and attending a school where sweets and salty snacks were available.”  There is also the possibility that the lack of choice in food will create a backlash from children who may not eat as much healthy food if they feel restricted from their own food choices.

Image credit: Gourmet.com

In Berlin, farm ministers and policy makers criticized the food waste of developed countries and emphasized the importance of nutrition education programs. Every year, consumers in developed countries waste 220 million metric tons of food, while almost one billion people go hungry. These practices not only hurt those affected by hunger, but also those who over consume and, as a result, suffer from diseases such as obesity. The FAO said that at our current rate of consumption, food production would need to increase 70% by 2050 to feed the expanding population.

However, the FAO website also states that “given the limited availability of natural resources it is more effective to reduce food losses than increase food production in order to feed a growing world population.”  Furthermore, according to Jose Graziano da Silva, the director general of the FAO, ensuring food security in the future will take more than simply focusing on sustainable food production. More importantly, citizens of developed countries must change their consumption practices and ways of thinking. They must adopt a new set of values, eat correctly, and waste less.

Image credit: Blog de Auma/Well HOme

Posted by: Yekaterina Fomitcheva