State of Global Hunger: Global Hunger Index 2010

It has been suggested that global hunger, rather than being halved in pursuit of the Millennium Development goals is actually getting worse. However, according to the 2010 Global Hunger Index (GHI),  published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI),  hunger and food security in many nations has not changed over the last decade.

The GHI is calculated for 122 developing and transition countries countries and it’s rates are based on three equally weighted indicators: the proportion of people who are undernourished, the proportion of children under five who are underweight, and the child mortality rate. Twenty-nine countries, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, have levels of hunger that are "extremely alarming" or "alarming." Of the nine countries in which hunger levels rose eight were in Africa, including: Liberia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). North Korea was the only country outside Africa to show an increase in hunger levels, which has been blamed on negative trends in economic growth and food production.

The report claimed that "the high prevalence of child under-nutrition is a major contributor to persistent hunger," the biggest contributor to the global figure, accounting for almost half of the score.

Addressing issues during pregnancy and the first two years of life could provide critical opportunities for preventing future health problems among children, as undernourishment during early childhood (those first two years) can cause irreversible, long-term damage.

“In order to improve individual GPI scores “countries must accelerate progress in reducing child malnutrition. Considerable research shows that the window of opportunity for improving nutrition spans from conception to age two. After age two, the negative effects of under-nutrition are largely irreversible" said Marie Ruel, director of IFPRI's poverty, health and nutrition division and co-author of the report. Furthermore, the need to attend to the health of all women, but specifically mothers was also highlighted as “crucial to reducing child malnutrition” by Bärbel Dieckmann, the chair of the German NGO Welthungerhilfe, who explained that “Mothers who were poorly nourished as girls tend to give birth to underweight babies, perpetuating the cycle of under-nutrition.”  The report estimated that the burden of child undernutrition could be cut by 25-36 percent by providing universal preventive health services and nutrition interventions for children under two and their mothers during pregnancy and lactation.

While major gains have been made over the last 20 years in reducing hunger and undernourishment (hunger levels fell by one quarter), the number of hungry people has recently begun to rise. The report defines world hunger levels as "serious" and notes that recent spikes in food prices has pushed the number of undernourished people in the world beyond one billion.

To download the Data, click here. 

Window Farming: Growing Food in your Flat

A new project has introduced city slickers with a new, innovative way to grow food in their homes, by using their  creating new ways  apartment windows.  The Windowfarm project creates kits that allow urban apartment dwellers to grow a diverse group of plants in a modular, hydroponic "farm" kit that hangs in front of window frames.  

Windowfarms use repurposed plastic bottles (supplied by the purchaser) along with a pump and irrigation system that circulates nutrient-laden water to your plants. The vertical systems open design allow apartment residents to grow up to 32 vegetable plants in a typical apartment window, ranging from tomatoes, snow peas, and lettuces, to many other vegatables, allowing urban dwellers to produce their own fresh produce and herbs year- round, as well as potentially cutting down on grocery bills.  The company also sees the projects as a potential way to address food deserts in areas experiencing food poverty and environmental injustices (particularly low income neighborhoods).  While this may be an idealistic view, the company has also created educational units to be used in classrooms, and runs a contest so that even schools lacking funding can incorporate them into science/ classroom curriculum. 

The company considers the projects to be “R&D-I-Y, or research and develop it yourself.” Windowfarms founder, Brooklynite Britta Riley, sees the kits as a “public mass collaboration on hydroponic food growing research & development,” and a way for non-experts to contribute to the green revolution.  Currently over 17,000 people world over have joined the window farming community and the kits are being used as far as China and


To learn more about Windowfarms kits, click here.
To listen to more about Windowfarms on NPR, click here.

Changing the Way We Eat - TEDx comes to Manhattan

On February 12, 2011, TEDxManhattan “Changing the Way We Eat” will take place in New York City.  The day long event will highlight various aspects of the sustainable food movement and current projects and work being done to shift the current food system from industrially-based agriculture to one in which healthy, nutritious food is accessible to all.

Speakers with various backgrounds in food and farming will share their insights and expertise and relevant information from this years TED conference will be reviewed.  The event hopes to promote the development of new synergies and new ideas to help bolster the sustainable food movement.

To learn more, click here.

To apply, click here.

NYC's Greenhouse for Growing Little Gardeners

Photo credit: Phoebe Zheng/The Epoch Times

Monday marked the launch of the NYC Greenhouse Project a 1,420 square-foot, state-of-the art rooftop greenhouse in Manhattan. 

To read more in the Epoch Times, click here.

To read more on the NY Times City Room Blog, click here.

To watch the launch, click here. 

Fast-Growing Factory Farm Nation

Today, Food & Water Watch (FWW) unveiled a new version of their innovative Factory Farm Map, which charts the concentration of factory farms across the United States.  Their findings showed an unprecedented growth in factory farms since 1997, with livestock on factory farms Growing by 20 percent over a 5 year period. The map illustrates geographic shift in where and how food is raised and also allows users to search for the highest concentration of animals across regions, states and the county. Furthermore, it charts the different (often detrimental) impacts that these massive operations have on human health, communities, and the environment. The map and

The map was created through the analysis of USDA Census data from 1997, 2002 and 2007 (the most current census), for beef and dairy cattle, hogs, broiler meat chickens and egg-laying operations.  FWW found that the total number of livestock on the largest factory farms rose by more than 20 percent between 2002 and 2007—while the number of dairy cows and broiler chickens nearly doubled during the same time, making them the fastest-growing population of factory farmed animals.

Further key findings of the research included:

• In five years, total animals on factory farms grew by 5 million in the US.
• The average size of factory farms increased by 9% in five years, cramming more animals into each operation.
• The number of factory dairy farm cows increased from 2.5 million (1997) to 4.9 million (2007) and growth in western states (esp. ID, CA, NM & TX) shifted the industry away from traditional states (WI, NY & MI).
• One processor (Dean Foods) controls around 40% of the U.S. fluid milk supply.
• Beef cattle on industrial feedlots rose 17 percent between 2002 to 2007 – adding about 1,100 beef cattle to feedlots per day during that time period
• In 2007, the ave. factory-farmed dairy held nearly 1,500 cows and the ave. beef feedlot held 3,800 beef cattle.
• The average size of hog factory farms increased by 42% over a decade, with approximately 5,000 hogs added to factory farms every day over those past 10 years.
• The growth of industrial broiler chicken production added 5,800 chickens every hour over the past 10 years.
• The number of egg laying hens on factory farms increased by 1/4 over the past 10 years.
• The 5 States with the largest broiler chicken operations average more than 200,000 birds per farm.
• Currently, there are 4 factory-farmed chickens to every person in the US.

Although the overall number of livestock farms across the country has decreased, big farms are getting bigger, with specific regions and states bearing the brunt of intensive animal production.  Factory farming operations introduce a number of risks to the average citizen, from groundwater contamination and air pollution affecting those near by, to food from potentially unsafe facilities being distributed and shipped across the country. “The Factory Farm Map arms consumers with critical information about how our food is being produced and what we need to do to chart a course to a more sustainable food system,” said Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch’s executive director. “While more light is being shed on the ways our food system is broken and consumers are increasingly interested in knowing where their food comes from, there is still a lot of information that’s hidden from public view.  It was with this purpose of providing an simple tool that anyone could operate to learn more about where their food is actually coming from that the Factory Farm Map was created.

 “This map shows the extent to which factory farms have taken over farming and our communities,” said Robby Kenner, director of the film Food, Inc. This innovative technology is starting to highlight mega-corporations that must be held accountable for the damage they are inflicting on our physical health, the environment, and the economic wellbeing of surrounding communities. Alongside the interactive map, Food & Water Watch released Factory Farm Nation, a report explaining the forces driving factory farms, and the environmental, public health, and economic consequences of this type of animal production.

The Factory Farm Map can be found here, for the companion report, Factory Farm Nation, click here.

An Issue of National Food Insecurity

According to a report released this month, food insecurity, an issue long seen as a bane of developing countries, is reaching an alarming level in the United States in the recent post-recession years. The report "Food Security in the United States 2009" found that 17.4 million households in America had difficulty providing enough food due to a lack of resources.

The report, published by the US Department of Agriculture, looked at household food access and security in the U.S. and revealed that 14.7 per cent of American households were food insecure at least some time during 2009, including 5.7 per cent with very low food security. While the latest figures for overall food insecurity and ‘severe’ food security remained close to their 2008 levels (14.6 per cent and 5.7 per cent respectively) they remain the highest recorded levels since the first national food security survey was conducted in 1995.

Highlighting the significant inequalities in food resource availability across U.S. households, the USDA report noted that the typical food-insecure household spent a whopping 33 per cent less on food than the typical food-secure household of the same size and composition. Furthermore, in households with “severe range of food insecurity” resource constraints were often the cause of eating pattern disruptions, with the food intake of members often dropping over the course of the year.

Another worrying fact uncovered by the report was the large racial divide in food security outcomes, with rates of food insecurity among African-American and Hispanic households remaining substantially higher than the national average. Insecurity was also notably higher among households with incomes near or below the federal poverty line and a single parent headed households. 

The USDA report was based on data from an annual food security survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and covered about 46,000 households.  Adult respondents were asked a series of questions covering experiences and behaviors typically noted to indicate food insecurity - such as being unable, at times, to afford balanced meals, cutting the size of meals or being hungry because of too little money for food.  Household food security status was then designated based on the number of food-insecure conditions reported.

To read the full briefing click here.

For more on world food security in 2009, click here.

Questioning the Future of Farming

On November 11th, 2010 a new paper published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability identified the top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture.

Although there were significant increases in the abilities of both developed and undeveloped nations to produce food over the last half-century, the most important challenge facing societies today remains how to feed their populations.  By the middle of our current century the world population is expected to reach some 9 billion, making the question of how and what we feed ourselves paramount. In order to meet expected demand for food without significant increases in prices it has been estimated that the world needs to produce 70-100% more food.  (Although these numbers are debatable when you consider what levels of caloric and nutritional intake we expect this population to exist on – surely not those of the average North American)

The multi-disciplinary team of 55 agricultural and food experts from many of the world's major agricultural organizations, scientific societies, and academic institutions was appointed to identify the most important questions for global agriculture and food.

The results were organized into four overarching sections, reflecting the stages of the agricultural production system: (i) natural resource inputs; (ii) agronomic practice; (iii) agricultural development; and (iv) markets and consumption.  Some of the most pressing questions include:

*         How much can agricultural education, extension, farmer mobilization and empowerment be achieved by the new opportunities afforded by mobile phone and web-based technologies?

*         Who will be farming in 2050, and what will be their land relationships?

*         What will be the risk of mass migration arising from adverse climate change, and how will this impact on agricultural systems?

The research was funded by the UK Government's Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures project with the idea that, if asked, answered and  addressed, these questions could have a significant impact on global agricultural practices worldwide. The questions posed were seen as could offering a way to mitigate what some see as an impending calamity brought on by industrial agro-farming and unsustainable practices.  In the last 50 years the intensification of agriculture has been central to the degradation of ecosystem services, has been a leading cause of the loss of global biodiversity due to conversion of natural habitats into farmland., and has increased the production of greenhouse gases. The paper serves as a directive, offering policy and funding organizations an agenda for change. The questions are wide-ranging, are designed with the idea that they are answerable through future research and capable of realistic research design.

One of the lead authors, Professor Jules Pretty, remarked that:

"The challenges facing world agriculture are unprecedented, and are likely to magnify with pressures on resources and increasing consumption. What is unique here is that experts from many countries, institutions and disciplines have agreed on the top 100 questions that need answering if agriculture is to succeed this century. These questions now form the potential for driving research systems, private sector investments, NGO priorities, and UN projects and programs."

To read the full paper for free, click here.