topic: Food Crisis

topic: Food Crisis

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To renew or not to renew? African nations reconsider EU fishing deals
- The European Union currently has fisheries access deals with 11 African countries, several of which are up for renegotiation this year.
- Under the deals, called Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs), European fishing companies gain access to resource-filled foreign waters, while the African countries get cash.
- Senegal was the first country to sign such a deal, in 1979, but President Bassirou Diomaye Faye was elected in March after proposing to suspend it altogether in response to concerns that it’s unfair to local fishers. It’s not yet clear whether he will follow through, but his rhetoric reflects shifting arrangements in African fisheries, where the EU no longer dominates as it once did.
- Experts see this as a possible win for local control of precious marine resources, but they also caution that many of the alternative arrangements African governments are turning to instead of SFPAs are more socially and environmentally problematic, and less transparent.

Bangladeshi farmers find zucchini’s high yields & low costs palatable
- Though long considered “foreign” to Bangladeshi farmers, zucchini squash is now cultivated among growers who value its high productivity, lower production cost and short growing time.
- Farmers living in dry regions and river islands prefer to cultivate this vegetable, where watering the plant is an issue.
- Bangladesh Agricultural Extensions expects more zucchini squash cultivation in the coming days based on farmers’ enthusiasm and growing local demand in the market.

Java rice farmers suffer crop failure as copper mine pollutes local irrigation
- Rice farmers in Cokrokembang village, East Java province, suspect contamination from a nearby copper mine operated by PT Gemilang Limpah Internusa is to blame for recent crop failures.
- Water pollution from the mine is visible in the Kedung Pinihan River, while tests conducted by the local government reveal levels of copper compounds far exceeding environmental standards.
- Despite attempts to address the issue, including government involvement and remedial measures by the company, farmers like Parno continue to suffer declining yields, prompting calls for compensation for affected farmers.

Report calls for agroecological rethink of Africa’s food amid $61b industrial plan
- The African Development Bank (AfDB) has released agricultural development plans for 40 countries across the continent that outline pathways to improving food security and productivity.
- But a recent report by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) argues that the AfDB initiative, which seeks to industrialize African food systems at a cost of $61 billion, may potentially marginalize small-scale farmers, harm biodiversity, and foster dependency on multination corporations for seeds and agrochemicals.
- AFSA suggests focusing instead on agroecology and food sovereignty, emphasizing the importance of sustainable agriculture and the empowerment of small-scale farmers.
- High rates of undernourishment across sub-Saharan Africa are largely unchanged since 2005 figures, and a rapidly growing population putting pressure on food resources and production has prompted some policymakers to seek out industrial agriculture projects as a solution.

Norwegian salmon farms gobble up fish that could feed millions in Africa: Report
- Norwegian salmon farms are taking huge amounts of wild fish from West Africa, mining the food security of the region, according to a report from the U.K.-based NGO Feedback.
- In 2020, the industry produced salmon feed ingredients using up to 144,000 metric tons of small pelagic fish caught along the coasts of West Africa, where they could have fed between 2.5 million and 4 million people, according to the report.
- The analysis comes as the industry faces a wave of public opposition after revelations of high mortality rates and the sale of fish deemed unfit for human consumption, along with accusations of antitrust violations by the European Commission.

Harsh dry season sours harvest prospects for Java coffee farmers
- Indonesia is the world’s fourth-largest producer of coffee, after Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia, but the archipelago’s farmers are less productive than their competitors.
- In East Java province, farmers have seen yields plummet as a protracted water deficit shrinks fruit and introduces pests.
- Total output is expected to drop by more than 20% this season, while increasingly frequent extreme weather may pose challenges to the viability of some smallholders in lowland areas of Indonesia.

Climate change, extreme weather & conflict exacerbate global food crisis
- Global food insecurity has risen substantially since pre-pandemic times, exacerbated by extreme weather, climate change, war and conflict.
- What the U.N. World Food Program calls “a hunger crisis of unprecedented proportions” plays out differently around the world.
- In this story, three of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows detail the local situation in their region – from rising inflation and flooding in Nigeria to diminished local food production in Suriname and the environmental and socioeconomic effects of commercial food production in Brazil.
- “If we do not redouble and better target our efforts, our goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030 will remain out of reach,” write the authors of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2023 report on global food security and nutrition.

Indigenous Zenú turn to ancestral seeds, agroecology to climate-proof their farming
- In response to last year’s record-breaking heat due to El Niño and impacts from climate change, Indigenous Zenú farmers in Colombia are trying to revive the cultivation of traditional climate-resilient seeds and agroecology systems.
- One traditional farming system combines farming with fishing: locals fish during the rainy season when water levels are high, and farm during the dry season on the fertile soils left by the receding water.
- Locals and ecologists say conflicts over land with surrounding plantation owners, cattle ranchers and mines are also worsening the impacts of the climate crisis.
- To protect their land, the Zenú reserve, which is today surrounded by monoculture plantations, was in 2005 declared the first Colombian territory free from GMOs.

In Bangladesh, sunflower grows where other crops don’t amid increasing salinity
- The changing climate, rising sea levels and other anthropogenic factors are forcing a vast area of Bangladesh’s coastal zone to remain barren due to the presence of salinity in arable land.
- Overcoming these hurdles, coastal farmers, with the support of the government and various nongovernmental organizations, are now farming sunflowers and benefiting from the alternative crop.
- Bangladesh currently produces only 10% of the oilseeds it uses; imports from different countries meet the rest of the demand.
- The government estimates that the country could produce sunflower to meet the local demand for cooking oil by up to 26% by cultivating the oilseed in saline-prone zones.

Maluku farmers sweat El Niño drought as Indonesia rice prices surge
- Rice prices surged across Indonesia during the second half of 2023 as the effects of El Niño led to widespread crop failures.
- In December, President Joko Widodo ordered military personnel to help farmers plant rice in a bid to boost domestic production, and curb food price inflation.
- On Buru Island, Mongabay Indonesia spoke with farmers who described risks of conflict as water scarcity forced farmers to queue for access to water.

Indigenous effort in Bangladesh helps reverse endangered fish’s slide to extinction
- Unchecked logging and quarrying of rocks from streambeds in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts led to springs drying up and populations of putitor mahseer fish, an endangered species, disappearing.
- The situation was worsened by climate change impacts, characterized here by a more intense dry season during which even streams that once ran year-round now dry up.
- A project launched in 2016 and backed by USAID and the UNDP is working with Indigenous communities to reverse this decline, starting with efforts to cut down on logging and quarrying.
- As a result of these efforts, areas where forests have been conserved have seen the flow of springs stabilize and populations of putitor mahseer and other fish revive.

Prevention is best defense against Bangladesh crop diseases, researchers say
- Two staples — paddy and wheat — and one cash crop, jute, are the major focus areas of researchers and scientists in Bangladesh due to their importance to food security and the economy.
- However, state research institutes say these crops are damaged by five main crop diseases, which could trigger a yield loss of up to 62% annually if outbreaks occur frequently.
- Researchers suggest various approaches, including natural pest control, that could ensure a healthy ecosystem for crop cultivation and reduce the cost of farm production.

Amid socioeconomic slump, new sugar cane varieties offer hope in Sri Lanka
- After 20 years of research, the Sugarcane Research Institute (SRI) of Sri Lanka has introduced four new varieties with improved sugar recovery percentages, cane yield and disease resistance.
- An interactive mobile app called Uksaviya has been introduced to assist sugar cane farmers in disease identification, cultivation advice and access to the latest knowledge.
- An institutional business framework too has been developed linking researchers and industry to improve collaboration, precision, and commercialization of cutting-edge research.
- With Sri Lanka’s agriculture hit by multiple issues, SRI’s efforts offer some hope.

Kenya’s Lake Victoria floods leave orphaned children to run their households
- Beginning in 2019, devastating floods on the shores of Kenya’s Lake Victoria have inundated homes, displaced families and left some orphaned children in charge of caring for their siblings and running the household.
- Many families continue to live in makeshift camps, hoping to rebuild and renew their lives; the effects of the flooding have been particularly harsh on children who have had to drop out of school or work to ensure the family’s survival.
- Experts attribute the floods to a combination of factors, including climate change, increased rainfall and lack of vegetation to control runoff; in 2015, an international research team predicted swiftly rising waters that could harm the region.
- UNICEF reports a concerning increase in the number of children affected by flooding in recent years, as climate change leads to more crises that can disrupt education, destabilize families and leave long-term effects on child development and psychosocial well-being.

Seaweed: The untapped economic potential for Bangladesh
- Bangladesh currently produces some 400 tons of seaweed, valued at 55 million taka (about $500,000), while a study suggested the country could produce 50 million tons of seaweed annually by 2050.
- Despite the potential to grow and earn more foreign currency through export, the sector is dealing with a number of difficulties, including inadequate investment as well as proper guidelines and regulations.
- According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), seaweed farming is one of the fastest-growing aquaculture sectors globally, with an annual production of about 33 billion tons, valued at $11.8 billion.

Salinity hinders Bangladesh agriculture; groups respond with seeds & information
- Bangladesh is the fourth-highest rice-producing country in the world, but much of that production is threatened by salinity.
- More than 30% of the cultivable land in Bangladesh is in the coastal area; a comparative study of the salt-affected area showed that of 2.86 million hectares (7.1 million acres) of coastal and off-shore lands, about 1.056 million hectares (2.6 million acres) — an area roughly the size of Lebanon — of arable lands are affected by varying salinity, hampering agricultural production.
- In the coastal zones, farmers mainly cultivate low-yielding, traditional rice varieties during the wet season, while in the dry season (January- May), most of the land remains fallow because of soil salinity.
- To cope with the situation, government and nongovernmental organizations are introducing different types of saline and extreme weather-tolerant crop varieties to use the farmland yearly.

Agroecology holds promise in Congo Basin — if funding woes can be overcome
- Emmanuel Eku has successfully restored exhausted soil to boost productivity on a farm in his village in southwestern Cameroon, relying on his agroecological training.
- He was able to invest five years in the project thanks to financial and other support from NGOs, highlighting the main challenge to other farmers who want to transition away from using synthetic fertilizer and other inputs.
- Today, Eku is sharing his experience with other farmers and helping connect them with similar support.

Indigenous peoples undersupported on frontline of hotter, drier, fiery world
- It’s official: This has been the warmest June-July-August on record, and much attention has focused on the urgent need to achieve climate resilience in impacted urban areas. But how are rural Indigenous communities around the world living with these new extremes?
- Indigenous peoples — from Africa to the Arctic to Central America — report unprecedented heat waves, droughts, storms and wildfires, extremes that are impacting the wildlife they hunt, the plants they gather, crops they grow, livestock they raise, and their very survival.
- Given that many Indigenous peoples live close to the land and depend directly on local resources, they’re especially vulnerable to the massive changes now sweeping our planet.
- But while Indigenous peoples are considered by many researchers and activists to be Earth’s best land stewards, their communities aren’t receiving the funding or resources necessary to adapt to a hotter, drier, stormier, fiery world, often due to the lack of access to their traditional lands.

DRC food sovereignty summit yields support for agroecology, local land rights
- The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (ASFA) recently held a meeting in Kinshasa to argue for the reorienting of food production around agroecology in the Congo Basin.
- Civil society groups, donors, government representatives and small-scale farmers gathered to exchange views on challenges and solutions to food security.
- Across Africa, agricultural policy is geared toward greater reliance on large-scale farms and mechanization, commercial seeds, pesticides and synthetic fertilizer.
- A declaration issued at the close of the summit instead called for investment in agroecological methods, as well as recognition of and protection for Indigenous and local peoples’ land rights.

Wild mushroom harvest helps keep trees standing in Mozambique
- For the first time, native mushroom species in Mozambique are being harvested for sale in the capital, Maputo.
- The project provides extra income for hundreds of women living next to Gilé National Park in the center of the country.
- The mushrooms grow in the miombo woodlands bordering the park that are being cleared to make way for crops like cassava.
- The commercial sale of mushrooms is helping to reduce deforestation in the densely populated buffer zone, while also benefiting local communities.

Agroecology alliance calls for more food at less cost to nature in Congo Basin
- The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) will make the case for reorienting food production systems and agricultural policy at a meeting in Kinshasa from Aug. 29-31.
- Food security across the Congo Basin is threatened by impoverished soils, climate change, and displacement due to armed conflict, forum attendees say.
- Governments in the region back improved seeds and synthetic fertilizer for small-scale farmers as well as large-scale agriculture projects to boost yields and revenue.
- AFSA argues these strategies cause more harm than good to both farmers and forests, and calls for a turn to agroecological methods instead.

West African fishers strike for fair wages and ‘respect’ on EU-owned vessels
- African fishers, mostly from Senegal and Ivory Coast who work on dozens of EU vessels that operate in West Africa and the Indian Ocean, took part in a strike that lasted from June 5-8, alleging wage violations.
- Vessels owned by EU companies are allowed to fish in foreign countries’ waters through agreements between the EU and the host nations. However, a third of such vessels operating in West Africa use flags of other countries and evade labor rights provisions agreed to under these pacts.
- Fishers who participated in the strike told Mongabay they were fighting for more than fair wages, saying that African sailors were not treated with respect on European boats despite doing some of the most arduous jobs.
- Seafarers’ unions called off the strike after the Senegalese government initiated negotiations with vessel owners and unions. Talks are expected to conclude in five months.

Agroecology schools help communities restore degraded land in Guatemala
- The transformation of ancestral lands into intensive monoculture plantations has led to the destruction of Guatemala’s native forests and traditional practices, as well as loss of livelihoods and damage to local health and the environment.
- A network of more than 40 Indigenous and local communities and farmer associations are developing agroecology schools across the country to promote the recovery of ancestral practices, educate communities on agroecology and teach them how to build their own local economies.
- Based on the traditional “campesino a campesino” (from farmer to farmer) method, the organizations says it has improved the livelihoods of 33,000 families who use only organic farming techniques and collectively protect 74,000 hectares (182,858 acres) of forest across Guatemala.

One seed at a time: Lebanese project promotes agroecology for farmer autonomy
- Lebanese organic seed farm Buzuruna Juzuruna is on a mission, part of a growing network of agroecological efforts in the country, to change conventional farming through seed sharing and communal education.
- Despite its location in the Fertile Crescent, Lebanon today relies heavily on imports to feed its population due to economic collapse, conflicts and political upheaval.
- Buzuruna Juzuruna is using multiple efforts, including free classes, festivals and even circus performances to expose local farmers to older, more ecological methods of farming.
- In its work, Buzuruna Juzuruna emulates the ecosystems it treasures, by being open-source and horizontal in design.

Climate change, human pressures push Bangladesh’s ‘national fish’ into decline
- Bangladesh’s all-important hilsa fishery is declining amid pressures from human-driven factors and climate change, experts and authorities warn.
- The fish, Tenualosa ilisha, contributes around 12% of the total fish catch in Bangladesh, and the fishery employs at least 2.5 million people across the country.
- Several government conservation initiatives, including declaring six hilsa sanctuaries and two fishing bans during the year, have helped boost production in the past two decades.
- However, pressures persist, including rising salinity levels in the rivers where the fish spawn, discharge of pollution and agricultural runoff, and disruptions to water flow as dams are built upstream.

Southern African caterpillar that feeds millions may be next climate casualty
- A new study projects a significant loss of habitat for an edible caterpillar, known as the mopane worm, in Southern Africa in the coming decades.
- Mopane worms are a key source of seasonal protein for millions of people throughout Southern Africa, but they also face pressures from overharvesting and deforestation.
- Species distribution models devised by a group of scientists project that even under a moderate climate change scenario, some regions will lose 99% of suitable habitat for the caterpillars.
- The scientists behind the study say their projections should be seen as a call to protect regional food security by preventing both climate change and biodiversity loss.

Deforestation linked to less rainfall, study shows; El Niño could make it worse
- A new study shows concerning links between deforestation and reduced precipitation in tropical regions, which can in turn lead to reduced agricultural yields and food security issues.
- Now, researchers are concerned about the potential for another El Niño, which typically brings hotter, drier conditions to tropical regions, particularly in Southeast Asia, and can compound the effects of deforestation and reduced rainfall.
- The 2015-16 El Niño triggered crop losses, disease outbreaks, malnutrition and food insecurity, livestock deaths and other hardships that affected 60 million people globally; researchers say these trends signal the need for greater climate resilience in local communities.

Ethiopia used chemicals to kill locusts. Billions of honeybees disappeared
- Kenya and Ethiopia sprayed millions of hectares of cropland and pastures with chemical pesticides in response to massive locust swarms that emerged between 2019 and 2021.
- In Ethiopia, around 76 billion honeybees died or abandoned their hives during this period, a new study estimates, arguing that chemical spraying was most likely to blame.
- The researchers said Somalia’s use of a biopesticide, on the other hand, was a better approach and that chemical pesticides banned in the EU and the U.S. because of harmful effects on the environment and human health cannot continue to be used in other parts of the world.
- Advocates for integrated pest management say that countries should track and manage locust upsurges before they reach threatening proportions.

Madagascar: What happens to villagers when a graphite mine comes knocking?
- When representatives of an Australian mining firm arrived in Ambohitsy Haut village in southern Madagascar, they told residents they wanted to drill holes looking for graphite in their village. The villagers agreed, but they were clear; you can dig, but away from our ancestral tombs.
- In November, the company, BlackEarth Minerals (BEM), told investors it was ready to move to the next stage, exploitation, and planned to start construction of a mine this year, which could mean resettling the villagers and moving their tombs. But villagers said they haven’t given the company permission to do so.
- BEM, now known as Evion Group, is touting Madagascar as an alternative to China , currently the world’s leading graphite supplier, but experts and activists say the graphite mining rush is coming to a country and communities ill-prepared for it: obsolete mining laws, a brittle land rights regime, and limp environmental and social protections.
- A top Evion executive told Mongabay that the villagers had no private claims to the land, but the company would respect their traditional rights.

High-carbon peat among 1,500 hectares cleared for Indonesia’s food estate
- A number of reports have found that an Indonesian government program to establish large-scale agricultural plantations across the country has led to deforestation.
- More than 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of forests, including carbon-rich peatlands, have been cleared in Central Kalimantan province for the so-called food estate program, according to a spatial analysis by the NGO Pantau Gambut.
- Last year, the NGO Kaoem Telapak detected 100 hectares (250 acres) of deforestation in food estate areas in North Sumatra.
- Villagers whose lands have been included in the program have also reported an increase in the severity of floods since their forests were cleared to make way for the food estates.

Report: Indonesia’s ‘food estate’ program repeating failures of past projects
- Some of the large-scale food plantations established by the Indonesian government under a “food estate” program have reportedly been abandoned.
- A field investigation in 2022 and 2023 found wild shrubs and abandoned excavators on plots of lands that had been cleared for cassava and rice in Central Kalimantan province.
- Activists say the program’s failings were apparent from the start, with a lack of proper impact assessments carried out prior to selecting sites and clearing forests for crops ill-suited to the soil.
- The program’s trajectory mirrors that of the Mega Rice Project from the mid-1990s, which failed spectacularly to boost yields, and left in its wake widespread destruction of carbon-rich peatlands.

Fish kills leave Kenya’s Lake Victoria farmers at a loss, seeking answers
- According to a Kenyan government report, fish farmers in sections of Lake Victoria lost more than 900 million Kenyan shillings ($7.2 million) in massive fish kills in November 2022.
- Scientists attribute the fish kills to reduced levels of dissolved oxygen likely due to a natural phenomenon called upwelling, which can be exacerbated by climate change and extreme weather.
- Local farmers who lost their fish, however, attribute the die-offs to pollution from Lake Victoria industries, which agencies have accused of discharging untreated effluent into the lake in recent years.

Can we fix our failing food systems? Agroecology has answers
- The U.S. has an industrialized and unsustainable food system that depletes non-renewable resources such as groundwater and soil, and this model has been exported widely around the world, a top agriculture author explains on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- Two regions where these impacts and depletion are being felt most are in California’s Central Valley and on America’s Great Plains.
- Consistent overproduction of commodities such as soy, milk and corn under an agribusiness model that pursues constant profits despite a local lack of demand exacerbates the problem, says Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future research associate Tom Philpott.
- An author and former food journalist for Mother Jones and Grist, Philpott joins the podcast to talk about these acute problems and what can be done to reform unsustainable food systems with practices like agroecology.

‘During droughts, pivot to agroecology’: Q&A with soil expert at the World Agroforestry Centre
- As the unabating drought in Kenya persists, pastoralists in the region are struggling as millions of their livestock perish and vast swaths of crops die. About 4.4 million people in the country are food insecure.
- International food agencies are calling it a dire humanitarian situation and highlight the vital need to build communities’ resilience to adapt and cope with drought.
- Mongabay speaks with David Leilei, a Kenyan soil biologist at the World Agroforestry Centre, on the agroecological techniques and strategies pastoralists and the government can use to restore healthy soils to promote productive farming.
- Mary Njenga, a research scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre who works with 1,200 households in northern Kenya, also speaks with Mongabay on climate-resilient strategies.

Herders turn to fishing in the desert amid severe drought, putting pressure on fish population
- As Northern Kenya’s unabating drought continues, a growing wave of pastoralists are finding it challenging to keep their livestock alive and are switching to fishing in Lake Turkana, the world’s largest desert lake.
- However, environmentalists, fishing authorities, and some fishers worry that potential overfishing and increased pressures on fish populations will cause a collapse in fish stocks and the lake’s ecosystem.
- Authorities are also concerned about the rampant use of illegal fishing gear, such as thin mesh nets that catch undersized fish in shallow breeding zones, and an illegal tilapia smuggling network draining the lake by the tons.
- Though no studies have yet been done to assess fish populations, some environmentalists and fishers are calling for better enforcement of regulations to keep livelihoods afloat.

On Lombok, rising sea levels force fishers into different jobs
- Residents of the Indonesian island of Lombok say sea levels are rising at alarming levels, swallowing seaside towns.
- People are abandoning their family trade of fishing to instead grow seaweed or leave the island for stable employment.
- The provincial government created a climate adaptation task force to address the compounding problems of climate change, as families send their children to school and hope they choose a life different from fishing.

Pollinator declines linked to half million early human deaths annually: Study
- A new modeling study finds that half a million people are currently dying prematurely every year due to global insect pollinator decline because of lack of availability and/or high price of healthy foods such as nuts, legumes, fruits and vegetables.
- Robust epidemiological research has linked higher fruit, vegetable and nut intake to lowered mortality from many major chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.
- Researchers assessed the problem nationally: Middle-income countries, including Russia, China and India, are among the hardest hit, as are Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar, though surprisingly, parts of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa were among the least affected. Wealthy nations were more immune from pollinator decline.
- Experts say multiple solutions are readily available: Wild pollinators can be significantly increased by protecting existing, and creating new, pollinator habitat at the farm and national level, by reducing and eliminating the use of harmful pesticides like neonicotinoids, and by effectively combating climate change.

Breaking free from photosynthesis: Will high-tech foods save nature?
- Soaring industrial livestock production is dramatically increasing greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and biodiversity loss. Current meat production methods are unsustainable and fast pushing the natural world and the global food system to the edge of collapse, argues British environmentalist George Monbiot.
- Monbiot says conventional solutions, like a global switch to veganism and/or the large-scale implementation of sustainable agroecology, are advancing too slowly to avert looming disaster. The only solutions, he says, are rapid high-tech fixes.
- The best approach, he contends, is one that would free food production from photosynthesis, using hydrogen drawn from water to feed protein- and fat-rich bacteria. The revolutionary technology can produce meat and cheese from the air that, reportedly, tastes as good as the “real” thing.
- Critical voices fear this not-yet-widely-tested techno fix may be a “magic bullet” that doesn’t work in the real world. Others say the only path to averting climate catastrophe is via mobilization around food sovereignty — the right of everyone to healthy foods produced by ecologically sound and sustainable methods, including innovations by traditional peoples.

Agroecology can feed Africa and tackle climate change — with enough funding
- Advocates say agroecological systems are the way to meet the climate crisis in its fullness — from limiting emissions to coping with climatic shocks — provided it gets the support of national governments and international donors.
- They are pushing for agroecology to be considered a climate solution by leaders at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt later this month.
- The agroecology movement is forged around opposition to the mindless transplantation of large-scale industrial agriculture to African countries, which is also one of the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions in more industrialized nations like the U.S.
- But its direct impacts on carbon budgets and effectiveness as an adaptation tool are understudied. Proponents like Bridget Mugambe say this hurdle could be overcome with adequate funding.

Fished out at sea and smoked out on land, Senegal fishers take on a fishmeal factory
- A fishers’ collective in Cayar, east of Dakar, says a fishmeal factory there is jeopardizing livelihoods and endangering public health.
- Analysis in September of water from a lake revealed pollution by biodegradable organic matter causing deoxygenation that is harming aquatic life.
- Some residents of Mbawane, in Cayar municipality, say the fishmeal company’s operations are a good thing, making use of surplus fish which would otherwise rot on the beach.

Seaweed an increasingly fragile lifeline for Philippine farmers
- Commercial seaweed farming began in the Philippines in the 1970s and has grown to be one of the country’s most significant aquaculture enterprises, supporting more than 200,000 coastal families.
- In communities in Palawan, seaweed farming also plays a role in protecting marine life, with small farmers serving as extra eyes and ears in the fight against illegal fishing.
- As climate change intensifies, warmer waters are making seaweed farms more susceptible to pests and diseases, threatening the survival of the industry and the families that depend on it.

Lack of finance prevents Bangladesh farmers from diversifying their rice crops
- About 15 million farmers in Bangladesh grow just five to six rice varieties, despite the availability of more than 130 different rice varieties, giving rise to an effective monoculture that leaves farmers at higher risk from pests and diminishing yields.
- Observers attribute this to a lack of support from the government to help farmers explore other rice varieties, which typically have lower yields and fetch lower prices than the most popular varieties.
- Lack of financial support means many farmers have to take out high-interest microcredit loans for their operational expenses, which in turn compels them to grow the most profitable rice varieties, locking them in a vicious cycle.
- Observers have called on the government to do more to incentivize farmers to diversity their rice crops, pointing to long-term benefits in the form of improved soil health and resilience to pest attacks.

Urban farming in Indonesia addresses food needs and climate crisis
- Grassroots initiatives in several Indonesian cities have sprung up aimed at achieving food security through urban and family farming.
- Proponents say this is a great way to diversify food variety and cushion the impact of rising food and commodity prices.
- They also tout its ecological benefits, including lower emissions and healthier soil than with commercial farming.

In Sumatra, rising seas and sinking land spell hard times for fishers
- Fishers operating near the port of Belawan on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are reporting declining catches and a hit to their livelihoods from tidal flooding.
- The flooding has grown more frequent and severe, exacerbated by rising seas and the clearing of mangrove forests for oil palm plantations.
- Traders who buy local catches have also been affected by the flooding, which can cut off commercial transport routes.
- This region of northern Sumatra is one of the areas targeted by the Indonesian government for mangrove restoration, but until that yields results, the fishers say they’re essentially helpless.

Lack of timely rains, fertilizer hits rice farmers in Nepal’s granary
- The annual monsoon rains have failed to arrive in Nepal as anticipated ahead of the rice-planting season, leaving farmers facing another season of loss and the country bracing for a food shortage.
- A senior government meteorologist says it’s still too early to link the lateness of the monsoon to climate change, but what’s certain is that climate change is already wreaking havoc with rainfall patterns in Nepal.
- Last year, a prolonged monsoon brought unexpected flash floods that cost farmers $93 million in damages.
- A decline in rice production this year could put Nepal’s already strained finances under even more pressure by forcing the country to import rice.

We’ve crossed the land use change planetary boundary, but solutions await
- According to experts, we have passed the planetary boundary for land systems change — the human-caused loss of forest — and risk destabilizing Earth’s operating systems.
- Scientists calculate we must retain 85% of tropical and boreal forests, and 50% of temperate forests, to stay within Earth’s “safe operating” bounds, but the number of trees worldwide has fallen by nearly 50% since the dawn of agriculture.
- From 2001 to 2021, forest area roughly half the size of China was lost or destroyed across the planet; in 2021, tropical forests disappeared at a rate of about 10 football fields per minute.
- Despite these losses, solutions abound: Some of the actions that could bring us back into the safe operating space are securing Indigenous land rights, reforestation and landscape restoration, establishing new protected areas, redesigning food systems, and using finance as a tool

Did Wall Street play a role in this year’s wheat price crisis?
- In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global wheat spot and future prices skyrocketed, at one point by as much as 54% in just over a week.
- Wheat prices had already been rising over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the World Food Programme to warn that hundreds of millions of people were at risk of going hungry.
- Analysts say the crisis isn’t one of availability but rather one of prices, with some arguing that far too little attention is being paid to the role that speculative gambling by Wall Street has played in pushing up food prices this year.
- As climate change-related droughts and other weather disasters threaten wheat harvests in some countries, food security advocates say it’s time to move to a system that’s less vulnerable to external shocks.

Overexploitation threatens Amazon fisheries with collapse, study warns
- Fishers in the Amazon Basin are catching smaller species of fish than before, indicating overexploitation of the region’s aquatic biodiversity, a new study says.
- The study looked at fish catch data from six river ports (three each in Peru and Brazil) to conclude that “fisheries are losing their resilience and progressing towards possible collapse.”
- Researchers say freshwater fish stocks in the Amazon have never been a priority for conservation or monitoring, which has allowed this decline to occur over the course of decades.
- The loss of larger fish deprives communities for whom fish is a dietary staple of important nutrients, as well as impoverishes the wider river ecosystem.

Climate change amplifies the risk of conflict, study from Africa shows
- New research shows that climate change can amplify the risk of conflict by as much as four to five times in a 550-kilometer (340-mile) radius, with rising temperatures and extreme rainfall acting as triggers.
- Many countries most vulnerable to climate impacts are beset by armed conflicts, such as Somalia, which is grappling with widespread drought amid a decades-long civil war; the research suggests the country is trapped in a vicious cycle of worsening climatic disasters and conflict.
- Both too little rain and too much rain are triggers for conflict, the research finds: persistent rainfall failures increase instability over a broader geographic region while extreme rainfall increases the likelihood of confrontations over a smaller area and for a shorter time, the analysis suggests.
- The research underscores the importance of tackling climate change impacts and conflict mitigation together because misguided climate adaptation strategies can intensify existing tensions.

Climate change puts Bangladeshi farmers’ reliance on rice varieties to the test
- Bangladeshi farmers overwhelmingly cultivate rice using the BRRI-28 and BRRI-29 varieties developed by the government, despite the availability of more than 100 alternative varieties, some of them better suited to changing climatic patterns.
- Yields are declining for these two popular varieties as arable land becomes more saline, dry, or submerged due to extreme weather phenomena.
- Scientists behind the range of varieties blame the low popularity of the climate-resistant varieties on the failure by government agencies to produce and promote them to farmers.
- But officials refute this, saying they cater to what the farmers demand, which is the two dominant varieties.

In Sierra Leone, local fishers and foreign trawlers battle for their catch
- At wharfs across the Freetown peninsula in Sierra Leone, local fishers say in recent years it’s become harder to get a good catch. They blame foreign trawlers for overexploiting the country’s fish stocks.
- Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources says it has systems meant to curb illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, but enforcement remains a challenge.
- In 2019, China signed a fisheries agreement with Sierra Leone that includes a promise to build a $55 million harbor, but some fishers say boats owned by its citizens are among the worst offenders.

Boom and bust on Lake Victoria: Q&A with author Mark Weston
- In a new book, British author Mark Weston examines an environmental crisis on East Africa’s Lake Victoria that’s been a century in the making and stems from the introduction of the non-native Nile perch to the lake in the 1950s.
- Weston lived on Ukerewe, the lake’s largest island, for two years, and relates the knock-on legacy of the fish’s introduction through the experiences of the people he met there.
- The boom and bust of the fishery brought about a surging population, deforestation, declining land fertility, and increased pollution in the lake.
- With Nile perch catches down precipitously and little else to sustain the economy of Ukerewe, residents struggle through poverty, lack of opportunity and a trickling exodus from the once-prosperous community, in search of a better life for themselves and their families.

Cradle of transformation: The Mediterranean and climate change
- The Mediterranean region is warming 20% faster than the world as a whole, raising concerns about the impacts that climate change and other environmental upheaval will have on ecosystems, agriculture and the region’s 542 million people.
- Heat waves, drought, extreme weather and sea-level rise are among the impacts that the region can expect to see continue through the end of the century, and failing to stop emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could make these issues worse.
- Charting a course that both mitigates climate change and bolsters adaption to its effects is further complicated by the Mediterranean’s mix of countries, cultures and socioeconomics, leading to wide gaps in vulnerability in the region.

Indonesians, too reliant on palm oil, should go back to their roots (commentary)
- Scarce supplies and high prices for cooking oil have sparked recent widespread public criticism in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of palm oil.
- Yet before the introduction of the African oil palm into Indonesia, communities across the archipelago were producing the oil they needed from coconuts.
- Mongabay Indonesia’s Taufik Wijaya recalls this practice from his childhood in South Sumatra, when the Western-influenced diet of deep-fried food hadn’t yet taken hold.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Indonesian program’s promise of food security backfires for local farmers
- Indonesia’s food estate program, billed as improving domestic food availability, has had the opposite effect on farmers recruited into the scheme, a new study shows.
- The research by NGOs shows that farmers in North Sumatra province saw their rice harvests decline by up to 80% as they were told to farm other crops for the program.
- And the harvests from those other crops, including potatoes and garlic, were not enough to make up for the loss of their rice harvests, due to the lower prices they fetched.
- The researchers warn that the food estate program also puts participating farmers at risk of losing their land rights and being coopted by agribusiness interests serving the food export market.

Forest clearing for crop program in Papua may unleash massive emissions
- An area nearly the size of Belgium will be cleared in Indonesia’s Papua province to grow food crops under a government program.
- A new analysis shows that this conversion alone could result in the release of 616 million metric tons of greenhouse gases — a third of what Indonesia as a whole currently emits in a year, or the same as Australia’s annual emissions.
- A government official says the program will try to minimize the area of forest required for the plantations and will prioritize the use of already degraded areas.
- But plans for how much forest will have be cleared remain vague, prompting a call for the government to reconsider the food crop program in light of its potential harms.

Urban ecology that saved Argentina’s Rosario held up as a model for others
- The Argentine city of Rosario has over the past two decades developed private-public partnerships to set aside land for farming and create a network of local markets where farmers locally sell their crops.
- Local sustainable farming is seen as a solution to mitigate climate change and promote biodiversity, and Rosario’s urban agriculture program does this by growing food for domestic consumption.
- This reduces greenhouse gas emissions from food transportation, boosts the amount of green space within the city to reduce the urban heat island effect, and allows diverse wildlife populations to thrive alongside crops.
- Rosario’s detailed maps identified vacant land unsuitable for other purposes and reimagined that land to create farms within the city, while collaboration with neighboring jurisdictions has led to the development of an agricultural green belt surrounding Rosario.

Mali’s centuries-old pastoralist traditions wilt as the climate changes
- As the world rediscovers the ingenuity of nature-based solutions, a detailed FAO report published this year highlights the traditions of nomadic pastoralists in Mali who have sustained an eco-friendly lifestyle over centuries.
- The Kel Tamasheq people, living amid the Saharan sands near Timbuktu, eat primarily local produce, generate little waste, and boast a negligible carbon footprint.
- The community’s world revolves around a transhumance tradition that follows seasonal movement; during the dry season, which lasts for more than six months of the year, the pastoralists migrate south with their livestock in search of grazing land and water.
- Climate change and increasing desertification have heavily impacted the food system of the Kel Tamasheq, especially the withering of Lake Faguibine, intensifying the community’s dependence on markets.

Conservation and food production must work in tandem, new study says
- Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth’s land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction, according to a new study.
- If that 30% were to be strictly protected without accounting for food production activities, it could also result in substantial local or regional food production shortfalls, the researchers said.
- Instead, they propose an integrated land-use planning strategy where conservation and food production goals are considered in tandem, including through mixed approaches like agroforestry.
- Such a model would not only generate less food production shortfalls, but also leave just 2.7% of mammal and 1.2% of bird species at risk of extinction.

Climate change means hunger in our communities, African women leaders at COP26
- Activists and delegates from developing countries, including many African nations, have strained but so far failed to define the debate at COP26 as one of climate justice. They emphasize that developed nations have largely caused the climate crisis, while developing nations often suffer the worst consequences.
- In 2015 when countries signed the Paris climate agreement, the per capita emissions of Madagascar, which is facing the world’s first climate change-induced famine, stood at 0.12 tons/person, compared to 16 tons/person for the United States.
- At a COP session organized by the British philanthropy Campaign for Female Education (CEMFED) this week, delegates from countries in Sub-Saharan Africa underlined the link between climate change and hunger.
- The climate talks have come under scrutiny for poor representation from African nations, some of the most vulnerable to climate impacts.

Children born in 2020 will see spike in climate disasters, study says
- The study used climate modeling to determine specialized impacts by region, finding that at the current level of carbon reduction pledges, people born in 2020 will experience many more extreme climate events in comparison to those born in 1960.
- On the world’s current course, those children will experience twice as many wildfires overall, three times as many crop failures, and seven times as many heat waves.
- At a geographical scale, children born in low-income countries that are least responsible for the climate crisis will confront significantly higher spikes in extreme events than in wealthier countries.
- If the world takes a more aggressive approach to limiting warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) by 2100, the number of climate disasters experienced by younger generations would drop substantially, with the model predicting 45% fewer heat waves, 39% fewer droughts, and 28% fewer crop failures.

Domestic bushmeat consumption an “urgent” threat to migratory mammals, U.N. says
- A recent U.N. report has found that many migratory mammals are in grave danger of being hunted for meat for domestic consumption, which in many cases poses a greater risk to population numbers than international trade.
- There is also strong evidence that wild meat taking and consumption is linked to zoonotic diseases.
- The authors say that while wild meat consumption cannot be eliminated because it is an indispensable source of nutrition and income for rural communities, they call for improved national regulations and international cooperation to safeguard threatened species.

A world of hurt: 2021 climate disasters raise alarm over food security
- Human-driven climate change is fueling weather extremes — from record drought to massive floods — that are hammering key agricultural regions around the world.
- From the grain heartland of Argentina to the tomato belt of California to the pork hub of China, extreme weather events have driven down output and driven up global commodity prices.
- Shortages of water and food have, in turn, prompted political and social strife in 2021, including food protests in Iran and hunger in Madagascar, and threaten to bring escalating misery, civil unrest and war in coming years.
- Experts warn the problem will only intensify, even in regions currently unaffected by, or thriving from the high prices caused by scarcity. Global transformational change is urgently needed in agricultural production and consumption patterns, say experts.

Old and new solutions pave way to net-zero emissions farming, studies show
- Agriculture and food account for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, making these sectors critical in efforts to address our current overshoot of the climate planetary boundary. They are also having profound impacts on freshwater, biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles.
- New and emerging technologies could pave the way to net-zero emissions agriculture in the next two decades, using robotics, electric vehicles, improved crop varieties and distributed monitoring, according to a new study. Precision agriculture could cut emissions by 71% and help build soil carbon stores.
- A second study reports that microbial protein cultivation powered by solar panels could achieve up to 10 times higher protein yield per unit of land than staple crops like soybeans, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from land conversion and synthetic fertilizers.
- A third report shows that Europe could feed a projected population of 600 million by 2050 with organic farming alone, by reducing consumption of animal products to around 30% of our diet, implementing crop rotations, and reconnecting livestock and cropping systems via use of manure.

Industrial diets are imprinting on human bodies, new study finds
- A new analysis shows that eating mass-produced food grown with the help of synthetic fertilizers, sourced internationally, is changing the chemistry of modern humans.
- It is especially true for urbanized and wealthier communities and nations where annual per capita income exceeds $10,000, where supermarkets supply most of the food.
- The isotope composition of nitrogen and carbon present in hair, nails and bones has changed, making present-day humans more similar to each other but very different from their ancestors who lived before the advent of industrial agriculture.
- The problem with these kinds of diets divorced from natural complex food chains is that the system is not resilient in the face of threats, study authors said.

A fatal stabbing sends a Gambian fishing village into turmoil over fishmeal
- Three Chinese-owned fishmeal factories have opened in the Gambia since 2016, sparking tensions over allegations of competition with local fishers, overfishing, illegal fishing, and pollution.
- In the town of Sanyang, unresolved disputes with the Nessim Trading fishmeal factory reached a flashpoint on March 15, triggered by the stabbing death of a Sanyang resident, allegedly by a Senegalese worker at the factory.
- Hundreds of people took to the streets in protest, some of them torching the local police station and the fishmeal factory, and destroying boats and equipment belonging to Senegalese fishers.
- The violence drove more than 250 Senegalese residents to flee to the nearby town of Batakonko.

Food systems drive a third of greenhouse gas emissions, study estimates
- A new study provides a comprehensive look at how food systems — from the growing of food to its distribution to its consumption and even its disposal — contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions.
- It suggests that food systems are responsible for a third of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions, reinforcing previous research that provided similar estimates.
- According to one expert, the dietary habits of people in developed nations can largely determine the greenhouse gas emissions in low-income countries, although the study does not explicitly state this.
- Experts say that reform is needed to make food systems more sustainable, and to function within the Earth’s planetary boundaries.

East Africa deploys huge volumes of ‘highly hazardous’ pesticides against locust plague
- More than 95% of pesticides now being used in East Africa to fight locust swarms are scientifically proven to cause harm to humans and other organisms such as birds and fish.
- Half of the anti-locust pesticides delivered in East Africa since the beginning of the infestation in late 2019 contain chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to brain damage in children and fetuses, which is banned in the EU.
- Experts including a former FAO official concede the pesticides being used “are not pleasant things,” but say the lack of safer alternatives and the intensity of the locust plague leave them with little choice.

The nine boundaries humanity must respect to keep the planet habitable
- All life on Earth, and human civilization, are sustained by vital biogeochemical systems, which are in delicate balance. However, our species — due largely to rapid population growth and explosive consumption — is destabilizing these Earth processes, endangering the stability of the “safe operating space for humanity.”
- Scientists note nine planetary boundaries beyond which we can’t push Earth Systems without putting our societies at risk: climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol pollution, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, land-system change, and release of novel chemicals.
- Humanity is already existing outside the safe operating space for at least four of the nine boundaries: climate change, biodiversity, land-system change, and biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus imbalance). The best way to prevent overshoot, researchers say, is to revamp our energy and food systems.
- In 2021, three meetings offer chances to avoid planetary boundary overshoot: the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Kunming, China; the U.N. Climate Summit (COP26) in Glasgow, U.K.; and the U.N. Food Systems Summit in Rome. Agreements with measurable, implementable, verifiable, timely and binding targets are vital, say advocates.

Dusty winds exacerbate looming famine in Madagascar’s deep south
- At least 1.27 million people need humanitarian assistance in Madagascar’s drought-hit deep south, according to a Jan. 18 request by the U.N. and the Malagasy government for $75.9 million in international aid to cope with the crisis.
- The area is also experiencing dust and sand storms, a natural phenomenon known as a tiomena that is exacerbating the crisis by smothering crops, forests, buildings and roads.
- Tiomenas may be increasingly common as southern Madagascar undergoes a long-term drying trend.
- Experts say upgrading the area’s water supply system is an urgent priority and recommend massive tree planting to provide wind breaks, protect soils from erosion and create more humidity.

Top environment stories from Madagascar in 2020
- Madagascar witnessed a convergence of calamities this year, from the pandemic to surging forest fires to an unprecedented drought.
- Despite growing pressures on its forests, new species continue to be uncovered from the island, with the description of a mouse lemur, several chameleons, and even the world’s ugliest orchid.
- Protected Area management has emerged as a bone of contention between the government and NGOs that manage them, underscoring the challenges of doing conservation in a poor country.
- Here are ten key stories and trends from Madagascar in 2020.

In Madagascar’s hungry south, drought pushes more than 1 million to brink of famine
- In Madagascar’s deep south, 1.35 million people, including 100,000 children, could fall victim to malnutrition this year, as the worst drought in a decade grips the region.
- This remote region has witnessed 16 famines since 1896, eight of which occurred in the past four decades. Most were the direct result of rainfall deficits, but misguided or failed policies have deepened the distress.
- This year, with crop failures, pandemic-related restrictions curbing access to markets, and sharp increases in prices of essentials, food has remained out of reach for thousands.
- Such droughts and the attendant famines are likely to become more frequent due to climate change, producing more hunger and distress in one of the poorest countries in the world.

New rule puts Indonesia’s protected forests up for grabs for agribusiness
- Indonesia’s environment ministry has issued a new regulation allowing protected forest areas to be cleared for a “food estate” program.
- The program is aimed at boosting domestic crop supplies, but critics say it prioritizes the interests of agribusiness at the expense of small farmers and the environment.
- Indonesia degazetted 26 million hectares (64 million acres) of its forest over the past 20 years, primarily for large-scale agriculture, and today has 29.7 million hectares (73.4 million acres) of protected forest, an area the size of Italy.
- Observers say the food estate program, if it goes ahead, should prioritize agroforestry systems that maintain a higher level of biodiversity than monocrops like oil palms or rice.

One year on: Insects still in peril as world struggles with global pandemic
- In June 2019, in response to media outcry and alarm over a supposed ongoing global “Insect Apocalypse,” Mongabay published a thorough four-part survey on the state of the world’s insect species and their populations.
- In four, in-depth stories, science writer Jeremy Hance interviewed 24 leading entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations to get their expert views on the rate of insect decline in Europe, the U.S., and especially the tropics, including Latin America, Africa, and Australia.
- Now, 16 months later, Hance reaches out to seven of those scientists to see what’s new. He finds much bad news: butterflies in Ohio declining by 2% per year, 94% of wild bee interactions with native plants lost in New England, and grasshopper abundance falling by 30% in a protected Kansas grassland over 20 years.
- Scientists say such losses aren’t surprising; what’s alarming is our inaction. One researcher concludes: “Real insect conservation would mean conserving large whole ecosystems both from the point source attacks, AND the overall blanket of climate change and six billion more people on the planet than there should be.”

Indonesia’s ‘militarized agriculture’ raises social, environmental red flags
- The Indonesian government’s plan to push through an ambitious program of establishing massive crop plantations across the country has raised concerns about community disenfranchisement and the loss of rainforests.
- The government has put the defense minister in charge of part of the program and enlisted the military to assist, raising the prospect of a crackdown on civilian opposition to the program.
- Observers and activists have criticized what they call the militarization of agriculture, as well as the expedited process of environmental assessments, which bypasses the need for public consultation.
- The way the program is structured also appears to benefit agribusiness players over small farmers, despite Indonesia’s stated commitment to empowering family farmers.

Indonesia’s food estate program eyes new plantations in forest frontiers
- The Indonesian government says it will expand a national “food estate” program by establishing millions of hectares of new crop plantations in Sumatra and Papua.
- The program is currently centered in Indonesian Borneo, where it occupies the site of an identical project from the 1990s that failed spectacularly.
- To expand the project into North Sumatra and Papua, the government is seeking out private investors; but activists say this risks a repeat of the current corporate takeover of Indigenous and community lands.
- The government is also reportedly considering lifting the forest status of more than a million hectares of rainforest in Papua so that it can clear the area for farmland.

Could disruptions in meat supply relieve pressure on the Amazon? (commentary)
- Ranching and beef production have put great pressure on the Brazilian Amazon, resulting in significant deforestation which harms biodiversity, could add to the destabilization of the global climate, and even lead to future pandemics. While much Brazilian meat is consumed domestically, a large portion is exported to China.
- With the pandemic raging out of control in Brazil, meat plants have become viral “hot spots” and helped to spread COVID-19 in several places around the country. Meanwhile, the global pandemic has, for a variety of reasons, now reduced meat consumption in both Brazil and China.
- Meat and dairy are responsible for public health problems and for 18% of global greenhouse emissions, so any reduction in consumption could be good for the health of the planet. Though the pandemic has led to untold human suffering, could cratering demand for meat lead to a new environmental consciousness?
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Indonesia pushes rice estate project despite environmental red flags
- Planting will begin as soon as this October on a project that will eventually cover nearly a million hectares (2.47 million acres) of peatland in Indonesian Borneo.
- Experts have criticized the project, citing the spectacular failure in the mid-1990s of the identical Mega Rice Project that cleared and eventually abandoned vast swaths of peatlands, paving the way for fires nearly every year since.
- President Joko Widodo says the project is of strategic national importance and will be overseen by the Ministry of Defense.
- But questions remain over the suitability of growing rice in nutrient-poor peat soils, exacerbating the risk of fire by clearing more peatland, and destroying forests that are home to critically endangered orangutans.

Corn growers in Brazil’s Cerrado reap a hostile climate of their own making
- Agribusiness entities that deforested vast swaths of the Cerrado biome in Brazil to grow corn are now suffering a drop in production because of climate changes brought about by their own actions.
- That’s the finding of a new study that shows the loss of native vegetation has led to more warm nights and changes in rainfall patterns, affecting corn crops that require moderate temperatures and reliable rainfall.
- The study’s authors say everyone loses from this scenario, and call for keeping the native vegetation in place as much as possible.
- International pressure and a serious commitment from agribusiness, which is largely resistant to efforts to preserve the Cerrado, might be the way to stop deforestation, they suggest.

‘Our life is plasticized’: New research shows microplastics in our food, water, air
- Microplastics, plastic pieces smaller than 5 millimeters, have become increasingly prevalent in the natural world, and a suite of studies published in the last three years, including several from 2020, shows that they’ve contaminated not only the ocean and pristine wildernesses, but the air, our food, and even our bodies.
- Past research has indicated that 5.25 trillion plastic pieces are floating in the ocean, but a new study says that there are 2.5 to 10 times more microplastics in the ocean than previously thought, while another recent study found that microplastic “hotspots” could hold 1.9 million pieces per square meter.
- Other emerging research suggests that 136,000 tons of microplastics in the ocean are being ejected into the atmosphere each year, and blowing back onto land with the sea breeze, posing a risk to human health.
- Microplastics are also present in drinking water, and edible fruits and vegetables, according to new research, which means that humans are ingesting microplastics every day.

Green alert: How indigenous people are experiencing climate change in the Amazon
- Late rainfall, intense drought, dry riverbeds, more forest fires, less food available — indigenous communities across the Brazilian Amazon suffer social transformations due to climate change.
- Indigenous people believe that climate change has even affected their physical health: previously controlled diseases like measles and yellow fever, they say, have inexplicably reappeared in the rainforest, and even indigenous women’s menstrual cycles are beginning at an earlier age.
- Indigenous people have found many ways to take action and lessen the harm. These approaches include selecting and growing seeds that are more resistant to drought and heat, investing in frontline firefighters and even a smartphone app that offers information about climatic variations.

In Indonesia’s new rice plan, experts see the blueprint of an epic past failure
- The Indonesian government plans to establish 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) of rice fields in the peatlands of Borneo, in what experts say is a worrying repeat of a near-identical project in the 1990s that failed.
- The earlier mega rice project (MRP) resulted in vast swaths of peat forests being drained and eventually abandoned as it became clear that the soil wasn’t suited for growing rice.
- The MRP left behind a wasteland of drained and degraded peat that has since burned during the annual dry season, spewing out a choking haze and large volumes of carbon emissions.
- The government says the new rice project will learn from past mistakes, but experts say it would still be unfeasible at that scale and would risk the clearing of even more peat forests.

For Philippine farmers reeling from disasters, lockdown is another pain point
- Farmers in the Bicol region in the Philippines are experiencing the brunt of the lockdown, imposed since March 16 to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The situation is especially hard for rice farmers, most of them still reeling from the impacts of successive typhoons, drought, and cheap imported rice.
- The Philippine government has allotted a 1.17 trillion peso ($23.2 billion) stimulus package, including support for some 18 million families most affected by the lockdown. In Bicol, more than one million families are expected to receive support.
- The Philippine lockdown is expected to lift by May 15, although the government says the country may have to continue dealing with COVID-19 for the new two years.

Soy made the Cerrado a breadbasket; climate change may end that
- The Brazilian Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna covering over 20% of the nation’s landmass. More than half the Cerrado’s native vegetation — much of it biodiverse dry forest — has been converted to agribusiness, turning it into a breadbasket for Brazil and a key source of soy for China, the EU and other international markets.
- Brazilian soy cultivation is set to expand by 12 million hectares between 2021 and 2050, with the vast majority of that expansion happening in the Cerrado and especially on its agricultural frontier — a four-state region known as Matopiba.
- However, the Matopiba region (consisting of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia states) is more vulnerable to climate change than other parts of Brazil. Researchers say global warming on the savanna is also worsened by the conversion of native vegetation to croplands and pastures.
- Extensive conversion of native vegetation (which holds moisture in roots deep underground) into a soy monocrop (which stores little water) is becoming a major problem, as little Cerrado soy is currently irrigated. Scientists argue that the conservation of native vegetation must be actively pursued to save the Cerrado agricultural frontier.

Move over, fishmeal: Insects and bacteria emerge as alternative animal feeds
- Fishmeal and fish oil are ingredients in pig and poultry feed, but the largest demand comes from aquaculture.
- Researchers and NGOs have questioned the sustainability of the fishmeal and fish oil industry, which deplete stocks of staple food fish for humans and marine predators alike, among its other impacts.
- Animal feed manufacturers around the world are now looking for alternatives to fishmeal and fish oil.
- Among the most promising alternatives are insects and bacteria, and production is beginning to take off.

Averting an agricultural and ecological crisis in the Philippines’ salad bowl
- Centuries of growing highland vegetables to sustain the Philippines’ food supply has taken a toll on the farms in the Cordilleras, a mountainous region in the country’s north, which supplies 80% of vegetables in the whole archipelago.
- Farms have expanded into forest areas and affected water supply. Soil quality has likewise declined over the decades because of heavy chemical use by farms gunning for high yields.
- Government agencies have proposed solutions including agroforestry, crop programming and organic farming aimed at limiting the heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides and preventing encroachment into forested areas.
- These interventions have yet to gain momentum, but the upswing of local tourism, and the success of a local coffee farmer, have motivated some farmers to diversify their crops and plant crops alongside trees.

Catching fish to feed fish: Report details ‘unsustainable’ fishmeal and oil industry
- Every year almost one-fifth of the world’s wild-caught fish are dried, pressed and ground into oil and meal, the majority of which is then fed to farmed fish and crustaceans that people will eat.
- A report released in October by the Netherlands-based Changing Markets Foundation followed fishmeal and fish oil supply chains “from fishery to fork.”
- It connected a number of farmed-fish products sold in European supermarkets — often bearing sustainability certifications — to fishing practices the authors deemed “highly unsustainable” in India, Vietnam and the Gambia.
- Supermarkets selling the products include big names such as Sainsbury’s, ALDI, Tesco, Iceland, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, REWE and Mercadona.

Climate adaptation begins with how we manage water (commentary)
- Some 70 percent of the world’s freshwater is used for agriculture, but cities and other sectors have growing demands on the same water resources. To adapt to climate change without undermining food security and farmers’ livelihoods, we will have to fundamentally rethink agricultural water usage, our food systems, and our diets.
- A major new report from the Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA) makes this case loud and clear. The report urges us to face the fact that climate change will require ‘massive’ adaptation. It urges us to meet this challenge with urgency and resolve.
- The GCA report paints a sobering picture of our water and food security futures. We can and must adapt more quickly and effectively. Adaptive water management is an important place to start.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

The Great Insect Dying: A global look at a deepening crisis
- Recent studies from Germany and Puerto Rico, and a global meta-study, all point to a serious, dramatic decline in insect abundance. Plummeting insect populations could deeply impact ecosystems and human civilization, as these tiny creatures form the base of the food chain, pollinate, dispose of waste, and enliven soils.
- However, limited baseline data makes it difficult for scientists to say with certainty just how deep the crisis may be, though anecdotal evidence is strong. To that end, Mongabay is launching a four-part series — likely the most in-depth, nuanced look at insect decline yet published by any media outlet.
- Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and researchers on six continents working in over a dozen nations to determine what we know regarding the “great insect dying,” including an overview article, and an in-depth story looking at temperate insects in the U.S. and the European Union — the best studied for their abundance.
- We also utilize Mongabay’s position as a leader in tropical reporting to focus solely on insect declines in the tropics and subtropics, where lack of baseline data is causing scientists to rush to create new, urgently needed survey study projects. The final story looks at what we can do to curb and reverse the loss of insect abundance.

Days of darkness: Venezuelan national emergency is also environmental crisis
- Venezuela, once a shining star of economic prosperity in Latin America, continues its plummet into chaos — a cauldron of human suffering in which the environment is also a victim.
- This month’s nationwide blackout, according to eyewitness accounts, saw courageous Venezuelans coming together to help each other as their government failed to respond effectively. It was the nation’s most recent crisis, though likely not its last.
- News reports from inside the country remain sketchy. But with the lights back on, his Internet connection restored, Venezuelan contributor Jeanfreddy Gutiérrez Torres offers Mongabay readers an exclusive firsthand account of Venezuela’s days of darkness.

As Brazilian agribusiness booms, family farms feed the nation
- Brazil’s “Agricultural Miracle” credits industrial agribusiness with pulling the nation out of a recent economic tailspin, and contributing 23.5 percent to GDP in 2017. But that miracle relied on a steeply tilted playing field, with government heavily subsidizing elite entrepreneurs.
- As a result, Brazilian agro-industrialists own 800,000 farms which occupy 75.7 percent of the nation’s agricultural land, with 62 percent of total agricultural output. Further defining the inequity, the top 1.5 percent of rural landowners occupy 53 percent of all agricultural land.
- In contrast, there are 4.4 million family farms in Brazil, making up 85 percent of all agricultural operations in the country. The family farm sector produces 70 percent of food consumed in the country, but does so using under 25 percent of Brazil’s agricultural land.
- Farm aid inequity favoring large-scale industrial agribusiness over family farms has deepened since 2016 under Michel Temer, and is expected to deepen further under Jair Bolsonaro. Experts say that policies favoring family farms could bolster national food security.

Land rights, forests, food systems central to limiting global warming: report
- In the wake of the dire, just released UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, a climate advocacy group known as CLARA (Climate, Land, Ambition and Rights Alliance) has published a separate report proposing that the world’s nations put far more effort into land sector measures to store carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- They suggest that these nature-oriented, land-based approaches could be far more effective, and more rapidly implemented, than relying on costly or largely untested high tech solutions such as bioenergy, carbon capture-and-storage, and geoengineering.
- Among the approaches CLARA proposes are the establishment of far stronger land rights for indigenous peoples (who are among the world’s best forest stewards), as well as a serious reduction in deforestation and the restoration of forest ecosystems worldwide.
- The CLARA report also calls for the transformation of agriculture (less tilling, less fertilizers, more support for small farms), and a global revolution in dietary habits, including a reduction in meat consumption and less food waste.

‘Empty pocket season’: Dayak women farmers grapple with the impacts of oil palm plantations
- The village of Long Bentuk in Indonesian Borneo is almost completely surrounded by oil palm estates run by large companies.
- While the impacts of being enclaved by oil palm has affected all people in the community, the effect on women has been particularly adverse.
- A recent commitment by Indonesia’s environment and forestry minister may see a greater role for women in land-use decisions across the country.

Venezuela’s hungry hunt wildlife, zoo animals, as economic crisis grows
- Venezuela is suffering a disastrous economic crisis. With inflation expected to hit 13,000 percent in 2018, there has been a collapse of agricultural productivity, commercial transportation and other services, which has resulted in severe food shortages. As people starve, they are increasingly hunting wildlife, and sometimes zoo animals.
- Reports from the nation’s zoos say that animals are emaciated, with keepers sometimes forced to feed one form of wildlife to another, just to keep some animals alive. There have also been reports of mammals and birds being stolen from zoo collections. Zoos have reached out to Venezuelans, seeking donations to help feed their wild animals.
- The economic crisis makes scientific data gathering difficult, but a significant uptick in the harvesting of Guiana dolphin, known locally as tonina, has been observed. The dolphin is protected from commercial trade under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
- The grisly remains of hunted pink flamingos have been found repeatedly on Lake Maracaibo. Also within the estuary, there has also been a rise in the harvesting of sea turtle species, including the vulnerable leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), and the critically endangered hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata).

Andes dams twice as numerous as thought are fragmenting the Amazon
- A new study identified 142 dams currently in operation or under construction in the Andes headwaters of the Amazon, twice the number previously estimated. An additional 160 are in the planning stages.
- If proposed Andes dams go ahead, sediment transport to the Amazon floodplains could cease, blocking freshwater fish migratory routes, disrupting flow and flood regimes, and threatening food security for downstream communities, impacting up to 30 million people.
- Most dams to date are on the tributary networks of Andean river main stems. But new dams are planned for five out of eight major Andean Amazon main stems, bringing connectivity reductions on the Marañón, Ucayali and Beni rivers of more than 50 percent; and on the Madre de Dios and Mamoré rivers of over 35 percent.
- Researchers conclude that proposed dams should be required to complete cumulative effects assessments at a basin-wide scale, and account for synergistic impacts of existing dams, utilizing the UN Watercourses Convention as a legal basis for international cooperation for sustainable water management between Amazon nations.

Brazil’s fundamental pesticide law under attack
- In 2008, Brazil became the largest pesticide consumer in the world – the dual result of booming industrial agribusiness and ineffective environmental regulation.
- In 1989, the country established one of the then toughest pesticide laws in the world (7,802/1989), which included the precautionary principle in its pesticide evaluation and registration standards. However, limited staffing and budget has made the law very difficult to implement and enforce.
- With its increasing power after 2000, the bancada ruralista, the agribusiness lobby, has worked to overthrow that law, an effort thwarted to date but more likely to succeed under the Temer administration and the current ruralista-dominated Congress.
- Lax pesticide use regulation and education have major health and environmental consequences. Farmers often use pesticides without proper safety gear, while children are often in the fields when spraying occurs. Some experts blame pesticides partly for Brazil’s high cancer rate – cancer is the nation’s second leading cause of death.

Venezuela: can a failing state protect its environment and its people?
- Venezuela is fast becoming a failed state, with 11.4 percent of its children malnourished, 10.5 percent of its workforce unemployed, and an annual inflation rate of roughly 2,700 percent for 2017.
- Serious food, fuel and medicine shortages have in recent months resulted in mobs raiding stores and shops, fishing boats, even the stoning of a cow to death where it stood in a field, in order for people to be able to provide for their families.
- Meanwhile, Pres. Maduro has sought to save his nation from economic ruin by selling off its natural resources, opening the Arco Minero in Bolívar state to mining – 112,000 square kilometers, more than 12 percent of the country. He has also announced the creation of the Petro cryptocurrency, backed by the nation’s oil and possibly minerals.
- Mongabay correspondent Bram Ebus, in partnership with InfoAmazonia, recently traveled to the remote Arco Minero and reported firsthand on the chaotic political and social situation, where indigenous communities and the environment are put at risk by economic hardship, a corrupt military, armed gangs and guerrilla bands.

EU-LatAm trade deal good for agribusiness; bad for Amazon, climate – analysis
- The EU-Mercosur trade deal, being concluded this month by the European Union and the South American trade bloc (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) is being negotiated in secret. However, part of the document has been leaked to Greenpeace, alarming environmentalists.
- The leaked secret trade documents show that the accord would encourage the export of high-value goods, like automobiles, from Europe to Latin American, while encouraging the export of huge amounts of low-value products – including beef and soy – from South America.
- This emphasis on production and international consumption could greatly increase the need for agricultural land in Latin America, and result in a major increase in deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, and Argentine Chaco.
- The conversion of forests to crop and range lands could significantly decrease carbon storage, leading to a rise in carbon emissions that could help push global temperatures more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, with potentially catastrophic results for ecosystems and civilization.

Trump family planning policy may increase population, hurt women and environment
- In January, U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated the global gag rule, first introduced under Ronald Reagan. It requires foreign NGOs receiving U.S. global family planning assistance to certify that they will not “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning” with non-U.S. funds.
- According to Marie Stopes International (MSI), the gag rule could result in a minimum of 2.2 million abortions from 2017-2020, with 21,700 women dying as a result. And that only accounts for services lost from MSI.
- Research shows that the gag rule is also likely to increase population growth in the developing world by reducing the ability of organizations to provide family planning services. This could endanger the environment in a variety of ways. For example, population growth puts more pressure on forests and wildlife.
- A lack of family planning can lead to large families, with women spending more of their time on childrearing, largely leaving them out of any active role in community sustainability and conservation projects, as well as education programs that train them in sustainable livelihoods.

As Northwest salmon economy teeters on brink, Trump gives it a push
- Northwest salmon fisheries are in trouble, impacted by warming oceans and overdeveloped, dammed and silted spawning rivers and streams.
- Pre-contact indigenous groups in the region once organized their societies around sustainable fishing tribal agreements that worked. More recently, under past presidential administrations, Canadian, US and tribal authorities came together to save the declining salmon fisheries.
- Especially successful have been federally funded local, state and tribal programs, administered by NOAA, that protect and restore Northwest spawning streams — an investment in habitat and healthy local economies.
- Trump’s 2018 budget would cut all those programs, though for now Congress has restored them. However, politicians and regulators are concerned that Trump’s abandonment of Northwest fisheries and local economies will persist through his administration.

Unfair trade: US beef has a climate problem
- Across the globe, beef consumption, is seeing rapid growth, fed by cheap imports and served by an industrialized agricultural global trade model that’s been linked to a host of environmental impacts, climate change chief among them.
- Beef consumption in previously meat-light countries like Japan presents profit opportunities for the global beef industry. But scientists and activists argue that increasing beef consumption and industrial farm production go against efforts to combat climate change.
- President Trump’s recent decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a global trade deal, upset the US beef industry’s plans of expanding into lucrative Asian markets, including Japan, calling into question if, or when, a future deal will be signed.
- TPP, like other global trade treaties, fails to acknowledge climate change or include mechanisms to curb it. Critics say TPP (which continues to be negotiated by 11 nations) and future trade deals must change radically — protecting not only business and the economy, but the environment.

Amazon deforestation linked to McDonald’s and British retail giants
- British fast food restaurants and grocery chains, including Tesco, Morrisons and McDonald’s, buy their chicken from Cargill, which feeds its poultry with imported soy, much of it apparently coming from the Bolivian Amazon and Brazilian Cerrado — areas rapidly being deforested for new soy plantations.
- A decade ago, Cargill and other global commodities companies agreed to stop buying soy from the Brazilian Amazon and established a Soy Moratorium in the region.
- But a recent study showed that Cargill and other companies simply began sourcing their soy purchases from nearby areas, including the Bolivian Amazon and Brazilian Cerrado, a vast area of savanna, part of which is included in Brazil’s definition of Legal Amazonia.
- That shift has resulted in rapid deforestation in both areas; a Mighty Earth report revealed that U.S. soy distributor Cargill is a major soy buyer there. Efforts to extend the soy moratorium to the Bolivian Amazon and Brazilian Cerrado have long been opposed by Cargill, despite calls to do so by NGOs, scientists and the Brazilian environment minister.

Andes dams could threaten food security for millions in Amazon basin
- More than 275 hydroelectric projects are planned for the Amazon basin, the majority of which could be constructed in the Andes whose rivers supply over 90 percent of the basin’s sediments and over half its nutrients.
- A new study projects huge environmental costs for six of these dams, which together will retain 900 million tons of river sediment annually, reducing supplies of phosphorus and nitrogen, and threatening fish populations and soil quality downstream.
- Accumulating sediments upstream of dams are projected to release 10 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, significantly contributing to global warming, and would contaminate waters and the aquatic life they support with mercury.
- The construction of these dams should be reconsidered to preserve food security and the livelihoods of millions of people in the Amazon Basin.

Healthy soils can boost food security and climate resilience for millions (commentary)
- Drylands take centre stage this week as world leaders gather in Ordos, in the Inner Mongolia region of China, for the thirteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP13).
- The health of many dryland ecosystems has declined dramatically over recent decades, largely due to unsustainable farming methods, increasing drought, deforestation, and clearance of natural grasslands.
- Changing the way drylands are farmed to conserve life underground is the only way of restoring these ecosystems and the agricultural outputs they sustain.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Trump budget threatens Zimbabwe climate change resilience programs
- President Trump has threatened to cut U.S. aid to developing nations by a third. This could impact Zimbabwe which receives $150 million annually to decrease food insecurity for 2.1 million people.
- Aid to Zimbabwe is important to rural farmers, victims of escalating drought due to climate change. USAID finances dams and irrigation projects, making agriculture sustainable.
- The 2018 budget isn’t due to be finalized by Congress until October 1, 2017, leaving Zimbabwe’s people in uncertainty as to the direly needed aid.
- What seems certain is that the climate resilience program will not be expanded to meet the needs of yet to be served Zimbabwean communities.

‘Crunch time for biodiversity’: Farming, hunting push thousands of species toward extinction
- Eighty percent of threatened animals are losing ground – literally, in the form of habitat loss – to agriculture.
- Up to 50 percent of threatened birds and mammals face extinction at the hands of hunters.
- In a study published in the journal Nature, a team of scientists explores solutions to avoid destroying the habitats of these animals, such as increasing yields in the developed world and minimizing fertilizer use.

Officials, Greenpeace nab four boats for illegally fishing near Guinea-Bissau
- Between March 21-24, Greenpeace and officials from Guinea-Bissau’s Fisheries Surveillance Department sent four boats into the port of Bissau, where the companies that own the boats face sanctions for unpaid fines for past violations, improperly indicating the names of vessels, and what’s known as ‘illegal transshipment.’
- Two of the boats were owned by a Spanish company, and the other two were owned by companies based in China, which has by far the most ‘distant-water fishing’ boats at sea of any country.
- The UN Food and Agriculture Organization found that, in 2009, the fisheries off West Africa had the highest rates of overexploitation in the world.

Fish for all? The fish-free fishmeal challenge
- The aquaculture industry is growing faster than the human population, at about eight percent each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
- About 20 percent of the world’s fish goes to aquaculture, depleting wild-caught forage fish such as anchovies and krill to provide essential oils and protein for the development and growth of these cultivated foods.
- The first team to sell 100,000 metric tons of fish-free feed or, if that threshold isn’t reached, that sells the most feed by the end of the contest, on September 15, 2017, will be named the winner of the F3 challenge.

Program targets food security concerns among Panama’s indigenous women
- Malnutrition rates of indigenous children in Panama’s rural areas can be three to five times higher than that of non-indigenous children in the cities.
- Poor access to employment and health care, a lack of participation in politics, land conflicts over resource development projects, and farming problems related to volatile climactic conditions all contribute to food insecurity among Panama’s indigenous groups.
- Now, a 10-month program for indigenous women headed by the International Indigenous Women’s Forum aims to tackle food security among indigenous groups in Panama, as well as in Paraguay and El Salvador.

Amid epic drought, villagers bitter over Zimbabwean ethanol plant
- The Green Fuel plant in Chisumbanje in eastern Zimbabwe became operational in 2011.
- Since then the livelihood of local farming people, already thin, has become dire. Community members and advocacy groups offer a litany of complaints against the company.
- In April, Billy Rautenbach, the owner of the companies with a controlling stake in Green Fuel, was named in the Panama Papers as having offshore accounts, prompting calls for an investigation into his financial dealings that has yet to materialize.

Health concerns, food insecurity linger months after Peruvian oil spills
- The 40-year-old Northern Peruvian Pipeline has spilled oil into remote rivers three times so far in 2016.
- Mongabay visited sites affected by two spills that occurred this winter and found oil-coated fields and residents concerned about the safety of the crops and river fish they depend on.
- Advocates are pushing for more studies into long-term health effects from the oil contamination.
- Meanwhile, the Peruvian government has sanctioned the state-owned company responsible for the pipeline and fired its president.

Rising CO2 is reducing nutritional value of food, impacting ecosystems
- As CO2 levels rise, so do carbohydrates in plants, increasing food’s sugar content. While carbon-enriched plants grow bigger, scientists are finding that they contain proportionately less protein and nutrients such as zinc, magnesium and calcium.
- A meta-analysis of 7,761 observations of 130 plant species found that overall mineral concentrations in plants declined by about 8 percent in response to elevated CO2 levels — 25 minerals decreased, including iron, zinc, potassium and magnesium.
- New research found that as atmospheric CO2 rose from preindustrial to near current levels, the protein content in goldenrod pollen fell by 30 percent. Bees and other pollinators rely heavily on goldenrod as protein-rich food for overwintering. The loss of pollinators could devastate many of the world’s food crops.
- Research into the correlation between CO2 concentrations and the nutrient content of food is in its early stages. More study is urgently needed to determine how crops and ecosystems will be altered as fossil fuels are burned, plus mitigation strategies.

The week in environmental news – April 22, 2016
- A new approach to mosquito control involving the release of 3 million genetically modified mosquitoes has not been well received.
- Representatives from over 170 countries gathered at the UN headquarters in New York this week to sign the Paris climate agreement.
- Thousands of fish, including rare species that live far off the shore are washing up on beaches along the central coast of Vietnam.

Massive profiteering uncovered in Indonesian fertilizer distribution
- A yet-to-be published government report describes corrupt practices among state-backed retailers entrusted with selling subsidized fertilizers to small farmers.
- The retailers are also said to be colluding to sell the fertilizers at higher prices.
- The allegations were reported by Reuters, which claims to have seen parts of the government’s report.

Meager post-Ebola harvests worsen food insecurity in West Africa

Villagers harvest rice in Sierra Leone. Harvesting is often a communal affair in West African nations, but the Ebola crisis interfered with group activities and disrupted many other aspects of agricultural production in the region. Photo credit: ©FAO/Peter DiCampo. Pedelers Salee Craig used to grow vegetables. Near his home in Monrovia, Liberia, he planted peppers […]
Private sector innovations reduce food loss in West Africa

Other African Food Waste Articles by Margaret Egbula Together we stand: A policy approach to reducing food loss in West Africa West Africa’s weakest links: Supply chain defects are behind worst food waste Reducing post-harvest losses would mean higher incomes for farmers and market traders, like these in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Photo credit: Margaret Egbula […]
Together we stand: A policy approach to reducing food loss in West Africa

West African countries have recognized that when it comes to food security, no nation is an island. Since achieving independence, West African countries have strived for regional integration. By building strong political and economic ties, the 15 member nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) aimed to maximize economic development and minimize […]
Food coating made with African ingredient aims to decrease food waste

Researchers at the Center of Excellence for Post-harvest Biotechnology (CEPB) in Malaysia test a preservative coating made out of gum arabic that they hope will help reduce food waste in developing nations. Photo by: CEPB. In sub-Saharan Africa, for every tomato or cassava eaten, one spoils. Up to half of all fruits and vegetables are […]
To improve food security, look to the forests, new report says

Cashew nuts grow in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: P.J. Stephenson. Forests could help alleviate global hunger, according to a new report released Wednesday during the United Nations Forum on Forests in New York. It’s a bold claim, and the report, published by the International Union of Forest Research […]
Keeping up with the climate: efforts to reduce African crop losses face the extra hurdle of climate change

Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Rachel Cernansky Combating food waste in sub-Saharan AfricaNew solutions aim to deliver more grain from farm to table in sub-Saharan AfricaUnique center trains Tanzanian farmers to preserve their fruits and veggiesThe crop-saving champion of Tanzania: Bertha MjawaEmpowering women in order to save the harvest A maize farmer in Morogoro, […]
Empowering women in order to save the harvest

A farmer threshes beans just harvested from a field outside Babati, Tanzania. Women make up nearly half of the agricultural workforce in sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Rachel Cernansky. On a hot weekend in February, Shamim Daudi sits down with farmer after farmer near Babati, Tanzania, to talk with them about the way they store their corn. […]
The crop-saving champion of Tanzania: Bertha Mjawa

Bertha Mjawa is credited with sparking a movement to reduce food waste in Tanzania. Credit: Rachel Cernansky. Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Rachel Cernansky Combating food waste in sub-Saharan AfricaNew solutions aim to deliver more grain from farm to table in sub-Saharan AfricaUnique center trains Tanzanian farmers to preserve their fruits and veggies In […]
Unique center trains Tanzanian farmers to preserve their fruits and veggies

Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Rachel Cernansky Combating food waste in sub-Saharan AfricaNew solutions aim to deliver more grain from farm to table in sub-Saharan Africa Members of a women’s group in Nduruma, Tanzania, stand over their zero-energy cool chamber, or ZECC. ZECCs can extend the life of fresh produce by a few days […]
New solutions aim to deliver more grain from farm to table in sub-Saharan Africa

Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Rachel Cernansky Combating food waste in sub-Saharan Africa A researcher with the Swiss development organization Helvetas opens a polypropylene bag inside a farmer’s storage room as part of a project testing the efficacy of various corn storage methods. Credit: Rachel Cernansky. Corn is an integral part of many meals […]
Combating food waste in sub-Saharan Africa

A trader sorts mangos at the Kilombero wholesale market in Arusha, Tanzania. Credit: Rachel Cernansky. At the bustling Kilombero wholesale produce market in the town of Arusha, Tanzania, traders sort hundreds of pounds of mangos that have just been unloaded from trucks. Though the mangos have come directly from the farms where they were grown, many […]
Pollution from fossil fuels decreased rainfall in Central America

Jungle in Belize. New research finds Belize has been drying out for over a century, likely due to pollution from burning fossil fuels in the northern hemisphere which has left to a shift in the a vital precipitation belt along the equator. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Fossil fuel pollution may have caused a southern […]
Pollinator collapse could lead to a rise in malnutrition

A bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) covered in pollen. Photo by: P7r7/Creative Commons 3.0 Saving the world’s pollinators may be a public health issue, according to recent research from Harvard and the University of Vermont. Scientists have long believed that pollinators are important for human nutrition, but this is first time they have tested the hypothesis. What […]
Poor rains then floods lead to food crisis in Somalia

A girl stands in front of freshly dug graves in Dadaab, Kenya. The town was one of the places Somali refuges fled to during the 2011 famine, but many didn’t make it. Most of the dead were children. Photo by: Andy Hall/Oxfam East Africa/Creative Commons 2.0. Four years after over a quarter of a million […]
2 prize-winning journalists will report on Amazon, 2 new prizes announced

The current economic, political, and environmental landscape of the Amazon is complicated at best. Protected areas have swelled in recent decades, indigenous rights have been improved in some places, while investments by both foreign and domestic financiers in large-scale energy and infrastructure development have raised questions about their environmental and social impacts in the world’s […]
From triumph to tragedy: famine could hit world’s newest country by August

South Sudan at risk of imminent famine Suffering from a six month civil war, the world’s youngest country could begin experiencing famine conditions in the next few weeks, according to an analysis from a group of British aid agencies. The UN has been warning for months that South Sudan—which was only established in 2011—faces a […]
Somalia could face another famine due to delayed rains, insecurity

Nearly a million people are in need of immediate food assistance in Somalia, where delayed rains, high food prices, and insecurity threaten a repeat of the 2011 famine that left 258,000 people dead. According to the UN’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU), 857,000 Somalis need immediate assistance while over 200,000 children under five […]
Wild food: scientists link forests to human nutrition

With over seven billion people inhabiting the earth and the population endlessly rising, food security is a mounting global issue. As a solution to increasing food scarcity, forests are commonly cleared to make land available for agriculture. Around the world, both industrial farmers and subsistence farmers alike are growing crops on deforested land. However, scientists […]
Apocalypse now? Climate change already damaging agriculture, acidifying seas, and worsening extreme weather

It’s not just melting glaciers and bizarrely-early Springs anymore; climate change is impacting every facet of human civilization from our ability to grow enough crops to our ability to get along with each other, according to a new 2,300-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The massive report, from the Nobel Prize-winning […]
Dietary diversity: key to defending tropical ecosystems

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) points to the homogenization of global diets over the past fifty years. It shows that worldwide production of traditional staples such as millet, rye, sorghum, yams and cassava have been in decline. Instead, the world’s population increasingly relies on a relatively […]
20 million people face hunger in Africa’s Sahel region

The UN and partner humanitarian groups today called on the international community to spend $2 billion to avoid a famine in Africa’s Sahel region, which includes nine nations along the southern edge of the Sahara. Although the Sahel is chronically prone to food insecurity, the situation has dramatically worsened as the UN estimates 20 million […]
Humans are not apex predators, but meat-eating on the rise worldwide

Meat. Photo by: National Institute of Health/Public Domain. A new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has measured the “trophic level” of human beings for the first time. Falling between 1 and 5.5, trophic levels refer to where species fit on the food chain. Apex predators like tigers and sharks are given […]
Worst drought in 30 years threatens millions in southern Africa with food insecurity

Around 2 million people face food insecurity in northern Namibia and southern Angola as the worst regional drought in decades takes its toll, according to the UN. Two years of failed rains have pushed families into desperate conditions in a region already known for its desert-like conditions. In Namibia alone, experts estimate that over 100,000 […]
Crop yields no longer keeping up with population growth

If the world is to grow enough food for the projected global population in 2050, agricultural productivity will have to rise by at least 60%, and may need to more than double, according to researchers who have studied global crop yields. They say that productivity is not rising fast enough at present to meet the […]
Eat insects to mitigate deforestation and climate change

A new 200-page-report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) urges human society to utilize an often-ignored, protein-rich, and ubiquitous food source: insects. While many in the industrialized west might turn up their noses at the idea of eating insects, already around 2 billion people worldwide eat over 1,900 species of insect, according to […]
Nearly a million people face food crisis in Niger

Around 800,000 people in Niger face food insecurity in coming months, according to the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Rising food prices and refugees from Mali, which is plagued by conflict, have made access to food difficult in the west African country. The OCHA calculates that currently 84,000 are in need […]
‘Suffering…without witnesses’: over a quarter of a million people perished in Somali famine

A new report estimates that 258,000 people died in 2011 during a famine in Somalia, the worst of such events in 25 years and a number at least double the highest estimations during the crisis. Over half of the victims, around 133,000, were children five and under. The report, by the UN Food and Agricultural […]
What if companies actually had to compensate society for environmental destruction?

The environment is a public good. We all share and depend on clean water, a stable atmosphere, and abundant biodiversity for survival, not to mention health and societal well-being. But under our current global economy, industries can often destroy and pollute the environment—degrading public health and communities—without paying adequate compensation to the public good. Economists […]
The river of plenty: uncovering the secrets of the amazing Mekong

Home to giant catfish and stingrays, feeding over 60 million people, and with the largest abundance of freshwater fish in the world, the Mekong River, and its numerous tributaries, brings food, culture, and life to much of Southeast Asia. Despite this, little is known about the biodiversity and ecosystems of the Mekong, which is second […]
Up for grabs: how foreign investments are redistributing land and water across the globe

In 2007, the increased human population, increased prices in fuel and transportation costs, and an increased demand for a diversity of food products prompted a Global Food Crisis. Agricultural producers and government leaders world-wide struggled to procure stable food sources for their countries. But the crisis had impacts beyond 2007: it was also the impetus […]
Innovative idea: wildlife income may help people withstand drought in Africa

Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe. Getting local people to become invested in wildlife conservation is not always easy, especially in parts of the world where protected areas are seen as taking away natural resources from local communities. This tension lies around Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, where a growing population of livestock herders competes with […]
Scientists: stop treating population growth as a ‘given’ and empower women

Climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, water scarcity, and land issues: almost all of the world’s environmental problems are underpinned by too many people inhabiting a finite planet. A new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B warns that overpopulation—combined with over-consumption—is threatening to push the entire globe into “a collapse of global […]
Throwing our food away: Up to 50% of the food produced worldwide is wasted

A new report titled “Global food, waste not, want not” published by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers has found that 30 to 50 percent of all food produced in the world never reaches a stomach. The authors of the study warn that these figures are quite conservative. The large amounts of land, energy, fertilizers and […]
Paradigm shift needed to avert global environmental collapse, according to author of new book The Blueprint: Averting Global Collapse

Scientists and experts are increasingly concerned that we are entering an age of ecological collapse with untold impacts for future generations. In Daniel Rirdan’s new book, The Blueprint, he outlines how to avoid this fate. Author, global strategist, and speaker Daniel Rirdan set out to create a plan addressing the future of our planet. His […]
Improving food and water efficiency a must for the next generation

Mwamanongu Village water source in Tanzania.. Photo by: Bob Metcalf. This summer, while climate change silence reigned in the U.S. presidential race, the Stockholm International Water Institute’s conference for World Water Week focused on the global initiatives required in order to live with its effects. The report, titled “Feeding a Thirsty World,” garnered the most […]
World Bank: 4 degrees Celsius warming would be miserable

Hurricane Sandy on October 25th in the Caribbean. Scientists say that climate change may have intensified Hurricane Sandy with its impact worsened by rising sea levels and increased evaporation from hotter marine waters. Recent studies predict that worsening climate change will bring more intense hurricanes. Photo by: NASA. A new report by the World Bank […]
Hurricane Sandy pushes Haiti toward full-blown food crisis

Hurricane Sandy on October 25th in the Caribbean. Photo by: NASA. Although Haiti avoided a direct hit by Hurricane Sandy, the tropical storm caused severe flooding across the southern part of the country decimating agricultural fields. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs now warns that 1.5 million Haitians are at risk of […]
Controversial dam gets approval in Laos

The Mekong River in Thailand. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Laos has given approval to the hugely-controversial $3.5 billion Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong River, reports the BBC. The massive dam, which would provide 95 percent of its energy production to Thailand, has been criticized for anticipated impacts on the river’s fish populations, on which […]
One in eight people suffer from malnutrition worldwide

Girl in village in Madagascar. One of the world’s poorest countries, it has been estimated that about 70 percent of Malagasy people suffer from malnutrition. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In a world where technology has advanced to a point where I can instantly have a face-to-face conversation via online video with a friend in […]
Food prices rise as food aid needed in Middle East and Africa

A mother with her severely malnourished child in the Sahel region. Photo: UNICEF/Chad/2012/C Tidey. Food prices increased in September on the FAO Food Price Index after two months of stability, while food aid has been urgently called for in Yemen and Syria, and concerns lingered in parts of Africa. Food prices globally rose 3 points […]
Mekong dam spree could create regional food crisis

A fisherman on the Mekong River in Laos. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Fish are a hugely important protein source for many people around the world. This is no more evident than along the lower Mekong River delta where an estimated 48 million people depend directly on the river for food and livelihoods. But now […]
U.S. drought could set in motion global food crisis

The U.S. is suffering drought levels not seen in over 50 years—and drawing comparisons to the Dust Bowl—with 56 percent of the contiguous U.S. in moderate to extreme drought. Some experts fear that the drought, and resulting hikes in food prices, could propel another global food crisis like those seen in 2008 and 2010. While […]
Climate change increased the probability of Texas drought, African famine, and other extreme weather

Map shows the level of drought and dryness across the US in July 2011. Map courtesy US Department of Agriculture. Click to enlarge. Climate change is here and its increasing the chances for crazy weather, according to scientists. A prestigious group of climatologists have released a landmark report that makes the dramatic point that climate […]
Alarm rising over food crisis in Sahel region

A mother with her severely malnourished child in the Sahel region. Photo: UNICEF/Chad/2012/C Tidey. Warnings over a possible famine in Africa’s Sahel region are becoming louder and more intense. Abnormal drought, locally high food prices, and regional conflict have ramped up concerns that 18 million people could suffer from malnutrition and starvation as the lean […]
‘The real Hunger Games’: a million children at risk as Sahel region suffers punishing drought

Livestock lay dead during the East Africa famine last year. Photo by: Oxfam East Africa. The UN warns that a million children in Africa’s Sahel region face malnutrition due to drought in region. In all 15 million people face food insecurity in eight nations across the Sahel, a region that is still recovering from drought […]
15 million facing food shortages in Africa’s Sahel region

Dogon village Songo in Mali, Africa . The Dogon are an ethnic tribe in the Sahel. Photo by: Bigstock. The UN announced yesterday that food security in the Sahel region is deteriorating, putting over 15 million people at risk. Ongoing drought combined with conflict, has pushed the region into a crisis. The situation appears eerily […]
Another food crisis looming in Africa: nearly 5 million South Sudanese lacking food

A village in South Sudan. Photo by: Steve Evans. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) have warned that South Sudan is facing a food crisis and that immediate action is needed to stave off a disaster. Currently 4.7 million people do not have enough to eat in South Sudan, […]
Brazilian mining company connected to Belo Monte dam voted worst corporation

The world’s second largest mining company, Vale, has been given the dubious honor of being voted the world’s most awful corporation in terms of human rights abuses and environmental destruction by the Public Eye Awards. Vale received over 25,000 votes online, likely prompted in part by its stake in the hugely controversial Brazilian mega-dam, Belo […]
Delayed response to Somalia famine cost thousands of lives

A hesitant response by the international community likely led to thousands of unnecessary deaths in last year’s famine in East Africa finds a new report released by Oxfam and Save the Children. The report, entitled A Dangerous Delay, says that early warning systems worked in informing the international community about the likelihood of a dire […]
Global food prices set record in 2011

Children in Madagascar. Seventy percent of Malagasy people suffer from malnutrition. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last year saw the highest average food prices since recording began in 1990, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Food Price Index. The Food Price Index’s average for the year was 228 points, 28 points higher than […]
Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2011

Victories won by activists around the world tops our list of the big environmental stories of the year. In this photo: a young woman is placed in handcuffs and arrested for civil disobedience against the Keystone XL Pipeline in the U.S. In all, 1,252 people were arrested in the two week long action. Photo by: […]
Earth systems disruption: Does 2011 indicate the “new normal” of climate chaos and conflict?

Before and after satellite images of flooding in Ayutthaya Province, Thailand. Photo by: NASA. The year 2011 has presented the world with a shocking increase in irregular weather and disasters linked to climate change. Just as the 2007 “big melt” of summer arctic sea ice sent scientists and environmentalists scrambling to re-evaluate the severity of […]
Droughts could push parts of Africa back into famine

Drought and erratic rains could lead to further food scarcities in Africa warns the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The WFP singles out South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, and Niger as nations of particular concern. Earlier this year famine killed scores of people, including an estimated 30,000 children, in Somalia. In South Sudan […]
11 challenges facing 7 billion super-consumers

The Turkana tribe of northern Kenya are buffeted by constant drought and food insecurity, which recent research says may be worsening due to climate change. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about Halloween this year is not the ghouls and goblins taking to the streets, but a baby born somewhere in […]
Killer Russian heatwave product of climate change

Image of Russia and nearby areas from August 4th, 2010 by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. Especially intense fires are outlined in red. Smoke from peat and forest fires lead to dangerous levels of pollution throughout Moscow and surrounding areas. Photo by: NASA. Click to enlarge. Last year’s Russian heatwave and drought resulted in vast […]
Five ways to feed billions without trashing the planet

Soy fields meet Amazon rainforest in Brazil. A new study argues that the destruction of rainforests for agriculture must stop. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. At the end of this month the UN predicts global population will hit 7 billion people, having doubled from 3.5 billion in less than 50 years. Yet even as the […]
World’s newest nation faces prospect of famine

As East Africa reels from a devastating famine, which is hitting Somalia the hardest, there are new fears that another African nation could soon slip into a similar situation. On July 9th of this year, South Sudan became the world’s newest nation; however a few months later drought, conflict, refugees, and rising food prices could […]
Controversial study finds intensive farming partnered with strict protected areas is best for biodiversity

Tropical forest in Ghana, an irreplaceable habitat for many species. Photo courtesy of Ben Phalan. Given that we have very likely entered an age of mass extinction—and human population continues to rise (not unrelated)—researchers are scrambling to determine the best methods to save the world’s suffering species. In the midst of this debate, a new […]
Photos: World Food Program works to save lives in East Africa famine

Famine victims in Kenya. Children are the most vulnerable during a famine. At the beginning of August the US estimated that 29,000 children under five had perished from the famine over the past 90 days. Photo by: © Rebecca Richards/WFP. Over 12 million people across East Africa are imperiled by a hunger crisis brought on […]
Innovative program saves wildlife, protects forests, and fights poverty in Africa

Rice for market in the Luangwa Valley. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS. Luangwa Valley in Zambia is home to stunning scenes of Africa wildlife: elephants, antelopes, zebra, buffalo, leopards, hyena, and lions all thrive in Luangwa’s protected areas, while the Luangwa River is known for multitude of snapping crocodiles and its superabundant herds of hippos. […]
Famine spreads: 29,000 young children perish

As the UN announces that famine has spread in Somalia to three additional regions (making five in total now), the US has put the first number to the amount of children under 5 who have so far perished from starvation in the last 90 days: 29,000. Nearly half of the total population of Somalia is […]
Tens of thousands starving to death in East Africa

As the US media is focused like a laser on theatric debt talks and the UK media is agog at the heinous Rupert Murdoch scandal, millions of people are undergoing a starvation crisis in East Africa. The UN has upgraded the disaster—driven by high food prices, conflict, and prolonged drought linked by some to climate […]
Worst drought in 60 years brings starvation fears to East Africa

A prolonged drought in East Africa is bringing many of the region’s impoverished to their knees: the World Food Program (WFP) is warning that 10 million people in the region are facing severe shortages. While not dubbed a famine yet, experts say it could become one. Meanwhile, a recent study by FEWS NET/USGS has revealed […]
Food security in developing world threatened by climate change

If swift action is not taken to prepare farmers in the developing world for hotter, drier, shorter growing seasons, climate change may threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of people by 2050. People in Africa and South Asia are particularly at risk of further impoverishment and hunger in a warmer world. According to the […]
Rising food prices threaten to push over 60 million Asians back into poverty

The Asian Development Bank has warned that high food prices on the continent could push 64 million people in developing countries into extreme poverty, reports the AFP. On average food prices are up 10% since the beginning of the year with staple prices significantly higher than last year. For example, rice prices have risen by […]
Food prices hit new record high—again

Food prices in February hit a new record, breaking the previous one set in January and continuing an eight-month streak of rising prices, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Experts fear that rising food prices could lead to another food crisis similar to that of 2007-2008. The FAO’s Food Index Price averaged 236 […]
Food crisis 2011?: drought in China could push food prices even higher

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that a drought in China could devastate the nation’s winter wheat crop and further inflate food prices worldwide. Already, food prices hit a record high in January according to the FAO. Rising 3.4 percent since December, prices reached the highest point since tracking began in 1990. […]
Numerous causes, including climate change, behind record food prices
Food prices hit a record high in January according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), threatening the world’s poor. Rising 3.4% since December, the FAO stated that prices reached the highest point since the agency began tracking food prices in 1990. Given the complexity of world markets and agriculture, experts have pointed to […]
‘Land grab’ fears in Africa legitimate

‘Land grab’ fears in Africa legitimate A new report by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has found that recent large-scale land deals in Africa are likely to provide scant benefit to some of the world’s poorest and most famine-prone nations and will probably create new social and environmental problems. Analyzing 12 recent […]
UN warns of likely food crisis next year for world’s poor

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) warns in a new report that next year could see a rise in food prices, especially imperiling the world’s poor. The report predicts that food prices will jump 11% for the world’s poorest nations and 20% for low-income food-deficit countries. Already, the UN estimates that 1 billion people in […]
Tropical agriculture “double-whammy”: high emissions, low yields

Food produced in the tropics comes with high carbon emissions and low crop yields, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In the most comprehensive and detailed study to date looking at carbon emissions versus crop yields, researchers found that food produced in the tropics releases almost […]
Farms in the sky, an interview with Dickson Despommier

To solve today’s environmental crises—climate change, deforestation, mass extinction, and marine degradation—while feeding a growing population (on its way to 9 billion) will require not only thinking outside the box, but a “new box altogether” according to Dr. Dickson Despommier, author of the new book, The Vertical Farm. Exciting policy-makers and environmentalists, Despommier’s bold idea […]
Summer from hell: seventeen nations hit all-time heat records
Asian continent sees warmest temperature ever recorded. The summer isn’t over yet, but already seventeen nations have matched or beaten their all-time heat records. According to Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, Belarus, the Ukraine, Cyprus, Russia, Finland, Qatar, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Niger, Chad, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, Colombia, Myanmar, Ascension Island, and the Solomon Islands have all […]
Officials point to Russian drought and Asian deluge as consistent with climate change

Government officials are pointing to the drought and wildfires in Russia, and the floods across Central and East Asia as consistent with climate change predictions. While climatologists say that a single weather event cannot be linked directly to a warming planet, patterns of worsening storms, severer droughts, and disasters brought on by extreme weather are […]
Controversial changes to Brazilian forest law passes first barrier

An amendment to undermine protections in Brazil’s 1965 forestry code has passed it first legislative barrier, reports the World Wide Fund for Nature-Brasil (WWF). Yesterday the amendment passed a special vote in the Congress’s Special Committee on Forest Law Changes. Pushed by a bloc of Brazilian legislatures known as the ‘ruralistas’, due to their ties […]
Amazon and Atlantic Forest under threat: politicians press to dilute Brazil’s forestry law

A group of Brazilian legislatures, known as the ‘ruralistas’, are working to change important aspects of the Brazil’s landmark 1965 forestry code, undermining forest protection in the Amazon and the Mata Atlantica (also known as the Atlantic Forest) and perhaps heralding a new era of booming deforestation. The ruralistas, linked to big agribusiness and landowners, […]
PBB Peringatkan Harga Makanan Dapat Meningkat hingga 40 Persen
Sebagian harga makanan pokok dapat naik hingga sebanyak 40 persen di dekade ke depan, menurut laporan baru oleh Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) PBB. The Agricultural Outlook 2010-19 menemukan bahwa harga makanan global gandum dan padi-padian dapat melompat antara 15 dan 40 persen dari tingkat 1997-2006, setelah krisis pangan dunia di tahun 2007. Minyak sayur […]
UN warns food prices could rise by 40 percent

Some staple food prices could rise by as much as 40 percent in the next decade, according to a new report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The Agricultural Outlook 2010-19 found that global food prices of wheat and coarse grains could jump between 15 and 40 percent from 1997-2006 levels, prior to […]
How an agricultural revolution could save the world’s biodiversity, an interview with Ivette Perfecto

Most people who are trying to change the world stick to one area, for example they might either work to preserve biodiversity in rainforests or do social justice with poor farmers. But Dr. Ivette Perfecto was never satisfied with having to choose between helping people or preserving nature. Professor of Ecology and Natural Resources at […]
Food crisis in Niger occurring “out of the public eye”

The West African nation of Niger is facing an increasingly alarming food crisis as the UN announced it would double the number of people it was feeding today despite continuing budget shortfalls in its World Food Program (WFP). Failing rains have caused crop yields in Niger to decline, while food prices are rising and livestock […]
World failing on every environmental issue: an op-ed for Earth Day

The biodiversity crisis, the climate crisis, the deforestation crisis: we are living in an age when environmental issues have moved from regional problems to global ones. A generation or two before ours and one might speak of saving the beauty of Northern California; conserving a single species—say the white rhino—from extinction; or preserving an ecological […]
EU biofuels target will starve the poor, says anti-poverty group

The European Union’s biofuel targets could starve up to 100 million people, warns a report from an anti-poverty charity. ActionAid estimates the E.U.’s plan to source 10 percent of transport fuels from biofuels would increase competition for agricultural lands, spurring a sharp rise in food prices. Dearer food would disproportionally affect the world’s poorest people. […]
How free trade has devastated Africa’s farmers and poor

A push in the mid-1980s for Africa to embrace free trade to aid its economies backfired in many of the continent’s poorest countries, argues a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Africa was pushed to rollback government involvement in development and instead to rely on the private sector: government […]
Chinese farming practices are acidifying soils

A new study in Science shows that farming practices in China are acidifying the nation’s soils and threatening long term productivity at a time when food concerns worldwide have never been higher. The culprit is the increasing use of nitrogen fertilizer. “Chinese agriculture has intensified greatly since the early 1980s on a limited land area […]
Will it be possible to feed nine billion people sustainably?

Sometime around 2050 researchers estimate that the global population will level-out at nine billion people, adding over two billion more people to the planet. Since, one billion of the world’s population (more than one in seven) are currently going hungry—the largest number in all of history—scientists are struggling with how not only to feed those […]
Well-known climate change denialist labels activists in Copenhagen ‘Hitler Youth’
Prominent climate change denialist and past advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Viscount Christopher Monckton, has persisted in labeling protestors in Copenhagen ‘Hitler Youth’ despite little historical connection. The initial exchange between Monckton and climate change activists occurred when activists with the nonprofit group SustainUS and other organizations briefly gate-crashed a meeting of the global warming skeptical […]
Profile of the carbon footprint of the global poor: the challenge of alleviating poverty and fighting global warming

Two of the world’s most serious issues—poverty and climate change—are interconnected. With a rise in one’s income there usually comes a rise in one’s carbon footprint, thereby threatening the environment. Wealthy nations have the highest per capita carbon footprints, while developing nations like India and China—which are experiencing unprecedented economic growth—are becoming massive contributors of […]
Americans throw away enough food every year to feed 200 million adults

The amount of food Americans throw away has risen by approximately 50 percent since 1974 according to a new study in PLoS ONE. American now waste on average 1,400 calories per person everyday, equaling 150 trillion calories a year nationwide. Considering that the average person requires approximately 2,000 calories a day, this means that the […]
Land of plenty: 50 percent rise in the amount of food wasted in America worsens global warming, consumes freshwater

Just before Thanksgiving a new study shows that Americans are throwing away more food than ever. Since 1974 the amount of food Americans waste per capita has risen by approximately 50 percent, according to a new study in PLoS ONE. Researchers found that food waste is adding to America’s greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for […]
NASA satellite image reveals extent of drought in East Africa

A new image from NASA shows the severity of the drought in East Africa, which impacted Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Three failed rains in a row brought the region to its knees: four million people were reported to be going hungry in Kenya alone; lakes and rivers dried up entirely; withered crops drove farmers […]
200 million more people going hungry

The war on hunger is becoming a rout—and we’re losing. The UN World Food Program (WFP) announced today that during the last two years 200 million more people are going hungry. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the WFP, said that a number of factors have led to the continuing rise of hunger in the world, […]
Kenya’s pain, part two: decades of wildlife decline exacerbated by drought
- Not many years ago if you were planning a trip to Africa to see wildlife, Kenya would be near the top of the list, if not number one.
- Then violent riots in late 2007 and early 2008 leaving a thousand dead tarnished the country’s image abroad.
- When calm and stability returned, Kenya was again open for tourism, and it’s true that most travelers were quick to forget: articles earlier this year announced that even with the global economic crisis Kenya was expecting tourism growth.
- However, a new disaster may not be so quickly overcome.

Kenya’s pain: famine, drought, government ambivalence cripples once stable nation

Part one in a two part look at the crisis in Kenya. The next article will focus on how the drought is impacting wildlife. Kenya was once considered one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s success stories: the country possessed a relatively stable government, a good economy, a thriving tourist industry due to a beautiful landscape and abundant […]
Economists, scientists warn that world crises require new order of international cooperation and enforcement

A group of environmental scientists and economists warn that under current governing models the number and scale of human-caused crises are “outrunning our ability to deal with them”. The researchers, writing in Science, say that “energy, food and water crises, climate disruption, declining fisheries, ocean acidification, emerging diseases and increasing antibiotic resistance are examples of […]
Guatemala latest country to declare food crisis: nearly half a million families face food shortages
The President of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, has announced a “state of public calamity” to tackle food shortages throughout the Central American nation. The failure of bean and corn crops from drought, which cut the yields of these staple crops in half, has brought the crisis to a head. In addition, prime agricultural land in Guatemala […]
Unique acacia tree could play vital role in turning around Africa’s food crisis

Record hunger: one billion people are going hungry worldwide

A new estimate by the UN FAO estimates that one billion people are currently going hungry: the highest number in history. Largely exacerbated by the global economic crisis, the number of the world’s hungry has risen by 100 million people. The economic crisis has led to more hunger due to lower wages and layoffs worldwide. […]
Rich countries buy up agricultural land in poor countries

Over two-and-half million hectares in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; half a million hectares in Tanzania; and a quarter of a million hectares in Libya: these figures represent just some of the recent international land deals where wealthy countries buy up land in poorer nations for food, and sometimes biofuel, production. The controversial trend […]
33 countries face “alarming” levels of hunger
33 countries face “alarming” levels of hunger 33 countries face “alarming” levels of hunger mongabay.com October 14, 2008
Global food crisis expands – number of hungry increases since 2004
Global food crisis expands – number of hungry increases since 2004 Global food crisis expands – number of hungry increases since 2004 mongabay.com October 10, 2008
Fertilizer prices increase 235% over past year

Fertilizer prices increase 235% over past year Fertilizer prices increase 235% over past year mongabay.com July 23, 2008 Fertilizer prices continue to surge according to data released by the World Bank. Prices for diammonium phosphate (DAP), Phosphate rock, Potassium chloride, triple superphosphate (TSP), and Urea were 235 percent higher in the quarter ending June 30 […]
Biofuel production on abandoned lands could meet 8% of global energy needs

Biofuel production on abandoned lands could meet 20% of global oil demand Biofuel production on abandoned lands could meet 20% of global oil demand mongabay.com June 23, 2008 Using abandoned agricultural lands for biofuel production will meet only a small fraction of global energy needs without compromising food supplies or diminishing biologically-rich habitats, reports a […]
U.S. may allow corn farming on conservation land
U.S. may allow corn farming on conservation land U.S. may allow corn farming on conservation land mongabay.com June 23, 2008 The U.S. Department of Agriculture may allow farmers to plant corn on million of acres of conservation land to bolster the food supply in response to flooding in the Midwest and record high prices spurred […]
Nestle Chairman: Biofuels are “ethically indefensible”

Is global drying a higher priority than global warming? Nestle Chairman: Biofuels are “ethically indefensible” mongabay.com June 14, 2008 The emergence and expansion of biofuels produced from food crops has exacerabted world’s agriculture and water crisis and is a bigger short-term threat than global warming, argued Peter Brabeck-Letmathe in an editorial published Thursday in the […]
Next gen biofuels could decimate rainforests

Next gen biofuels could decimate rainforests Next gen biofuels could decimate rainforests mongabay.com May 27, 2008 Next generation biofuels could decimate tropical forests says a leading ecologist from the University of Minnesota. Speaking at Stanford University on May 15, Dr. David Tilman said cellulosic ethanol technologies that convert biomass directly into biofuels could put new […]
‘Soy King’ says Amazon deforestation could help solve global food crisis

‘Soy King’ says Amazon deforestation could help solve global food crisis ‘Soy King’ says Amazon deforestation could help solve global food crisis mongabay.com April 28, 2008 Clearing the Amazon rainforest for soy farms will help address the global food crisis, said Blairo Maggi, the governor of Brazil’s chief soy-producing state, according to the Folha de […]

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