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Agriculture and Food Security

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The mission of this Working Group is explore new directions in Agriculture and Food Security.

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This Working Group is focused on Agriculture and Food Security.
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admin Albert Gomez Anthony Carrielaj ChrisAllen Corey Watts
efrost Elhadj Drame gsharma Hank Rappaport John.R.Falco.VMD jranck
Kathy Gilbeaux Maeryn Obley mdmcdonald MDMcDonald_me_com philippe.neeser samanthadas
SmithShawn SmShako TacarraB TheresaBernardo

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Food Scarcity: The Timebomb Setting Nation Against Nation

submitted by Paul G.Kaplan

        

A drying corn field in southern Minnesota. Bad weather has resulted in a poor harvest this year. Photograph: David I. Gross/ Corbis

As the UN and Oxfam warn of the dangers ahead, expert analyst Lester Brown says time to solve the problem is running out

guardian.co.uk - by John Vidal - October 13, 2012

Brandon Hunnicutt has had a year to remember. The young Nebraskan from Hamilton County farms 2,600 acres of the High Plains with his father and brother. What looked certain in an almost perfect May to be a "phenomenal" harvest of maize and soy beans has turned into a near disaster.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Book - Full Planet, Empty Plates
http://www.earthpolicy.org/mobile/books/fpep

Oxfam Report - 'Our Land, Our Lives': Time Out on the Global Land Rush
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/our-land-our-lives-time-out-on-the-global-land-rush-246731

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Video - The Man Who Planted Trees

http://vimeo.com/32542316 - from MrGreatShortFilms

production: Societe Radio-Canada - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The story of one shepherd's long and successful effort to re-forest a desolate valley.

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Food Distribution in the Horn of Africa Goes High-Tech

huffingtonpost.com - by Cathy Herholdt - October 10, 2012

Getting food into the hands of the hungry in the Horn of Africa is about to go high-tech. Seattle-based humanitarian organization World Concern is piloting a new mobile phone app in the drought-stricken region, aiming to streamline the process of tracking food distributed to hungry families and payment to local merchants.

The system tracks beneficiaries and the food they receive via bar codes that are scanned into a mobile phone. Merchants have an I.D. card with a bar code, which is also scanned so they can be paid via wire transfer almost instantly.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

World Concern
http://www.worldconcern.org/

Scan My List
http://scanmylist.com/

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Cutting Food Losses in Half Would Feed an Additional Billion People

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - October 11, 2012

More efficient use of the food production chain and a decrease in the amount of food losses will dramatically help maintaining the planet’s natural resources and improve people’s lives; researchers have proved a valid estimation, for the first time, for how many people could be fed with reducing food losses

Researchers in Aalto University have proved a valid estimation, for the first time, for how many people could be fed with reducing food losses.

An Aalto University release reports that the world’s population is an estimated seven billion people. An additional one billion can be fed from our current resources, if the food losses could be halved. This can be achieved if the lowest loss percentage achieved in any region could be reached globally.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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The Third Biennial Championing Public Health Nutrition 2012

Centre for Science in the Public Interest - cspinet.org

2012 Conference

The Third Biennial Championing Public Health Nutrition
October 29-30, 2012 at the University of Toronto's Hart House
7 Hart House Circle, Toronto, Canada

Global Food Supply - We Need to Plan for System Failure

ethicalcorp.com - by Mallen Baker - October 4, 2012

Mallen Baker argues that it’s irresponsible not to make contingency plans, especially when the potential failures concern the fundamentals – such as food

Imagine your critical business systems depend on one computer server. This server is huge – it has immense capacity – but you have grown into that space and now every single day you are pushing it to its limit. . .

. . . Now let’s substitute the global food system for the server. Here we have a system that is operating at full capacity. Any hiccups in normal production can lead to serious problems. This year we have seen such hiccups.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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ISO Focus+ - From Fish to Forests - May 2010

submitted by Albert Gomez

iso.org - May 2010

The use of fish and wood products continues to grow and are fast becoming the world's most traded commodities in their respective fields. At the same time, both sectors, crucial to biodiversity, are facing the pressing threat of climate change.

ISO's standards are powerful tools for taking action and the May issue showcases stories from companies benefiting from ISO standards, such as a Namibian fish processor or a large Brazilian company in the paperboard market, implementing management systems standards for quality and environmental or food safety as well as occupational health and safety.

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/news_index/iso-magazines/isofocusplus_index/isofocusplus_2010/isofocusplus_2010-05.htm

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Arctic Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise May Pose Imminent Threat To Island Nations, Climate Scientist Says

      

This Sept. 16, 2012, image released by NASA shows the amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic, at center in white, and the 1979 to 2000 average extent for the day shown, with the yellow line. Scientists say sea ice in the Arctic shrank to an all-time low of 1.32 million square miles on Sept. 16, smashing old records for the critical climate indicator. (AP Photo/U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, File)

huffingtonpost.com - by James Gerken - October 5, 2012

Low-lying island nations threatened by rising sea levels this century could see the disastrous consequences of climate change far sooner than expected, according to one of the world's leading climate scientists.

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Biodynamics for Costa Rica

Services

Objective:
Provide technical tools, and eco-social practices, to build sustainable human development and integral to Costa Rica and Central America.

Par services we offer:

-Support to build agro biodynamic production models

-Preparation and distribution of biodynamic preparations

Agricultural-Development-astronomical calendars

-Training of farmers biodynamic.

-Courses and trainings, in interagency joint working logic, for the impact on the public sector.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbiodinamicacostarica.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fxxvii-encuentro-latinoamericano-de.html

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Ocean-Based Food Security Threatened in a High CO2 World

oceana.org - September 24, 2012

Emissions from human activities are changing the ocean’s chemistry and temperature in ways that threaten the livelihoods of those who depend on fish and seafood for all or part of their diets. The changes may reduce the amount of wild caught seafood that can be supplied by the oceans and also redistribute species, changing the locations at which seafood can be caught and creating instability for ocean-based food security, or seafood security. This report ranks nations based on the seafood security hardships they may experience by the middle of this century due to changing ocean conditions from climate change and ocean acidification. This is done by combining each nation’s exposure to climate change and ocean acidification, its dependence on and consumption of fish and seafood and its level of adaptive capacity based on several socioeconomic factors. Country rankings are developed for risks from climate change and ocean acidification independently, as well as from both problems combined.

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