Category Archives: Food security

‘I don’t see my mum’: Haiti’s earthquake leaves new generation of orphans

Posted on by

The number of children without carers is still not known, leaving them prey to gangs and abuse

Lilian, six years old and alone, still asks when her mother will return from the market on the edge of Les Cayes in southern Haiti.

When last month’s earthquake struck, Lilian was at home, occasionally checked on by her neighbours as her mother, Genieve, was selling fruit a few blocks away. When the ground began to convulse, the market partly collapsed. Genieve was hit by falling concrete and buried under rubble. Her death has left Lilian without anyone to care for her.

Continue reading...

‘Hunger was something we read about’: lockdown leaves Vietnam’s poor without food

Posted on by

Vietnam was a Covid success story but the latest lockdown, with people unable to leave the house even for food, is leaving tens of thousands hungry

When the strictest lockdown to date was imposed in Ho Chi Minh City, Tran Thi Hao*, a factory worker, was told that the government would keep her and her family well fed – but for two months they have eaten little more than rice and fish sauce.

She was put on unpaid leave from her job in July, while her husband, a construction worker, has not worked for months. They are behind on their rent, with another payment due soon.

Continue reading...

‘Everything is changing’: the struggle for food as Malawi’s Lake Chilwa shrinks

Posted on by

The livelihoods of 1.5 million people are at risk as the lake’s occasional dry spells occur ever more frequently

• All photographs by Dennis Lupenga/WaterAid

There was a time when the vast Lake Chilwa almost disappeared. In 2012 it had been extremely hot in southern Malawi, with little rain to fill the rivers that ran into the lake.

“Many fishermen were forced to scramble for land near the lake banks, while others had to migrate to the city,” says Alfred Samuel. “We could barely feed our children because the lake could not provide enough fish, or water for rice growing.”

Continue reading...

Hunger sweeps India in Covid’s shadow as millions miss out on rations

Posted on by

Desperation grows for those unable to access subsidised food, as worst hunger in two decades reported

When India’s devastating second wave of Covid-19 struck in April, Nazia Habib Khan’s second marriage abruptly came to an end after a year of beatings and abuse. The 28-year-old daughter of migrants from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh returned to live with her mother, brothers and a sister-in-law in Mumbai.

Their 40 sq metre (400 sq ft) home in Kurla East stands huddled among the 800 or so brick, tin sheet and tarpaulin houses of Qureshi Nagar, the entire shanty town trembling when a train roars past on a nearby railway line.

Continue reading...

Almost one in three globally go hungry during pandemic – UN

Posted on by

Big leap in malnutrition during Covid, with fifth of children now believed to be stunted, report warns

The number of people who did not have enough food to eat rose steeply during the Covid-19 pandemic to include almost a third of the world, according to a new UN report published on Monday.

Five UN agencies said the number of people without access to healthy diets grew by 320 million last year to nearly 2.37 billion people– more than the increases in the previous five years combined.

Continue reading...

‘I didn’t eat for days’: hunger stalks Venezuelan refugees

Posted on by

Colombian health workers struggling to cope as malnutrition and dirty water ravage new arrivals in Maicao’s swelling shanty towns

A seemingly endless lake of cardboard and tin shacks surrounds the perimeter of a former airport runway in Colombia’s desert-like city of Maicao. Known locally as La Pista, the area is home to more than 2,000 families, and is one of 44 informal settlements to have emerged around the city in the past two years.

The old airport has become a landing strip for desperate migrants and bi-national indigenous Wayuu people fleeing the economic and political crisis in Venezuela, where the basic essentials of life are hard to come by.

Continue reading...

Microbes and solar power ‘could produce 10 times more food than plants’

Posted on by

The system would also have very little impact on the environment, in contrast to livestock farming, scientists say

Combining solar power and microbes could produce 10 times more protein than crops such as soya beans, according to a new study.

The system would also have very little impact on the environment, the researchers said, in stark contrast to livestock farming which results in huge amounts of climate-heating gases as well as water pollution.

Continue reading...

Half of Zimbabweans fell into extreme poverty during Covid

Posted on by

Poor families cannot afford healthcare and schooling but good harvests offer some hope, World Bank finds

The number of Zimbabweans in extreme poverty has reached 7.9 million as the pandemic has delivered another economic shock to the country.

According to the World Bank’s economic and social update report, almost half of Zimbabwe’s population fell into extreme poverty between 2011 and last year, with children bearing the brunt of the misery.

Continue reading...

‘People are not starving, they’re being starved’: millions at risk of famine, NGOs warn

Posted on by

Open letter backing UN call to action says Covid has exacerbated problems of conflict, climate crisis and inequality

World leaders are being urged to act immediately to stop multiple famines breaking out, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and caused by conflict, climate crisis and inequality.

In an open letter published on Tuesday to support the UN Call for Action to Avert Famine in 2021, hundreds of aid organisations from around the world said: “People are not starving – they are being starved.”

Continue reading...

Over 30 million people ‘one step away from starvation’, UN warns

Posted on by

The pandemic, climate crisis and conflict combining to drive ‘alarming’ levels of global hunger, says report

  • Coronavirus – latest updates
  • See all our coronavirus coverage

    • Acute hunger is likely to soar in more than 20 countries in the next few months, the UN has warned.

    Families in pockets of Yemen and South Sudan are already in the grip of starvation, according to a report on hunger hotspots published by the agency’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).

    Continue reading...

    The UN food systems summit will consider all stakeholders’ interests | Letter

    Posted on by

    Dr Agnes Kalibata responds to a report on the 2021 summit that she is leading as a special envoy for the UN secretary general

    As you note in your article (Farmers and rights groups boycott food summit over big business links, 4 March), farmers have for too long been on the fringes of global discussions about hunger, poverty and climate change, despite being the frontline of our food systems and the custodians of our natural resources.

    The UN food systems summit marks a momentous opportunity for farmers, producers and many others who support them to be at the heart of the year-long consultative process that has been launched to improve our shared food system.

    Continue reading...

    Farmers and rights groups boycott food summit over big business links

    Posted on by

    Focus on agro-business rather than ecology has split groups invited to planned UN conference on hunger

    An international food summit to address growing hunger and diet-related disease is in disarray as hundreds of farmers’ and human rights groups are planning a boycott.

    Related: 'A shame for the world': Uganda's fragile forest ecosystem destroyed for sugar

    Continue reading...

    The number of people in need is frightening – we need a global response | Axel van Trotsenburg

    Posted on by

    We can rise to the challenge of a green, resilient and inclusive recovery from Covid, but only if critical changes are made

    The numbers are well-publicised but bear repeating. Around 120 million more people were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020, a number that could rise to 150 million in 2021. An estimated 250 million jobs have been lost around the world, and the number of people affected by acute food insecurity was estimated to have doubled to 272 million by the end of last year. A decade of progress in the most fragile countries wiped out.

    Let’s put a human dimension on these numbers. More than a billion children have been out of school during the Covid-19 pandemic, and girls are much less likely to return to the classroom.

    Continue reading...

    ‘Fighting for life’: Bangladesh shrimp farmers destitute in wake of cyclone

    Posted on by

    Natural disaster compounded by the collapse of a lucrative export during the pandemic has thrust people into poverty

    This time last year the west coast of Bangladesh was a thriving place for shrimp farmers. It was a decent enough living and there was a healthy export market.

    Majnu Sardar, who lives in Koyra upazila (administrative region) in Khulna district, used to earn enough to feed, clothe and educate his family of six. Now they are living in a small mud hut, with a canopy of leaves as a roof, on the banks of the Kapotaksha River after Cyclone Amphan buried his house and land in May.

    Continue reading...

    Dangerous spices: why India’s cooking powders pose a risk of lead poisoning

    Posted on by

    Exposure to the heavy metal from spice powders and car batteries is affecting child health across the subcontinent

    An outbreak of a mystery illness over two days in early December in the south Indian city of Eluru saw more than 560 people hospitalised, most of them children, and baffled doctors. Symptoms were described as being similar to epilepsy, with convulsions and vomiting accompanied by burning eyes and loss of consciousness.

    Recovery tended to be quick although the death of one man was attributed to the illness. In the midst of the Covid pandemic theories circulated that it was caused by too much disinfectant or vegetables washed in chlorine. Local traders saw sales slump.

    Continue reading...

    Yemen ‘one step away from famine’ as donors dry up amid Covid, UN warns

    Posted on by

    Urgent alert issued over millions struggling with ‘catastophic levels’ of hunger as less than half of required aid received

    The window to prevent the return of famine to Yemen is rapidly closing, UN agencies have warned, with a new assessment showing millions could head further into hunger in the coming months.

    The alert came as a World Health Organization food security assessment showed thousands of people are slipping into famine – a number that is predicted to triple in the first half of next year – while millions more have seen declining access to food.

    Continue reading...

    Yemen on brink of losing entire generation of children to hunger, UN warns

    Posted on by

    Food security crisis means acute malnutrition among under-fives at highest levels since war engulfed the country

    Almost 100,000 children under the age of five are at risk of dying in Yemen as the country slides back into a hunger crisis.

    An analysis by UN agencies says the coronavirus pandemic, economic problems and conflict have led to the highest levels of malnutrition ever recorded in parts of the country.

    Continue reading...

    Fruits of shared labour: the Indian women joining forces for food security

    Posted on by

    Rural women in Tamil Nadu are mostly excluded from land ownership, but collective farms can offer self-sufficiency

    When all the shops closed due to the coronavirus lockdown, small collectives were key to remaining self-sufficient for marginalised farmers in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu.

    “We had sufficient grains and vegetables at home, while others in the village were seeking government support,” says 46-year-old Poongani, one of the widowed Dalit women among the nine members of the Sivanthi Poo farming collective in the village of Thottampatti.

    Continue reading...

    40% of world’s plant species at risk of extinction

    Posted on by

    Race against time to save plants and fungi that underpin life on Earth, global data shows

    Two in five of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction as a result of the destruction of the natural world, according to an international report.

    Plants and fungi underpin life on Earth, but the scientists said they were now in a race against time to find and identify species before they were lost.

    Continue reading...