Go with your gut says researcher

Research shows intuition is critical in farmers' decision making, according to Dr Peter Nuthall of Lincoln University, New Zealand.

Dr Nuthall, a long-time researcher in farm management at the University, surveyed a number of successful farmers to discover how they made their farming decisions. He was intrigued when his research showed that the famers he studied made grazing decisions using their own mental processes rather than formal analytical tools. This was despite their being a number of resources available to help them with this.

Dr Nuthall found that there was a variety of intuitive skills used by farmers to make these decisions but even in this age of computers, and with programs available, they seldom employed formal systems for this task. Instead, they developed mental ‘expert systems’ to make their feed management decisions.  The term ‘expert system’ refers to a branch of Artificial Intelligence in which a computer program attempts to mimic an expert.

“Each farm and farmer was unique and this has made it hard for programmers to develop systems suitable for many farmers,” said Dr Nuthall.

In New Zealand, Australia, and many other countries, a large percentage of farmers earn their income through grazing animals on pastures of various types, both native and introduced.

In other than simple herding systems, successful grazing management is often complex with fine lines between the achievement of low and high output. “However, doing the right thing at the right time leads to higher profit,” said Dr Nuthall.

“An exciting find from the research was that intuitive skills were not something some people have and others don’t. I discovered that intuition has a structure and can be improved with practice using various review and mentoring systems. For this to work the mentors must be trusted people because it is necessary to consider every last detail about the farms and farming systems, including confidential material, as all aspects have an influence in making the correct decision.

“What the farmers are doing is building up their own personalised intuitive expert system,” said Dr Nuthall.

Intuition works through careful and regular observation of all critical factors both on and off the farm. Pattern matching then comes into play through the brain searching experience to come up with ‘patterns’,  the current problem and a successful decision. This ultimately leads to greater farm profits.   

“There is also evidence from around the world that variations in profit occur from different farmers’ managerial ability, despite using the same basic animal production systems in the same environment.

“Ultimately efficient grazing is often important to national income,” said Dr Nuthall.

For New Zealand, grazing-based export income was 36.9% of total exports in 2009, with  all primary production being 55.9% of the total exports of NZ$36.9 billion.

“In developing countries primary production exports are often even more important,” said Dr Nuthall 

Prospect of Dust Bowl 2 stalks America

American Geosciences Institute’s magazine Earth says prospects for cattle ranchers and farmers in the American Southwest appear grim.

Researchers predict that over the next two or three decades the area from West Texas to New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and on into Southern California, Nevada and Utah will transition to a climate that may make the 1930s Dust Bowl seem mild and brief.

The less than rosy forecast comes at a time when the region is already experiencing giant dust storms in Arizona, and Texas is in the grip of an extreme, three-year drought. Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and other states are also experiencing drought conditions.

The 1930s Dust Bowl saw more than 20 million hectares of farmland lost soil to airborne dust.

The researchers say the region’s problem now is that rising temperatures will contribute directly and indirectly to there being more dust in the air. Then, persistent droughts, increasingly violent and variable weather patterns, urban and suburban development and even off-road recreational vehicle usage threaten to shroud the West in dust.

Food price volatility may increase

10 October 2011, Rome - Food price volatility featuring high prices is likely to continue and possibly increase, making poor farmers, consumers and countries more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity, the United Nations' three Rome-based agencies said in the global hunger report published today.  

Small, import-dependent countries, particularly in Africa, are especially at risk.  Many of them still face severe problems following the world food and economic crises of 2006-2008, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011" (SOFI), an annual flagship report which they jointly produced this year.

Such crises, including in the Horn of Africa, "are challenging our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half in  2015," the heads of the three agencies — Jacques Diouf of FAO, Kanayo F. Nwanze of IFAD and Josette Sheeran of WFP — warned in a preface to the report.  

Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture

The following link will take you to an Issue Brief entitled, “An Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture: What to Expect from the G-20 Summit”, authored by Robert Paarlberg, B. F. Johnson Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.


This is the second in a series of Issue Briefs commissioned by the Global Agricultural Development Initiative. Issues Briefs offer factual and analytical information and resources to policymakers and other non-governmental stakeholders to advance understanding of the potential implications of major developments, events, and decisions on U.S. agricultural development and food security policy.


Click here to read the full Issue Brief (PDF).

Agriculture and health go hand-in-hand

A new report released by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs calls on the agriculture and food sectors to play a role in mitigating the global rise in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Bringing Agriculture to the Table: How Agriculture and Food Policy can Play a Role in Preventing Chronic Disease (PDF), which was presented before this morning’s opening of the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs, identifies new opportunities for those in heath and agriculture to work together to promote better health. 





The report was prepared by Dr. Rachel Nugent, University of Washington and project chair for the Chicago Council. The project was guided by an advisory panel of noted agriculture and health experts from academia, private sector and international organizations.


Health solutions to prevent noncommunicable diseases such as heart disease, lung disease, cancer and diabetes, have traditionally left out the agriculture and food sector. The report finds, however, that if the agriculture and food sector works more closely with the health sector, the rising prevalence of diet-related NCDs and early deaths can be reduced through better nutrition and healthier lifestyles. The report points out that the global food system has evolved over the past century to deliver a number of benefits—greater choice for consumers, greater nutritional diversity and lower cost. But, it asserts that agriculture must offer consumers a better mix of locally available, less-processed, and culturally appropriate items that constitute a healthy diet.  

More effort needed in Africa - FAO

FAO has called for increased efforts to stem the food crisis in the Horn of Africa as famine spread to a sixth area of Somalia, threatening  750 000 people with starving to death in the next four months.

Latest data released yesterday by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSNAU), which is managed by FAO in close collaboration with USAID's Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), indicated that famine has spread to Bay region, one of Somalia's most productive areas. Five other regions had previously been declared in a state of famine.

Together with ongoing crises in the rest of the country, the number of Somalis in need of humanitarian assistance has increased from 2.4 million to 4 million in the last eight months, with 3 million of them in the country's south.

Bleak picture

"Though these figures paint a bleak picture for Somalia, there is a window of opportunity for the humanitarian community to stop and reverse this undesirable trend by supporting farmers and herders in addition to other emergency interventions," Luca Alinovi, FAO's Officer in Charge for Somalia, told a press conference in Nairobi.

Bay region is a breadbasket for Somalia, producing over 80 percent of the country's sorghum. Record levels of acute malnutrition have been registered there, with 58 percent of children under five acutely malnourished, and a crude death of more than two deaths per 10 000 per day.

Bay region joins five other areas hit by famine including Bakool agropastoral communities in Lower Shabelle region, the agropastoral areas of Balcad and Cadale districts of Middle Shabelle, the Afgoye corridor IDP settlement, and the Mogadishu IDP community.

Widespread famine

Despite current interventions, projections indicate that famine will become widespread throughout southern Somalia by the end of 2011.

"In the current food security situation, famine conditions are expected to spread to agropastoral populations in Gedo Hiran Middle Shabelle and Juba regions and the riverine populations of Juba and Gedo in the coming four months," said Grainne Moloney, FSNAU's Chief Technical Adviser.

Post-harvest finding showed this year's cereal crop to be the lowest in 17 years. Dwindling stocks of local cereals have sent cereal prices soaring 300 percent over the last year and nearly half a million acutely malnourished children across Somalia require urgent nutritional treatment.

FAO has appealed for $70 million for Somalia to provide agricultural emergency assistance for one million farmers and herders. With increasing access to many parts of southern Somalia, FAO is currently carrying out emergency interventions and is opening two new offices in Mogadishu and Dolo and several suboffices in each region.

Improved seeds

"We have already embarked on mass production of improved seeds and procured 5 000 tonnes of fertilizer, among other farm inputs, in preparation for the next planting season from October to December," said Alinovi.  FAO's current interventions are benefiting of over one million people in Somalia's most affected regions.

FAO has received confirmed donations of $20 million from the United Nations' Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF), Australia, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and another $21 million in pledges from the European Commission - Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), the United States of America, Belgium and the World Bank. Talks with other countries are ongoing.

Famine is classified using a tool called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). FSNAU and FEWS NET adhere to the IPC standards when declaring a famine on the basis of at least  three criteria being present: severe lack of food access for 20 percent of the population, acute malnutrition exceeding 30 percent and a Crude Death Rate exceeding two deaths per 10 000 population per day.

The current crisis affects the whole Horn of Africa region including the northern part of Kenya and southern parts of Ethiopia and Djibouti where large areas are classified as being in a state of humanitarian emergency.  

Food crisis cuts calorie consumption

By IFPRI - From 2006 to 2008, the world experienced a dramatic increase in global food prices which especially affected the poor, whose diets depend on staple commodities such as maize, rice, and wheat. 

Studies in Latin America show urban and rural households have cut their calorie intake to cope with the price shock.

Data from national household surveys in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Ecuador, and Peru found that each country experienced an 8% average reduction in calorie intake after the food price crisis.

Read more: http://bit.ly/mYcAKb

Invest in agriculture now or repeat crisis

Governments, UN agencies and international organisations meeting in Rome today warned that food producing farmers and herders need immediate help to prevent the crisis from deepening in the Horn of Africa.

Attending the meeting were agricultural ministers from countries in the Horn of Africa, ministers and representatives of FAO Member nations, the African Union, the Presidency of the G20 (France), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Secretary-General representative, Oxfam and many other international and civil society organisations.

The day-long meeting ended with a call for a twin track approach that involves both meeting pressing relief needs as well as addressing the root causes of the problem and strengthening the affected populations' resilience in the face of future shocks.

"Even as we deal with saving lives today, we should also go further and take steps to prevent future calamities. We have to start building for the future -- now. Comprehensive, government-endorsed investment plans are already available -- the funding gaps are clear and large. If governments and their donor partners do not invest in agriculture now, the appalling famine we are struggling to redress will return to shame us yet again," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.

"Feeding the hungry does not end hunger, unless we help people provide for their futures. If donors, development agencies and governments do not attend to the medium and long term, this kind of tragedy will happen again," said IFAD Vice President Yukiko Omura. "We cannot control droughts, but we can control hunger. To do so we must invest in the world's smallholder farmers so that they can feed their communities and their families."

WFP Deputy Executive Director Sheila Sisulu said: "By harnessing the power of regional institutions and of partnerships, national institutions, political will and international commitment, we can break this cycle by building household resilience, protecting productive assets, and putting in place measures to avoid a similar crisis when the rains, inevitably, fail in the future."

"What the Horn of Africa region is enduring today is a manifestation of the extent to which livelihoods in Africa are extremely vulnerable to shocks -- hence the need to address such extreme vulnerability of livelihoods, and of the economies of communities and nations," said Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union.

Safeguarding local food production

While the food crisis in the Horn of Africa was triggered by drought, conflict and high food prices, the underlying reason for the region's vulnerability to such shocks is underinvestment in agriculture and inadequate management of natural resources.

Specific immediate-term measures that were flagged for priority action during today's talks include:

• Ensuring that lifesaving food assistance needs are met and that nutrition support is scaled up
• Saving surviving livestock to protect the food security of  pastoralists
• Saving the forthcoming planting season starting in October ensuring that farmers have access to inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation water
• Expanding cash-for-work programmes to allow people to buy food at local markets and prevent the sale of assets

The meeting also stressed the vital importance of supporting actions aimed at addressing the root causes of the problem in the Horn:

• Protecting and restoring degraded land resources
• Improving water management and expanding irrigation (only 1% of the land in the Horn of Africa region is irrigated, versus 7% in Africa and 38% in Asia)
• Improving animal, plant, and range management practices of small scale farmers to make them less vulnerable to hazards and climate variability
• Strengthening community-based animal health services
• Identifying viable and acceptable alternatives to pastoral livelihoods

Support for such activities should be a sustained, multi-year effort and be linked to improvements in basic services including education, health and clean water, participants added.

The meeting recommended continued support for the African Union-sponsored Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which envisions investing more in supporting livelihood resilience in drought prone areas.

From crisis to recovery

The technical meeting was organized by FAO as a follow-up to the Emergency Ministerial-Level Meeting on the Horn of Africa, convened on 25 July 2011 at the request of the French Presidency of the G-20. The event aimed to review both immediate as well as longer-term responses to the crisis. Recommendations generated by the meeting will guide international response efforts and help prepare upcoming advocacy, fundraising and coordination events to support the affected population in the region.

Plea from the head of the World Food Program

The following is an extract from the blog written by Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Program

For the past few weeks, my tweets have been focusing on famine in South East Africa as I find the dire situation in Africa heartbreaking and requiring our utmost attention.  The shift is a necessary and important one to raise awareness and help facilitate donations to prevent the senseless loss of innocent lives.

When reading article after article, I find myself filled with many emotions. I get angry reading that some political groups deny their own people food and shelter in the name of an ideology which I find unacceptable and frustrating. I cry reading that a mother had to decide between her children and left her three year old on the side of the road to die to save the other two. I’m enraged to read six year old girls getting raped on their way to find food. I find myself very sad that as human beings we are failing at many levels. It is time to wake up and help our fellow brothers and sisters in the Horn of Africa, it is time to save children who are subjected to war, hunger, rape, disease, and we should not close our eyes and pretend it is not happening. We need to step up and help as much as we can.

To read more or to help, go to: http://bit.ly/pEpNXl

Food price monitor for Africa

FAO has released an updated edition of its monthly Food Price Monitor.

Highlights of the report include:

International prices of wheat decreased for the third consecutive month but those of rice continue to increase. Maize prices declined marginally, globally.

In Eastern Africa, cereal prices are at generally high levels, with new peaks reached in several countries. Prices of milk are at record or very high levels in most countries of the region.

In Somalia, prices of domestically produced staples, sorghum and maize, showed some signs of decline in July. However, prices of maize and sorghum remained at very high levels as compared to July 2010 -- up to 150 and 200 percent higher, respectively. Similarly, while prices of milk decreased or stabilized in several markets in July they remain well above the levels of the previous year  In the most affected south-eastern Somali region, milk prices in June were twice their levels of a year earlier.

In Kenya, prices of the main staple maize rose sharply in July, reaching new peaks.

In Ethiopia, prices of staple maize rose again in July in most markets. Prices of milk have surged due to the deteriorating conditions of the livestock in recent months.

Read the full report: http://www.fao.org/giews/english/gfpm/GFPM_08_2011.pdf  

Billion year upgrade via UV?

Ultraviolet light exposure could kick-start the photosynthetic machinery in seedlings.

Senior lecturer at the Institute of Natural Resources Dr Jason Wargent, has found exposing lettuce crops to ultraviolet (UV) light in the early stages of growth leads to increased photosynthetic activity and increased yield.

His United Kingdom-based research team took two sets of lettuce seedlings and exposed one to UV-B light while still seedlings.

“Many crops are quite heavily protected from the sun when they are very young, via the use of poly-tunnels or glasshouses, but in this study we allowed the lettuce crops to be exposed to UV light earlier,” Wargent says. “Usually they are grown indoors until they are a youngish age then they get moved outside. In this study we put the plants into poly-tunnels which were covered in a film that allowed the UV light through.”

At harvest, the plants that had the early UV exposure were bigger.

“We examined photosynthetic capability in the plants, and our study shows the plants that were being exposed to UV had higher photosynthetic rates, and also seemed to be more robust against high temperature and light stress,” he says.

“What we think is happening is that the early period of exposure allows a plant to, in effect, build up a tolerance to UV so that when they get moved outside, they’re able to withstand sunlight better.”

Many crops in New Zealand are grown outdoors, and Wargent says if they were better prepared to make that transition, yields could increase.

“This has ramifications for most of the vegetable and some other crops grown in New Zealand, not just lettuces.”

Wargent says further research is being carried out to see what the New Zealand levels of UV can really do in terms of the potential to manipulate crop quality. 

Joint FAO-WFP statement: Aid for East Africa, now and in the future

Following the emergency meeting on the food and humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa held in Rome on 25 July at the request of the French Presidency of the G20, FAO and WFP welcome the international community's determined mobilization in response to the situation.

A press release from the two organisations says this mobilization is aimed first of all at meeting the challenges of the humanitarian and food emergency by coordinating the response of international agencies and humanitarian organizations and by raising the funds required. 


"Beyond the emergency, it will be necessary to put into place the long-term solutions needed to guarantee food security in the Horn of Africa. There will be no sustainable solution to the crisis without measures that enable the countries of the region to become food self-sufficient, develop food crop production and support pastoralism and massively reinvest in agriculture and livestock-raising in the region."

FAO and WFP welcome the fact that the the French Presidency of the G20 has "put agriculture and food security at the top of its priorities" and hail its initiatives such as the Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture to mobilize the international community in support of the Horn of Africa's food security.

The FAO says that mobilization must not diminish.

Urgency needed for Horn of Africa

The international community rallied today to the aid of drought- and famine-affected populations in the Horn of Africa with an immediate, twin-track programme designed to avert an imminent humanitarian catastrophe and build long-term food security in the region.

The meeting was organized by FAO at the urgent request of the French Presidency of the Group of 20 and was attended by Ministers and senior representatives from FAO's 191 Member Countries, other UN agencies and international and non-governmental organizations. 

The food crisis in the Horn of Africa, triggered by drought, conflict and high food prices, is affecting more than 12 million people, with two regions of southern Somalia suffering from famine.

Today's emergency meeting recognized that "if this crisis is not quickly contained and reversed, it could grow rapidly into a humanitarian disaster affecting many parts of the greater Horn of Africa region and that it is of paramount importance that we address the needs of the people affected and the livelihood systems upon which they depend for survival".

Saving lives and livelihoods

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said: "The combined forces of drought, inflation and conflict have created a catastrophic situation that urgently requires massive international support. If we want to avoid future famine and food insecurity crises in the region, countries and the international community urgently need to bolster the agricultural sector and accelerate investments in rural development."

Bruno Le Maire, the French Minister of Agriculture said: "This crisis highlights the need for urgent implementation of the action plan on food price volatility and agriculture adopted by G20 Agriculture ministers on 23 June in Paris, notably regarding international policy coordination, agricultural production and productivity and targeted emergency humanitarian food reserves."

"Many of the women I met in Somalia and Kenya over the past few days had lost their children and had no one to depend on but the humanitarian agencies on the ground," said WFP Executive Director, Josette Sheeran. "This drought has swept the Horn of Africa where more than 11 million people are in need of food assistance.  We are particularly worried about Somalia right now and it is vital that we reach those at the epicentre of the famine with food assistance — especially the highly fortified nutritious products that are so important for vulnerable children.

The President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Kanayo F. Nwanze said: "Building resilience of farming and herding communities in the Horn of Africa and the world over requires a long-term commitment. But time — as we can see from the devastating situation in the Horn of Africa — is running out. Increased investment in sustainable agriculture needs to happen now, so that when the next drought comes, wherever in the world, there will be less suffering, less desperation. Even if the rains fail, we cannot."

Oxfam Chief Executive Barbara Stocking said: "Lives in East Africa hang in balance, now, today. World leaders have no excuses for not generously responding. There can be no problem more pressing, more acute, more urgent than millions of people staring at the spectre of starvation in this part of Africa. This should not be happening. It is a colossal outrage that the warnings went unheeded, that the lessons of previous famines have been ignored. Yes we need to save lives today but we also need to ensure that people have a future. Above all we need to build a global food system that allows everyone enough to eat."

Country-led response

The meeting agreed that governments of the six countries hit by the crisis would manage the response to the crisis, informed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee's (IASC) Horn of Africa Plan of Action.

The meeting stressed that there is still a "window of opportunity" to support affected populations to resume their livelihoods and to enable farmers, fishers and herders to help themselves through these times of crisis within their own communities and emphasised that displacement of populations should be avoided as far as possible.

Specifically, support should be given to pastoralists and agropastoralists, who constitute a dynamic and sustainable livelihood system in the region, the meeting agreed. At the same time, however, it was recognized that the mobility of pastoralists and their livestock within countries and across borders was essential for saving lives and preserving the foundations of food and nutrition security.

Humanitarian issues

Securing long-term food and nutrition security in the Horn of Africa requires focussing on a range of humanitarian issues affecting the region, including conflict, preservation of humanitarian space, nutrition, disaster risk reduction, health and education services and climate change adaptation and mitigation. In addition, sustainable agriculture needs to become an investment priority along with policies that will help it expand. The issue of women's workload and their control of productive resources should also be addressed. 

"We commit to an immediate and appropriate response to ensure that affected countries and communities have the capacity to preserve the vulnerable livelihoods on which so many people's lives depend while building long-term resilience and safeguarding the foundations of food security to ensure sustainable reduction of hunger and malnutrition," the meeting concluded. 

- Source: FAO

Famine prompts FAO call to action

Nairobi/Rome,  20 July 2011 - Famine in Somalia has killed tens of thousands of people in recent months and could grow even worse unless urgent action is taken, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned on Wednesday. FAO has appealed for $120 million for response to the drought in the Horn of Africa to provide agricultural emergency assistance.

Hundreds of people are dying every day and if we do not act now many more will perish," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.

"We must avert a human tragedy of vast proportions. And much as food assistance is needed now, we also have to scale up investments in sustainable immediate and medium-term interventions that help farmers and their families to protect their assets and continue to produce food.

Special report

In a special report published today the FAO-managed Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network officially declared a state of famine in two regions of southern Somalia, Bakool and Lower Shabelle.

The report warns that in the next one or two months famine will become widespread throughout southern Somalia.

Together with ongoing crises in the rest of the country, the number of Somalis in need of humanitarian assistance has increased from 2.4 million to 3.7 million in the last 6 months.  Altogether, around 12 million people in the Horn of Africa are currently in need of emergency assistance.

International meeting

An international emergency meeting will be held in Rome on Monday, 25 July, to address the escalating crisis in the Horn of Africa and mobilize international support. The French government, holding the G20 presidency, requested FAO to organize the High-Level Ministerial Meeting, to which FAO's  191 member countries, UN agencies, international organizations, development banks and non-governmental organizations have been invited.

Right before the meeting, from 22 to 24 July, the Director-General of FAO will travel to Nairobi with the French Minister for Agriculture and the Executive Director of the World Food Programme.

Famine is classified using a tool called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification with three main criteria: severe lack of food access for large populations, acute malnutrition rates exceeding 30 percent of the population and Crude Death Rate exceeding 2 people per 10,000 population per day.

Acute malnutrition

Currently in some parts of Bakool and Lower Shabelle acute malnutrition tops 50 percent and death rates exceed six per  10,000 population per day.

In order to address the current crisis in Somalia, FAO is appealing for $70 million for the country to provide interventions including cash-for-work activities, provision of farm inputs and livestock emergency health services.

A rare combination of conflict and insecurity, limited access for humanitarian organizations, successive harvest failures and a lack of food assistance has jeopardized an entire population in southern Somalia. The country has suffered war on and off since 1991.

Farm inputs

FAO has been helping Somali farmers and herders with farm inputs and livestock health services.  But drought due to successive  poor rain seasons has curtailed food production and wiped out livestock assets.

"We need to immediately support farmers with seeds, tools and access to water and herders with fodder and emergency treatment to avoid further displacement and starvation," said Luca Alinovi FAO's Officer in Charge for Somalia.

The current crisis affects the whole Horn of Africa region including the northern part of Kenya and southern parts of Ethiopia, Djibouti and the Karamoja Region of Uganda where large areas are classified as in a state of humanitarian emergency.

Regional crisis

To address the regional crisis FAO is calling for an additional $120 million for the Horn of Africa including $70 million for Somalia and $50 million for Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda. In this scenario it is important not to forget the humanitarian crisis in the Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan for which FAO appealed for $37 million.

"We need to not lose sight that there is a tiny window of opportunity to prevent massive deaths and destitution," said Rod Charters, FAO Regional Emergency Coordinator for Eastern Africa.

"Currently in the neighboring countries of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti, 7.9 million people are in need of urgent emergency assistance. Support through agriculture and livestock not only provides essential food but an income for families and we need to give people affected by the drought the chance to rebuild their lives," he added. 

-FAO

New FAO boss must do better

The United Nations’ food agency has picked Brazil’s Jose Graziano da Silva as its director general, the first new leader in almost two decades. His challenge is to improve the FAO’s performance on food security as the world faces near-record food prices that are driving millions into poverty.

Graziano da Silva (pictured above), 61, former Brazilian minister of food security will take over at the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization from Jan. 1 to July 31, 2015, replacing Senegal- born Jacques Diouf after 18 years at the head of the biggest UN agency.

 

Graziano da Silva was in charge of former Brazilian president Luiz Inacia Lula da Silva’s “Zero Hunger” plan started in 2003. The plan reduced hunger in Brazil by half and cut the percentage of Brazilians living in extreme poverty to 4.8 percent in 2009 from 12 percent in 2003, according to the FAO, which awarded Lula the 2011 World Food Prize for “Zero Hunger.”

The FAO, set up in 1945 as a specialized UN agency, says it leads international efforts to defeat hunger and helps developing countries improve farming. The mandate of the agency, whose headquarters moved to Rome from Washington in 1951, includes raising nutrition levels and agricultural productivity.

Millions have starved in the developing world since 1945 with parts of Africa ravaged by famine. Food price shocks are becoming more common, not less, and the Green Revolution never got going in Africa, partly because of ‘structural adjustment’ policies overseen by the FAO that starved agriculture of resources and gave rise to the welfare trap many poor nations now face – no agricultural base and forced to accept food aid, mainly from US farmers who depend on the government-funded food aid market.

Farm-Africa making a difference

Farm-Africa is making a difference with its focus on agricultural development in Africa.

Former United Nations leader Kofi Annan says gets results because it "supports locally relevant and scalable demonstrations of what works".

Farm-Africa allocates 52% of the funds it raises to developing agricultural best practice and just 2% to governance and 11% on raising more funds.



Read the full report: http://bit.ly/jMuVF0

Offal no longer going in the pit

Exports of red meat ‘co-products’ – such as edible offals, casings, pelts and rendered products, tallows and meat meal –  offer increasingly important market diversity for New Zealand agriculture and in 2010 contributed $1 billion to the country’s sheep and beef sectors, according to a new industry report.

In its recently-released industry note The Fifth Quarter, specialist food and agribusiness bank Rabobank says a focus for New Zealand’s sheep and beef sectors has been on increasing exports of edible offal in particular, using existing plant to process a wider range of edible products. Expansion of sales from edible, but not traditional, parts of the animal carcass has increased the utilisation and returns from meat processing, the report says.

So-called ‘co-products’ are a diverse range of goods created once red meat cuts have been processed from the animal carcass.  Adding value to pelts, viscera (offals), bones and fats may be done in New Zealand or raw materials can be sold into a diverse range of markets.

Report author Rabobank animal proteins analyst Rebecca Redmond says pressures on supply in the New Zealand sheepmeat sector in particular (with decreasing stock availability) has been driving processors to extract greater value from the whole carcass.  “A similar story has played out for the beef sector, where focus on the expanding range of edible non-meat products has occurred in line with increased interest from emerging markets,” she says.

Evolving from subsistence to commercial farming

The following policy report has been released by the Chicago Council:

Leveraging Private Sector Investment in Developing Country Agrifood Systems

Charlotte Hebebrand, Global Agricultural Development Initiative Policy Paper, May 2011

The for-profit sector is now a critical player in the shift from subsistence agricultural economies, where poverty and uncertainty perpetuate hunger, toward well-functioning commercial systems, where farmers can afford needed inputs and reach cash markets. Private-sector engagement is also essential for “scaling up” government-financed development proj¬ects, and for sustaining these projects after government funding is reduced or withdrawn.

This policy paper consists of four sections. The first reiterates the benefits of sound private-sector investment in sustainable food security; it also explains the paper’s primary focus on investments from transnational corporations (TNCs) and describes how TNCs approach decisions on investment allocations. The second section highlights examples of TNC investments that have simultaneously benefited smallholders in developing countries while creating profits—or the potential for profits—for the investors. The third section explores how the US government engages with TNCs and incentiv¬izes investments. The final section concludes with recommendations for TNCs, governments, and other players, with a view towards increasing TNC investments that both strengthen agricultural development and offer profits to TNCs.

Get the full report at http://bit.ly/mEHbOW

Food prices now on a higher plateau

Commodity prices rose sharply again in August 2010 as crop production shortfalls in key producing regions and low stocks reduced available supplies, and resurging economic growth in developing and emerging economies underpinned demand, according to the FAO's Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020 report.

A period of high volatility in agricultural commodity markets has entered its fifth successive year, says the FAO report. "High and volatile commodity prices and their implications for food insecurity are clearly among the important issues facing governments today. This was well reflected in the discussions at the G20 Summit in Seoul in November, 2010, and in the proposals for action being developed for consideration at its June 2011 meeting of Agriculture Ministers in Paris."

This Outlook is cautiously optimistic that commodity prices will fall from their 2010-11 levels, as markets respond to these higher prices and the opportunities for increased profi tability that they afford. Harvests this year are critical, but restoring market balances may take some time. Until stocks can be rebuilt, risks of further upside price volatility remain high.

This Outlook maintains the view expressed in recent editions that agricultural commodity prices in real terms are likely to remain on a higher plateau during the next ten years compared to the previous decade. Prolonged periods of high prices could make the achievement of global food security goals more difficult, putting poor consumers at a higher risk of malnutrition.

Agriculture underpins all else

It shouldn't be this hard to convince people that agricultural development is the key to alleviating hunger.

The frustration evident in the latest blog by Roger Thurow of think tank The Chicago Council on Global Affairs suggests getting the point through to the lawmakers remains challenging. He was reacting to news that the budget battles for fiscal year 2011 provided $100 million of President Obama’s $408 million request for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP).

"To those involved in the trench warfare seeking full funding for programs to attack hunger through agriculture development, that even $100 million survived is reason for an ounce of optimism.  For them, the glass is one-quarter full.  As the budget rhetoric heated up, with loud calls to slash all foreign aid, gloom spread that food and agriculture development would be entirely cut.  As it turns out, $100 million is indeed better than zero."

Kofi Annan sums it up nicely:

“Over the years I was following developments on the continent and when we came up with MDGs [Millennium Development Goals], one of their roles was reducing hunger and poverty by 50 per cent. The only way this continent can reduce hunger is by increasing its food production. I also saw the work of welfare programme organisations expanding constantly, bringing food aid to Africa when we should be focusing on getting agriculture right. With climate change, the problem was going to get bigger and I couldn’t see how one can live on food aid. When you look at the continent and the question of development, agriculture can be such a multiplier. If we get agriculture right in Africa, where most of the people now are working in that sector, not only would it help boost development but we will be secure in terms of food and nutrition and then be able to move on to other areas.” – Kofi Annan, Interview with Alec Russell, Financial Times, May 16, 2011

http://bit.ly/lk4BtR

Biofortified sorghum for Africa

LOUIS and DES MOINES, Iowa, May 4, 2011 – The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and DuPont yesterday announced a $4 million grant from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation to bring healthier sorghum to underserved communities in Africa.


The grant will help fund the completion of the development of biofortified sorghum, a more nutritious and digestible sorghum for Africans who depend upon sorghum as their staple diet.  DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred began working on the project in 2005 in conjunction with the African Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Consortium, an Africa-led public-private partnership.  The ABS Consortium is a key partner in this project and will work to secure regulatory approvals and pursue production and deployment plans as Pioneer and Danforth complete product development.


Sorghum is a cereal that has many characteristics comparable to corn.  However, unlike corn, sorghum is naturally drought tolerant.  It provides calories and minimal nutrition in dry areas of Africa such as in the Sahel, the area of Africa just south of the Sahara desert.  The sorghum nutritional improvement project will permit greater levels of essential nutrients to be delivered to those who live in arid places where sorghum is relied upon as the staple food source.  Additionally, the biofortified sorghum may become important in new geographies as a result of the effects of climate change.


The project focuses on increased zinc and iron bioavailability through phytate reduction, improved protein digestibility and increased pro-vitamin A levels.  These key nutrients and micronutrients aid in child development, and reduce rates of diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, lower respiratory tract infections and curb Vitamin A deficiency, which is the leading cause of acquired blindness in children in the developing world.


“Improving the nutrition of this staple crop has the potential to change the lives of more than 300 million Africans,” said Howard G. Buffett, president of the Foundation.  “I have seen first-hand the devastating effects of malnutrition.  I have a personal commitment to see that healthier sorghum gets to the people of Africa.”


The introduction of biofortified sorghum is expected to have a major impact on the health and life of targeted communities in Africa – not only by offering improved nutrition, but by providing the sorghum at minimal cost to growers.  Biofortified sorghum will be distributed to underserved communities in multiple African countries, royalty free.


“The collaboration between Buffett, Danforth and DuPont is a powerful example of the ability of public-private partnerships to accelerate innovation to solve problems,” said Paul E. Schickler, president – Pioneer Hi-Bred.  “We are just a few short years away from getting nutritionally improved sorghum into the hands of those who need it most.”

USDA Introduces Online Tool for Locating 'Food Deserts'

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2011 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today introduced an Internet-based mapping tool that pinpoints the location of "food deserts" around the country and provides data on population characteristics of census tracts where residents have limited access to affordable and nutritious foods.

The online Food Desert Locator, developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS), is a tool that can be used to assist efforts to expand the availability of nutritious food in food deserts, or low-income communities that lack ready access to healthy food. Expanding the availability of nutritious food is part of First Lady Michele Obama's Let's Move! initiative to address the epidemic of childhood obesity.

"This new Food Desert Locator will help policy makers, community planners, researchers, and other professionals identify communities where public-private intervention can help make fresh, healthy, and affordable food more readily available to residents," said Vilsack. "With this and other Web tools, USDA is continuing to support federal government efforts to present complex sets of data in creative, accessible online formats."

A food desert is a low-income census tract where either a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store. "Low income" tracts are defined as those where at least 20 percent of the people have income at or below the federal poverty levels for family size, or where median family income for the tract is at or below 80 percent of the surrounding area's median family income. Tracts qualify as "low access" tracts if at least 500 persons or 33 percent of their population live more than a mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles). This definition was developed by a working group comprised of members from the departments of Treasury, Health and Human Services, and USDA, which is partnering to expand the availability of nutritious food. - USDA

Full report at http://1.usa.gov/jx3rgw

Poor wheat harvest could drive up food prices

Food makers are heading into the wheat fields of Kansas this week to get an early read on the U.S. crop -- and possibly commodity costs in the months ahead, according to a report from CME Group.

In its latest newsletter, CME reports that General Mills Inc., Sara Lee Corp. and Nestle SA are expected to send employees to the nation's breadbasket as part of the state's annual crop tour. "They will join government officials, millers and members of the media in assessing the impact dry conditions have had on the Kansas wheat crop."

CME reports that "a record number of people are expected to join the tour as worries grow about the impact a poor harvest could have on wheat prices". That was according to Ben Handcock, executive vice president of the Wheat Quality Council, an industry group that sponsors the tour.

Kansas last year grew 16% of the country's wheat and is the top U.S. producer of hard red winter wheat, the variety milled into flour for bread. Prices for hard red winter wheat have nearly doubled since last summer on concerns about low supplies. Costs could surge further for food makers and restaurants alike if the Kansas crop looks worse than expected, says the CME report.

Analysts keep close eye on corn planting

US blog CropWatch reports that dust plumes rose from central Iowa fields as the sun rose on the morning of May 2, 2011. Corn planting has started in earnest. 

Iowa State University's Roger Elmore wrote: "Our Extension agronomist colleagues report planters started running across most of the state either late last week or certainly over the weekend. Weather conditions for the next few days look promising."

"Soil temperatures have finally reached normal across most of the state, and thankfully, normal is 50⁰ F."

Last week, US corn futures ended sharply higher on renewed weather concerns. Conditions were "turning drier in the western Midwest", though planting progress was expected to remain slow because fields were saturated with moisture and soils are cool, according to Telvent DTN.  

Weather will remain the driving force behind price moves in corn, with drier outlooks for the western Midwest this week providing potential for a pick up in the seeding pace for a crop already being planted at half the pace of normal for this time of year, analysts said.

China limits non-feed use of corn

China is to put limits on the use of grain and edible oils as raw materials for any non-animal-feed projects such as alcohol and biofuel in an effort to secure grain supplies. 

The government will also limit corn starch projects with processing capacity of less than 300,000 metric tons a year, and eliminate those projects with annual capacity of less than 100,000 tons, the National Development & Reform Commission said in industrial guidelines published on its website.

About one third of China's corn is used to make non-feed products ranging from ethanol to starch and sweeteners. China has seen unprecedented expansion of corn processing industries, with combined annual capacity rising to almost 70 million tons in the marketing year ending Sept.30, Shang Qiangmin, director of the state-backed China National Grain & Oil Information Center, told an industry forum recently.

These industries are expected to consume about 50 million tons of corn in the current marketing year, or about 29% of total corn output in the 2010 calendar year, the CNGOIC said.

New climate change news roundup

The climate change-food security nexus is a hot topic, but staying abreast of the latest news and reports about the changing climate and its impacts has become a daunting challenge.


In partnership with IFPRI, The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) launched this month a weekly roundup of climate change-related news, reports, and events. 


This comprehensive list based on diverse sources focuses on agriculture and food security, but covers a wide range of related topics, including biofuels, water, and land management. Consider it a one-stop shop for the latest information about climate change, food security, and agriculture. http://bit.ly/eeFYTe

Reinvest in agriculture while we're still fat

By the start of the twenty-first century, rich countries were spending barely 1.8 cents in every science dollar on agriculture, so unimportant had food become to them.

This line from Julian Cribb's book The Coming Famine puts a highlighter through the shameful neglect of agricultural science since about 1980, only a decade after the Green Revolution had helped India to meet its basic food needs for the first time. As Cribb notes, the "outstanding success of the Green Revolution...also contained the seeds of its own undoing". Fat and happy, we let the research machine we'd built to overcome hunger rust away in the field.

For over thirty years, funding for agricultural research has progressively contracted taking the number of scientists working in this field with it. "A gaping deficit in the river of knowledge and technology on which farmers depend to maintain growth in food production has opened up, which could take decades to fill," writes Cribb.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has recognised this neglect and is putting more funds into CGIAR than many governments. Politicians across the developed world need to have the blinkers torn off. They need to follow the Gates example and reinvest in agriculture while food is still an afterthought in rich countries. Reinvigorating the research machine will take time, so run down have we allowed it to become.

Linking agriculture, nutrition and health

Agriculture, nutrition, and health are linked.


These links play a role in the lives of millions of poor people in developing countries. Yet despite potentially strong synergies, many policymakers and practitioners in these areas continue to work in isolation. 

IFPRI and its research partners have been studying critical links between agriculture, hunger, food security, health, disease and nutrition and attempting to bridge the divide between the agriculture and nutrition communities.

http://www.ifpri.org/blog/world-health-day-april-7-2011

Economist covers 'hidden hunger'

Excellent piece by the Economist on how much farming can improve people's health: "Farming ought to be especially good for nutrition. If farmers provide a varied diet to local markets, people seem more likely to eat well. Agricultural growth is one of the best ways to generate income for the poorest, who need the most help buying nutritious food. And in many countries women do most of the farm work. They also have most influence on children’s health. Profitable farming, women’s income and child nutrition should therefore go together. In theory a rise in farm output should boost nutrition by more than a comparable rise in general economic well-being, measured by GDP."


See the full story at http://econ.st/gwKN9F

Purdue takes on food security challenge

Purdue University has established the Center for Global Food Security to take up one of the world's most pressing challenges: getting enough food to people who need it the most today and producing enough to meet even greater demand in years to come.
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/general/2011/110324EjetaCenter.html

Research group holds thin green line

The 40th anniversary of CGIAR demands recognition if only because the group is part of a dying breed.

Research into farm productivity has been starved over the last thirty years in the developed world where hunger has been far enough from our door that we've become complacent about our ability to keep growth in farm yields ahead of growth in human population.

Holding this increasingly thin green line are the likes of CGIAR (the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). Since 1971 the collaborative research driven by this group featured heavily in the Green Revolution. For example, a 2010 Food Policy journal article estimates "about 60 per cent of the food crop area planted to improved varieties is occupied by many of the 7,250 varieties resulting from CGIAR research".

And this: a 2003 study concluded that without CGIAR's work developing countries would be producing 7-8 per cent less food and some 13-15 million more children would be malnourished.

A review of the group's contribution to farm productivity and food security can be read at http://www.cgiarfund.org/cgiarfund/cgiar_at_40. 

Collectively the developed world has dropped the ball with farm production research, with government funding in massive decline since about 1980. This short-sighted approach has caught up with us, but few have yet noticed. 

Leading research role for IFPRI

IFPRI (The International Food Policy Institute) will take a leading role in two of the new research programs currently being developed by the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

IFPRI will be the lead center for CGIAR Research Program 2, Policies, institutions, and markets to strengthen food security and incomes for the rural poor. This research program is designed to promote improvements in policies, institutions, and markets that will generate agricultural growth that makes the poor, especially rural women and other disadvantaged groups, better off.

CGIAR Research Program 4, Agriculture for improved nutrition and health, will be led by IFPRI in close collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and other CG centers and other partners. CRP 4 will work to accelerate progress in improving the nutrition and health of poor people by shaping agriculture and food systems affecting those in marginal environments and those experiencing the impacts of agriculture intensification.