Vilsack says innovation key to fighting climate change, food insecurity
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday touted new investments and partnerships to address climate change and food security through agricultural innovation. Speaking at the opening of the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate) Summit, he said the initiative has secured more than $13 billion in public and private investments for climate-smart agriculture, reflecting what he called a “global appetite to accelerate innovation.” (No paywall)
G7 farm ministers: Expand Ukraine grain exports via the Black Sea
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has had a devastating impact on global food security, said Group of 7 agriculture ministers on Sunday in a communique that called for expansion of Ukrainian grain shipments via a the Black Sea Grain corridor that is exempt from attack.
SNAP is a bulwark for low-wage workers, says Vilsack
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack bristled at the “notion of picking on SNAP” when millions of Americans are locked into low-wage jobs and need help buying food. “We never have that conversation,” he said on Thursday. Cuts to food stamps have become a frequent suggestion by conservative Republicans in Congress in debates over the farm bill or raising the debt ceiling.
Food affordability remains a global challenge
Fears of persistently high world food prices, sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and disruption of global supply chains, have subsided but food affordability remains a challenge at the household and macro-economic levels, said three analysts on Tuesday. “These risks will remain high” in …
Why America’s food-security crisis is also a water-security crisis
An estimated 2.2 million people in America are water-insecure, and that's almost certainly a huge undercount, explains Lela Nargi in FERN's latest story. Yet the issue "is not even on most public health professionals’ radar, although recent water disasters in Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi, are starting to change that."
Pandemic ‘bump’ to WIC would become permanent in USDA plan
The Agriculture Department proposed an update to the WIC program on Thursday that would let participants buy three, or even four, times as many fruits and vegetables and would broaden the range of foods available through the program to reflect the diversity of the American diet. The expansion of fruit and vegetable allowances would increase WIC spending by 14 percent and require Congress to appropriate additional money to the $6 billion-a-year program.
Black Sea shutdown imperils global food security into 2023 ‘and perhaps beyond’
Ukrainian farmers and food-importing nations in the Middle East and North Africa will feel the pain of the Russian interruption of grain exports through the Black Sea corridor, said the IFPRI think tank on Monday. The importer nations face their highest need for grain in the months ahead with supplies in doubt and commodity prices jolted higher.
Rural areas feel migration pressures the most, says FAO leader
With migration at a high level worldwide, rural areas feel the greatest burden related to forced displacement, whether in loss of population or influx of newcomers, said the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Monday. Food security, along with climate change and armed conflict, is a main driver of human migration.
An $8 billion response for Biden fight against hunger
President Biden's goal of ending hunger and reducing diet-related disease by 2030 already is backed by $8 billion in commitments from the private sector, medical groups, schools and charities, said senior administration officials. Biden was to deliver "a call to action to all Americans" on Wednesday at the first White House hunger conference in half a century.
Largest U.S. Covid fraud scheme victimized child nutrition program, say feds
The Justice Department on Thursday accused 47 people of looting $250 million from the federal child nutrition program by fraudulently claiming to feed thousands of poor children daily in Minnesota during the pandemic. Instead, they allegedly spent the money on cars, houses, jewelry, travel and real estate the United States, Kenya and Turkey in what Attorney General Merrick Garland said was "the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme" yet.
U.S. lists biotechnology and ‘agricultural industrial base’ as national security interests
President Biden directed the Treasury-led committee that scrutinizes foreign investment in America to consider the national security impact any deals would have on U.S. technological leadership, including biotechnology and “elements of the agricultural industrial base that have implications for food security.” The executive order was issued amid rising concerns about Chinese purchases of U.S. land and companies.
Pandemic amplified global rise in food insecurity
More and more people were going hungry or lacking reliable access to food even before Covid-19 hit in 2020, and "the main effect of the pandemic was to sharply increase the deteriorating trend in food security" in low- and middle-income nations, said an Iowa think tank. "Most of the increase in the number of food-insecure people from Covid-19 in 2020 was driven by large Asian countries, particularly India, Bangladesh and Pakistan."
Inflation means longer lines at food banks
Americans are turning to food banks for help in the face of rising food, fuel, child care and housing costs, the chief executive of the Atlanta Community Food Bank told lawmakers on Tuesday. "Our distribution volumes are rising again" and now match the early months of the pandemic, when hunger was on the rise, said Kyle Waide, the chief executive.
Export bans worsen global food crisis, says research group
Despite the experience of food price spikes a decade ago, nations are compounding the disruptions of warfare in the Black Sea region by hoarding their domestic supplies, said the global research group CGIAR.
‘Nobel Prize of Agriculture’ awarded to NASA climate scientist
NASA climatologist Cynthia Rosenzweig, one of the first scientists to document the impact of climate change on food production, is this year’s winner of the $250,000 World Food Prize, said the Food Prize foundation on Thursday. “Dr. Rosenzweig has brought powerful computational tools into practical application in agriculture and food systems,” said foundation president Barbara Stinson during an announcement ceremony at the State Department.
Vegetable oil prices could remain high into 2023
The Russian invasion of Ukraine focused world attention on wheat prices and disruptions of supplies to poor countries that rely on imported grain. Now analysts at the IFPRI think tank say there is “another important emerging food security issue: the war’s impact on vegetable oils.”
FAO: Ukraine farm output to shrink by one-third
One-third of Ukraine's crops and agricultural land may not be harvested or cultivated this year because of the Russian invasion, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Tuesday. It asked for donations of $115.4 million, more than double its initial request, to support Ukrainian agriculture.
High global wheat prices through 2023 — IFPRI analysts
There are no overnight replacements for Ukraine and Russia in global wheat production, said five IFPRI analysts on Monday. "Even under the most optimistic assumptions, global wheat prices will remain high throughout 2022 and the trend is likely to persist through 2023, given limits on expanding production."