Food Crisis and Poverty News…
“The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.” - George Bernard Shaw
GLOBAL: Food wasted is water lost
To meet growing food demand, in another 40 years the world would need enough water to fill at least three lakes the size of Victoria, Africa’s largest body of water, according to a projection in a new policy brief. Lake Victoria’s estimated volume is 2,750 km3. In Saving Water: From Field to Fork – Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain, a policy brief by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), projected food and cereal demand could double by 2050, and the world would need 10,000 to 13,500 km3/year of water supply to keep up with production requirements.
BURUNDI: FAO predicts serious food shortages
Parts of eastern and southern Burundi are threatened with acute food shortages following low agricultural yields compounded by an influx of returning refugees, an official of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said.
ETHIOPIA: Families hard hit by food crisis
Sir John Holmes, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, said of the crisis; “Ethiopia is facing a food crisis that is one of the worst in the world, especially in terms of malnutrition among children,” he said. “It is important that we make every effort to deal quickly and comprehensively with this tragedy.” Approximately 75,000 Ethiopian children have been directly affected by the drought and are at risk of severe acute malnutrition, while 4.6 million people throughout the country are receiving emergency food aid. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the situation has worsened due to a shortage of emergency resources including ready-to-use therapeutic food, emergency relief food and other critical supplies.
MADAGASCAR: Growing food in the off-season
A US$500,000 project by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) is using Madagascar’s agricultural off-season to decrease food aid dependency and offset the effects of high food prices. The FAO launched an emergency Technical Cooperation Project in July to provide rice seed, bean seed and fertilisers to about 6,000 farmers and their families, targeting households hit hard by the recent cyclones that destroyed 80 percent of the last harvest, when people consumed seed supplies as food.
Somalia: Street children increase as food insecurity grips region
Food insecurity compounded by inflation and recent fighting between insurgents and government forces around the town of Beletweyne in central Somalia’s Hiran region has led to a sharp increase in the number of street children.
SOUTH AFRICA: Food security under threat
South Africans’ food security - particularly the urban and rural poor, is under threat as they grapple with the highest food inflation rate in five years, according to the government’s advisory body on agricultural marketing. From July 2007 to July 2008 the year-on-year increase in the Consumer Price Index for Food was 17.8 percent, the National Agricultural Marketing Council’s quarterly food price monitor noted. “This is the highest rate of food inflation experienced in the country since January 2003.”
Sri Lanka: One in four children under-nourished
The Demographic and Health Survey 2006/2007, a draft of which was released by the Health and Nutrition Ministry and the Census and Statistics Department, shows that 22 percent of Sri Lankan children are underweight, 18 percent are stunted and 15 percent show signs of wasting. “These statistics show that one in four children is under-nourished,” said Renuka Jayatissa, medical specialist in charge of nutrition at the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “This is despite having all the best nutrition interventions implemented here.”
SRI LANKA: Newly displaced, rising food costs prompt UN, NGO plea for more aid
The rising cost of food and the urgent humanitarian needs of newly displaced people in Sri Lanka’s war-torn districts have forced the UN and other aid organisations to appeal for increased donor funding.
UGANDA: Food crisis looms in the north
Food insecurity in northern Uganda, a region recovering from two decades of conflict, is approaching crisis levels due to a combination of factors, including bad weather and lack of adequate farm inputs, agricultural officials have cautioned.
WEST AFRICA : Do high food prices warrant a cash response?
Experts say many of the right conditions are in place across West Africa to make cash distributions work in the current global food price crisis. Michael O’Donnell, head of hunger reduction for non-governmental organisation (NGO) Save the Children, said “the current food price crisis could be an opportunity for governments to work with NGOs and UN agencies to provide cash transfers to build up stronger social protection systems for the chronically poor.”
ZIMBABWE: Listening for the trucks that will bring the food
The villagers are waiting for the grain the government promised them, but aid agency trucks have not come down the road since a ban was imposed on NGO operations in June. More than five million Zimbabweans will suffer food insecurity by March 2009, according to aid agencies, but many are already experiencing food shortages.
ZIMBABWE: Wild fruits instead of food aid
During the nearly three months that nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in Zimbabwe were banned from operating by President Robert Mugabe’s government, people desperate for food foraged for wild fruits to survive, in some cases with tragic consequences. The fruit’s pulp is separated from the hard seed by pounding it in pestles, but if eaten in excess it can cause extreme constipation, a nurse told IRIN at a nearby referral hospital where the two children were taken.