world hunger
U.S. farmers pursue soybean profits, shrug at tight wheat stocks
American farmers say they will plant more soybeans — a record 91 million acres — and less corn and spring wheat despite tight global wheat supplies that have been compounded by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are two of the world’s largest wheat exporters, and Ukraine is a leading corn supplier.
To avert food shortage, U.S. and allies will boost food aid and grow more
Global food shortages are a real possibility as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Biden told reporters while meeting with allies in Brussels on Thursday. Western leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, joined Biden in saying they would step up their hunger-relief programs and encourage their farmers to grow more food.
Europe to till fallow land to offset food shortages from war in Ukraine
Responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission approved a $550 million aid package for its farmers on Wednesday and said they could grow food and feed crops on fallowed land without losing any of their so-called greening payments.
‘Without fuel, they cannot do it,’ says Ukraine ag official
Ukrainian farmers are woefully short of fuel ahead of the spring planting season and have lost around 10 percent of their land “to military effects,” such as bombing, said Dzoba Taras, the country’s deputy agriculture minister, during a webinar.
War in Ukraine could drive up global hunger by 2 percent in a year
Up to 13 million people around the world could be pushed into hunger because of the spike in food prices and disruptions in supplies that result from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Wednesday. The global hunger rate of 9.9 percent was already the highest in 13 years, due to the pandemic.
As COP26 nears, activists say agriculture should be a bigger part of the agenda
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), which starts Oct. 31 in Glasgow, has been billed as a “turning point” for humanity and the “last, best chance” of averting climate disaster. And given the growing awareness of the central role that food and agricultural systems play in climate change—both as a cause and as part of a potential solution—many activists say that the sector is not as big a piece of the COP26 agenda as it should be. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
U.S. pledges $10 billion at food summit, half for domestic programs
The United States joined dozens of countries at a UN-sponsored food summit in pledging on Thursday to reduce world hunger. The Biden administration said it would put $10 billion into the effort, half of it to be spent domestically and half abroad.
Pandemic brings highest global hunger rate in 12 years
Global hunger climbs 15 percent, at five-year high
Warfare, the pandemic, and extreme weather pushed an additional 20 million people into acute food insecurity in the past year, driving the worldwide total to 155 million, said the Global Network Against Food Crises on Wednesday. It was the highest total in five years.
Pandemic could increase world hunger by one fifth — UN report
The coronavirus pandemic will accelerate the five-year-old rise in world hunger and could add as many as 132 million people this year to the global tally of the hungry, an increase of 19 percent, said five UN agencies in a report on Monday. The pandemic is disrupting the food supply chain while sweeping lockdowns to control the virus are cutting off people from work, said the annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.
World hunger up, afflicts 820 million people
One in nine of the earth's population is undernourished and the global hunger rate is creeping up from the low set in 2015, said five UN agencies in a report on Monday. Hunger is most prevalent in Africa, at nearly double the global level, but on every continent, women are more likely than men to go hungry.
Diet for a healthy planet: Half the red meat and sugar, more grains, nuts, produce
A three-year collaboration by three dozen experts in nutrition, agriculture, economics, and the environment says it has solved one of the world’s great challenges: how to feed an expected 10 billion people at mid-century without imperiling future food production. The answer is the “planetary health diet.”
World Food Prize awarded to pair for work on maternal and child nutrition
Two nutrition advocates whose focus on maternal and child nutrition helped reduce the number of stunted children in the world by 10 million in five years are the winners of the World Food Prize for 2018, the award’s sponsor announced on Monday.
Senate panel ignores White House on foreign food aid
The Food for Peace program, created during the Cold War to alleviate hunger overseas, would see $1.7 billion in funding in the new fiscal year, a Senate Appropriations subcommittee decided on Tuesday, ignoring a White House proposal to mothball the program.
Hunger halved in strife-torn northeastern Nigeria
The number of hungry people in northeastern Nigeria has dropped by half, to 2.6 million, since mid-year, according to analysis by regional groups, which give credit to improved security and scaled-up humanitarian assistance.
War and weather end decade-long decline in world hunger
The report on global hunger was the first since the UN set a goal of eradicating hunger by 2030. UN agencies, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, have cited the role of warfare in hunger. According to the new UN report, 60 percent of the world's hungry people "live in countries affected by conflict," some 489 million people. But even in regions that are more peaceful, droughts or floods linked in part to the El Niño weather phenomenon, as well as the global economic slowdown, have also seen food security and nutrition deteriorate, said the report.
Scientists propose global research alliance to meet world food needs
The world’s need for food is growing faster than the projected supply, says a group of crop scientists in proposing the formation of a broad-based research network to develop new varieties and mitigate the impact of climate change on world hunger. Writing in the journal Science, the scientists say that the fruitful international collaboration on wheat, which began with the Green Revolution of the 1960s, can be a template for work on many crops.