One Health Initiative - One World One Medicine One Health

One Health Initiative - One World One Medicine One Health: "The One Health Initiative, a movement to forge co-equal, all inclusive collaborations between physicians, veterinarians, and other scientific-health related disciplines, has been endorsed by various major medical organizations and health agencies, including the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Medical Association, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the American Society for Microbiology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."

Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet

ScienceDirect - Trends in Ecology & Evolution : Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet: "Recent developments identify three strategies that make optimal use of current understanding in an environment of inevitable uncertainty and abrupt change: reducing the magnitude of, and exposure and sensitivity to, known stresses; focusing on proactive policies that shape change; and avoiding or escaping unsustainable social–ecological traps. As we discuss here, all social–ecological systems are vulnerable to recent and projected changes but have sources of adaptive capacity and resilience that can sustain ecosystem services and human well-being through active ecosystem stewardship."

Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative :: Bread for the World :: Have Faith. End Hunger

Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative :: Bread for the World :: Have Faith. End Hunger: "In April 2009, President Barack Obama announced a new program to end world hunger, mainly by strengthening agriculture in poor countries.
Details of the new global hunger and food security initiative, now called Feed the Future, were publicly released May 20, 2010, in Washington, DC."

IMARK - Information Management Resource Kit

IMARK - Information Management Resource Kit: "The Management Resource Kit (IMARK) is a partnership-based e-learning initiative to train individuals and support institutions and networks world-wide in the effective management of agricultural information. IMARK consists of a suite of distance learning resources, tools and communities on information management."

Food Security Information for Action

Food Security Information for Action: "University Certificate in Food Security: Assessment and Action.

FAO and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's (UOC) are partnering to offer a fully accredited, online certificate in Food Security: Assessment and Action."

Conference on Global Food Security

Conference on Global Food Security: "One-fifth of the world's population, more than 1.6 billion people, live in areas of water scarcity, where human capacity and financial resources are insufficient to access adequate clean water and water supply for food production. Agriculture and food production account for 70% of fresh water withdrawals; in many countries, irrigation has been able to help achieve food security or at least meet a significant portion of food demands.

Based on climate change predictions, the situation is likely to get worse; greater variability of rainfall and more droughts in arid areas are expected. Those areas suffering from poverty and hunger are often those that also lack adequate water and sanitation. Water management is required not only for food production but also to improve quality of life through better access to water and sanitation, hygiene, food and adequate nutrition"

Supporting a True Agricultural Revolution

allAfrica.com: Africa: Supporting a True Agricultural Revolution: "It is heartening that the international community is finally paying attention to small farmers - the people who produce the majority of the world's food and safeguard our ecosystems, and yet are the majority of the world's poor. Everybody agrees that if we want to address the food crisis, we need to invest in small-holder agriculture. Yet what kind of help do these farmers need?"

CGBooks

CGBooks

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State of the World 2011 Report : Agricultural Innovation for Food Security and Poverty Reduction in the 21st Century | Farming First

State of the World 2011 Report : Agricultural Innovation for Food Security and Poverty Reduction in the 21st Century | Farming First

Dozens of farmers, activists, academics and journalists are clubbing together to produce the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2011 reporton “Innovations that Nourish the Planet”. The contributors to the report are collectively challenging the global food community to identify the technical and institutional innovations that are most effective to helping feed sub-Saharan Africa.

The SOW11 report, to be released next January, seeks to highlight innovations that can address the challenges faced around the world: reducing hunger and malnutrition, enhancing environmental and agricultural sustainability, improving the lives of women and girls and be both economically feasible and scalable for farmers and the investment community. The project will also consider the institutional infrastructures and partnerships necessary to achieve success from these innovations.

Biotechnology: A False Sense of Food Security

Biotechnology: A False Sense of Food Security

4 04UTC Maio 04UTC 2010 por José Correa Leite

In his Foreign Policy essay “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers,” Robert Paarlberg paints the movement for sustainable food production and security as a Western elite preoccupation. He writes, “From Whole Foods recyclable cloth bags to Michelle Obama’s organic White House garden, modern eco-foodies are full of good intentions… Food has become an elite preoccupation in the West, ironically, just as the most effective ways to address hunger in poor countries have fallen out of fashion.”

In the same breath that he criticizes these “Western elites” who support sustainable food production, Paarlberg espouses the very Western, elitist argument that the only definition of “good,” “modern,” or “improved” agricultural inputs are the ones created, patented and sold by big Western biotech companies such as Monsanto, where Paarlberg serves on the Biotechnology Advisory Council (PDF).

Paarlberg seems to believe that the only two options for global agriculture are dirt poor subsistence farmers barely eking out a living or mass biotech production on the Green Revolution scale. But between these two extremes is a middle ground: A diverse and robust rural sector that includes small and medium farmers serving local communities and nations along with appropriate technologies that help re-balance the mix between locally sourced and imported food options. In my role at American Jewish World Service (AJWS), I see the wisdom of this third way set of approaches every day through initiatives like Lambi Fund of Haiti’s home-grown seed banks.

Agricultural aid a smart way to fight global poverty and hunger | Seattle Times Newspaper

Agricultural aid a smart way to fight global poverty and hunger

President Obama is proposing $408 million as part of a multilateral fund to aid in agricultural development. The fund would be an important way to reduce global poverty and hunger.

WEALTHY nations should continue offering aid in times of economic crisis. More of that aid needs to be invested in agriculture to better reduce global poverty and hunger.

President Obama is proposing $408 million for the fiscal 2011 budget as part of a multilateral fund to stimulate agricultural progress in developing countries.

The United States has already contributed $67 million along with others who have made significant donations: Canada, Spain, South Korea and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The fund was created at last year's G-8 meeting from $22 billion in pledges from world leaders. Currently, less than $1 billion of the money has been paid in.

It is important to support aid in agricultural development, which would be used for projects such as improving irrigation or building roads that link farmers with markets. While 75 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas, only 4 percent of development aid is spent on agriculture.

It's even more imperative to support agricultural development during an economic recession.

The World Bank estimates that because of the recession, by 2015 there will be 53 million more people living in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $1.25 a day.

Improving agriculture will not only help spur overall growth, but also contribute to reducing poverty and increasing food security.

4 Strategies For Doing Food Aid Better | UN Dispatch

4 Strategies For Doing Food Aid Better | UN Dispatch

In my last post, I wrote about the launch of a new fund, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP). The GAFSP, a multidonor trust fund to be managed by the World Bank, is the first concrete step the G8/G20 countries have taken towards fulfilling their pledge to “to act with the scale and urgency needed to achieve sustainable global food security,” as expressed at the L’Aquila G8 meeting in July 2009. 

The effort is - in itself - commendable. The availability of new funding for food security initiatives in low income countries, and a renewed focus on addressing the long term causes of food insecurity are critical steps towards eradicating chronic hunger. As the GAFSP begins its implementation, here are a few observations regarding the execution of this ambitious initiative: