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Ebola Threatens Food Security in West Africa - FAO

      

An empty street market in Monrovia's West Point district, 20 August 2014.

* Labour shortages expected to hit main harvest season

* Cassava prices in Monrovia rose by 150 pct in August

* FAO needs $20 million for response plan

fao.org - af.reuters.com -

ROME/DAKAR, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The world's worst Ebola epidemic has endangered harvests and sent food prices soaring in West Africa, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Tuesday, warning the problem would intensify in coming months.

by Isla Binnie and Emma Farge - September 2, 2014

The FAO issued a special alert for Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three countries most affected by the outbreak, which has killed at least 1,550 people since the virus was detected in the remote jungles of southeastern Guinea in March.

Restrictions on people's movements and the establishment of quarantine zones to contain the spread of the hemorrhagic fever have led to panic buying, food shortages and price hikes in countries ill-prepared to absorb the shock.

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Grain Harvest Fact Sheet

Rice grains.

Image: Rice grains.

earth-policy.org - August 19th, 2014

With grain providing much of the calories that sustain humanity, the status of the world grain harvest is a good indicator of the adequacy of the food supply.

More than 2 billion tons of grain are produced each year worldwide, nearly half of it in just three countries: China, the United States, and India.

Corn, wheat, and rice account for most of the world’s grain harvest.

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Nigeria Food Security Alert August 8, 2014

fews.net - August 8, 2014

Summary

A food security crisis persists in northeast Nigeria as the ongoing Boko Haram conflict continues to displace populations and disrupt markets, livelihoods and nutrition services. An estimated three quarters of people living in areas worst affected by conflict have fled their homes due to violence since 2013. In Borno, Yobe and northern Adamawa States, Crisis (IPC Phase 3) acute food insecurity will persist through December, despite the main harvest beginning in October. Approximately one million people in areas worst affected by conflict will continue to face food consumption gaps. Access to households affected and/or displaced by conflict needs to improve in order to ensure that food and nonfood assistance reaches food insecure households.

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Next-Gen Urban Farms: 10 Innovative Projects from Around the World

submitted by Marielle Dubbeling  

      

The Farmery, slated to open this fall in an as-yet-undisclosed location, will be an 8,000-square-foot market that will grow its own mushrooms, greens and fruits. Photograph: Amy Edwards/Farmery

As the 'buy local' movement grows, social entrepreneurs find novel ways to make agriculture an integral part of urban life

theguardian.com - by Sarah Shemkus - July 2, 2014

Many shoppers like the idea of buying local. After all, it can mean fresher and healthier foods, stronger local economies, direct contact with food producers and in some cases — but not always — lower carbon emissions.

But most of us have only a few options for participating in the local food movement: visiting the farmers market or signing up for a community supported agriculture (CSA) subscription. As the movement continues to grow and evolve, however, social entrepreneurs are experimenting with novel ways to make local agriculture an integral part of urban life.

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Oldest Baby Boom in North America Sheds Light on Native American Population Crash

Sites like Pueblo Bonito in northern New Mexico reached their maximum size in the early A.D. 1100s, just before a major drought began to decrease birth rates throughout the Southwest. Credit: Nate Crabtree

Scientists chart an ancient baby boom—in southwestern Native Americans from 500 to 1300 AD

phys.org - June 30, 2014

Washington State University researchers have sketched out one of the greatest baby booms in North American history, a centuries-long "growth blip" among southwestern Native Americans between 500 to 1300 A.D.

It was a time when the early features of civilization—including farming and food storage—had matured to where birth rates likely "exceeded the highest in the world today," the researchers write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A crash followed . . .

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CLICK HERE - PNAS - RESEARCH - Long and spatially variable Neolithic Demographic Transition in the North American Southwest

 

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Chapter 11. Can We Prevent A Food Breakdown? - Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity

earthpolicy.org - by Lester R. Brown

World agriculture is now facing challenges unlike any before. Producing enough grain to make it to the next harvest has challenged farmers ever since agriculture began, but now the challenge is deepening as new trends—falling water tables, plateauing grain yields, and rising temperatures—join soil erosion to make it difficult to expand production fast enough. As a result, world grain carryover stocks have dropped from an average of 107 days of consumption a decade or so ago to 74 days in recent years.

World food prices have more than doubled over the last decade.

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( Also see - http://www.earth-policy.org/books/fpep/fpepch5

( ALSO SEE - http://resiliencesystem.org/full-planet-empty-plates-new-geopolitics-food-scarcity

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Food Shortages Could Be Most Critical World Issue By Mid-Century

This is Dr. Fred Davies, US Agency for International Development senior science advisor for the agency's bureau of food security and a Texas A&M AgriLife Regents Professor of Horticultural Sciences.  Texas A&M AgriLife Research photo by Kathleen Phillips

agrilife.org - by Kathleen Phillips - April 18, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The world is less than 40 years away from a food shortage that will have serious implications for people and governments, according to a top scientist at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“For the first time in human history, food production will be limited on a global scale by the availability of land, water and energy,” said Dr. Fred Davies, senior science adviser for the agency’s bureau of food security. “Food issues could become as politically destabilizing by 2050 as energy issues are today.”

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Eurekalert - Food shortages could be most critical world issue by mid-century

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Kenya - Alert Out as 10,000 Face Starvation

reliefweb.int - nation.co.ke - by Daniel Tsuma Nyassy - April 16, 2014

An estimated 10,000 people in parts of Kinango constituency, Kwale, urgently need food assistance.

The semi-arid area has been ravaged by drought for the past three years.

Area residents survive on roots and wild fruits.

Their MP, Mr Gonzi Rai, and Mackinnon Road ward representative Musa Ahmed have urged the government to intervene.

Mr Ahmed said hardest-hit areas are Vigurungani, Makamini, Taru, Chengoni, Samburu, Chigutu, Malomani and Ndavaya.

“The situation is bad. We are calling for immediate intervention. People are now feeding on mtunguru (roots) and matopole (wild fruits) to survive,” he said in Mombasa.

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(SEE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE)

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Big Facts: Climate Impacts on People

      

ccafs.cgiar.org - by Simon Bager - March 26, 2014

Millions of people around the world already struggle to achieve food security and climate change is set to make those challenges even harder. It is perhaps humanity’s most pressing challenge, as we seek to nourish more than nine billion people by 2050.

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND INFOGRAPHICS)

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Fisheries and Aquaculture Fact Sheet - Earth Policy Institute

earth-policy.org - March 27, 2014

The world fish catch is a measure of the productivity and health of the oceanic ecosystem that covers 70 percent of the earth's surface. The extent to which world demand for seafood is outrunning the sustainable yield of fisheries can be seen in shrinking fish stocks, declining catches, and collapsing fisheries.

Seafood plays a vital role in world food security. Roughly 3 billion people get about 20 percent of their animal protein from fishery products.

The world fish catch has hovered around 90 million tons over the last 20 years.

The wild fish catch per person has dropped dramatically, from 17 kilograms (37.5 pounds) per person at its height in 1988 to 13 kilograms in 2012—a 37-year low.

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