Category Archives: Food security

First ship carrying grain from Ukraine docks on Horn of Africa

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Food experts say shipment is drop in bucket for drought-hit Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia but hope supplies pick up

The first ship carrying grain from Ukraine for people in the hungriest parts of the world has docked at Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, as areas of east Africa are badly affected by deadly drought and conflict.

Food security experts say it is a drop in the bucket for the vast needs in the worst-hit countries of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, the country to which the shipment is going. But the flow of Ukrainian grain to other hungry parts of the world is expected to continue, with another ship leaving on Tuesday for Yemen. The UN World Food Programme has said it was working on multiple ships.

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Tigray: almost one in three children under five malnourished, UN says

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Urgent action needed to avert further disaster in war-torn country as funding ‘fast running out’

Nearly one in three children under five in the Ethiopian region of Tigray are malnourished and the UN said urgent action is needed to prevent them from dying.

According to a new emergency assessment carried out by the World Food Programme (WFP), 29% of very young children are suffering from global acute malnutrition (GAM). More than half of pregnant or breastfeeding woman are also malnourished.

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Karnal bunt and khapra beetle: seven threats to Australian biosecurity

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Along with foot-and-mouth disease, there are other pests and diseases that could damage our economy and rural communities

The tiny barbarians are at the gates and Australia’s biosecurity measures have been tested. First, the Covid-19 outbreak demonstrated the ease at which an incursion of a new disease or pest can cause havoc on livelihoods and the Australian economy.

Then foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) spread to Bali, elevating the threat of a virus that hasn’t been here since 1872. FMD is a highly contagious virus and an outbreak would be disastrous for our livestock sector, significantly affecting our ability to export meat, live animals, dairy products and wool.

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Halt use of biofuels to ease food crisis, says green group

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RePlanet calls on EU to ditch organic targets and for governments to lift bans on genetically modified crops

Governments should put a moratorium on the use of biofuels and lift bans on genetic modification of crops, a green campaigning group has urged, in the face of a growing global food crisis that threatens to engulf developing nations.

Ending the EU’s requirement for biofuels alone would free up about a fifth of the potential wheat exports from Ukraine, and even more of its maize exports, enough to make a noticeable difference to stretched food supplies, according to analysis by the campaign group RePlanet.

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Ukraine restores Danube River ports in emergency effort to get grain out

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Soviet-era ports being resuscitated but officials say only way to mitigate global hunger is to end Russia’s Black Sea blockade

Ukraine is restoring and expanding some of its long-decommissioned river ports on the Danube to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade.

Before the war, Ukrainian river ports on the Danube were seldom used, with some of them in complete disrepair. But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its control of exit routes to the Black Sea , Kyiv is resuscitating its old river harbours in order to avoid the sea blockade and accelerate the exportation of the country’s wheat.

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Lean times for Ghana’s yam traders as cost of living crisis bites

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People are buying less, costs are up, and profits are dwindling for traders at Kaneshi market in Accra

On a quiet stretch amid the sprawling buzz of Kaneshie market in Accra, a group of traders sheltering under canopies from the blazing sun sell yams stacked along the roadside.

Rita Oboh, 32, has worked the spot, or one nearby, since she was six, following in the footsteps of her mother who also traded yams. “My mother lived good, really good,” Oboh says with pride. “She built houses, she looked after everybody, her family, people who relied on her. She was successful.”

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Russia ‘turning wave of food crises into tsunami’ by blocking grain exports

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Germany’s foreign minister says preventing movement of 25m tonnes of supply is ‘using hunger as a weapon of war’

Russia has transformed an existing life-threatening wave of food crises into a tsunami by blocking the export of 25m tonnes of grain from Ukraine’s ports, the Germany’s foreign minister has said.

Speaking at the start of an inter-ministerial food conference in Berlin, a precursor to the G7 meeting in Germany starting this weekend where aid groups will demand a big financial commitment to help Africa, Annalena Baerbock said 345 million people worldwide were currently threatened by food shortages.

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Somalia: ‘The worst humanitarian crisis we’ve ever seen’

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Children starving to death ‘before our eyes’ say aid workers as G7 leaders warned only ‘massive’ and urgent funding will avert famine

Only a “massive” and immediate scaling-up of funds and humanitarian relief can save Somalia from famine, a UN spokesperson has warned, as aid workers report children starving to death “before our eyes” amid rapidly escalating levels of malnutrition.

In a message to G7 leaders who are meeting from Sunday in Germany, Michael Dunford, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) regional director for east Africa, said governments had to donate urgently and generously if there was to be any hope of avoiding catastrophe in the Horn of Africa country.

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‘Marching towards starvation’: UN warns of hell on earth if Ukraine war goes on

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Unprecedented food shortages could spark riots in dozens of countries as Black Sea blockade adds to pressures, says WFP chief

Dozens of countries risk protests, riots and political violence this year as food prices surge around the world, the head of the food-aid branch of the United Nations has warned.

Speaking in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday, David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said the world faced “frightening” shortages that could destabilise countries that depend on wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia.

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US announces plan to build silos on Ukraine border to export grain

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Joe Biden working with European governments to avert global crisis and help lower food prices

Temporary silos will be built along the Ukraine border, including in Poland, in an attempt to help export more grain from the country and avert a global food crisis, Joe Biden has announced.

The US president told a Philadelphia union convention on Tuesday that he was working with European governments on the plan “to help bring down food prices”.

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Millions at risk in South Sudan as Ukraine war forces slashing of aid

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Drastic cuts to World Food Programme assistance will leave people ‘looking death in the face’ unless global donors offer support

The World Food Programme has said it is suspending food aid to 1.7 million people in South Sudan, as the war in Ukraine sucks funding from the world’s crisis-plagued youngest country and causes the price of staples to soar.

The UN’s emergency food assistance agency said it had planned to deliver aid to more than 6 million acutely food-insecure people in South Sudan this year, as it did in 2021, albeit with smaller rations.

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‘You hear bullets, you run’: Congolese refugees stream over Uganda’s border

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As thousands flee the latest fighting in DRC to join 1.5m already in Uganda, the UN’s food aid agency is stretched as never before

The rain will determine what time Uwimana Nsengiyuava gets on the truck to Nyakabande transit centre, where Uganda is hosting 20,000 refugees who, like her, have fled fresh fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Since March, up to 500 refugees a day have been silently streaming into the east African country via Kisoro, a picturesque district in south-west Uganda dotted with endless hills, streams and a lake.

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Lithuania wants naval coalition to lift Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s grain

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Countries affected by loss of crop from Ukraine could help escort ships, says Gabrielius Landsbergis

Lithuania has called for a naval coalition “of the willing” to lift the Russian Black Sea blockade on Ukrainian grain exports.

The Lithuanian foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, proposed the plan during talks with the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, on Monday in London.

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India’s wheat farmers count cost of 40C heat that evokes ‘deserts of Rajasthan’

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The ban on wheat exports highlights the effect a rapidly warming planet has on food security – and livelihoods

It was his buffaloes that he was first worried about. As temperatures in the small village of Baras, deep in the Indian state of Punjab, began to soar to unseasonably hot levels in April, farmer Hardeep Singh Uppal noticed that his two buffaloes, essential for his family’s livelihood, became feverish and unwell.

A few weeks later and the buffaloes now seem fine, flicking their tails leisurely as an icy breeze blows down from an air conditioning unit, a luxury that once sat in Uppal’s parents house but now has been installed in an otherwise run-down cowshed, running all day at great expense. “The vet told me I need to keep them cool in this heatwave otherwise they will die so this is the only way,” said Uppal.

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Quarter of a billion people now face extreme poverty, warns Oxfam

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Charity calls for debt cancellations for poorest countries to counter ‘worst collapse into poverty and suffering in memory’

The rising price of food caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and increased energy costs could push a quarter of a billion more people into extreme poverty, Oxfam has warned.

The charity said these new challenges had piled on to the economic crises created by Covid, and called for urgent international action, including cancelling debt repayments for poorer countries.

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Number of people facing extreme hunger in Sudan predicted to double

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UN warns up to 18 million could be in need of aid by September as food prices soar due to conflict, poor harvests and economic crisis

The number of people who are severely hungry in Sudan could double by September as a result of poor harvests, economic crisis, internal conflict and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UN has warned.

In a joint statement, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agricultural Organisation said more than 18 million people could face extreme hunger over the coming months, up from about 9 million currently in need of aid.

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War in Ukraine could lead to food riots in poor countries, warns WTO boss

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Exclusive: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says impact of conflict on food prices and hunger could be substantial

Rocketing global food prices as a result of the war in Ukraine could trigger riots from those going hungry in poor countries, the head of the World Trade Organization has said.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala warned food-producing countries against hoarding supplies and said it was vital to avoid a repeat of the Covid pandemic, when rich countries were able to secure for themselves the bulk of vaccines.

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‘Climate smart’ policies could increase southern Africa’s crops by up to 500%

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Researchers outline urgent steps to improve food security in the face of increasing natural disasters caused by the climate crisis

The climate crisis is threatening food stocks in sub-Saharan Africa, but a comprehensive approach to food, farming and resources could increase crop production by more than 500% in some countries in the region, according to new research by more than 200 experts.

There is no single technological fix to the threat posed by the barrage of natural disasters striking the region, they said, but significant improvements could be achieved with new approaches, based on modelling done by the network of researchers in Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa and Zambia.

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Researchers in Valencia pinpoint unwritten rules of paella

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No fish or shellfish in Spain’s famous national dish says survey of 400 amateur chefs

Many crimes have been committed in the name of paella but now researchers in Valencia have laid down 10 commandments of what thou shall and shall not put in their national dish.

The ten permitted ingredients are: rice, water, olive oil, salt, saffron (or food colouring), tomato, flat green beans, lima beans, chicken and rabbit. No fish or shellfish. Ever.

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Egypt fixes price of bread as Ukraine war hits wheat supply

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Commercially sold bread set at 11.50 Egyptian pounds a kilo as Russian invasion sends wheat prices soaring

Egypt has fixed the price of unsubsidised bread amid a global surge in wheat prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The move comes after war shut off access to cheaper wheat from the Black Sea region, particularly affecting exports to the Middle East and north African region. Egypt is the world’s biggest wheat importer, bringing in about 60% of its grain from overseas. Russia and Ukraine accounted for 80% of the country’s imports last year.

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