The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
THE Chichewa people in Malawi have a saying: Njala ndi chilombo. It means "Hunger is a beast". Today, the beast is rampaging around the world and particularly Africa, where shortage of food threatens to undo recent economic and political gains. Climate change is partly to blame. But there is another …
Small and marginal farmers need govt support to ensure food security The country needs to protect the small and marginal farmers and entrepreneurs for sustainable growth of agribusiness by providing them with financial and infrastructural support in order to attain food security in the future, said speakers at a seminar …
China, the world's biggest grower of rice, will start planting the grain in Tanzania next year as global food shortages create investment opportunities for the Asian country, a government report said. Chongqing Seed Corporation, a seed researcher and producer based in south-western Chongqing city, will plant its proprietary rice in …
The first India-Africa summit, though late to come, holds a lot of promise in a number of areas. INDIA, following the example of leading economic powers such as France and China, hosted an India-Africa summit for the first time. The two-day summit, held in New Delhi in the second week …
THE efforts of a Geneva-based organisation called Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) to set up an infant and young child nutrition (IYCN) alliance in India have raised the hackles of groups involved in the promotion of breastfeeding and child and infant survival. At a time when the question whether …
The inflation rate continues to increase in local markets as the world plunges into a food crisis driven by low production due to drought. According to a new report by Nepal Rastra Bank, inflation rate reached 7.2 percent in the first eight months of the current fiscal year compared to …
GM foods can save the day Soaring prices for staple foods are creating political tensions from North Africa to Southeast Asia, and the world is scrambling for solutions. Last week, wealthy countries pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in crops, seeds, vouchers and funds for "food security." That may help …
Macro economic imbalances are the talk of the day. The ongoing global food crisis, with agflation sweeping across the world, is attracting heated discussion everywhere. Food and fuel have never been intertwined so closely. Since commentators in the West have identified the supply gap on account of increasing demand in …
Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion, has written one of the most linked comments [hyperlink] in recent blogospheric history. Posted at Martin Wolf's quasi-blog, it's on the food crunch: * Chinese are eating cows which are eating grain which would otherwise have been eaten by Africa's poor. * Americans …
The finance minister, Mr P. Chidambaram's proposal to impose a blanket ban on trading in food futures in India to contain prices has drawn sharp criticism from economists, one of who described the move as a "political gimmick." Mr Chidambaram, speaking at Asian Development Bank's annual meeting in Madrid on …
The current crisis proves that agroenergy is not responsible for price rise. The deterioration of terms of trade is one of the historic factors behind underdevelopment, which should be understood not as a stage of development but rather a specific and distorted form in which peripheral economies are inserted into …
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday underscored the need for diversifying the use of potato through changing food habit to help ensure food security of the country. In a statement, he said it is equally important to create awareness in all tiers of the society alongside carrying out a massive campaign …
The European Union too has jumped on the U.S. bandwagon to target India and China for driving food prices worldwide. EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural development Mariann Fischer Boel on Tuesday said change in dietary habits in India and China was responsible for the spiralling global food prices. "Those …
In striving for "efficiency' by means of narrow targeting, households that should be entitled to basic food security through the PDS have been left out. During periods of high inflation in food prices, governments must provide a basic minimum quantity of food grain and other food items at low prices …
By holding higher grain consumption in India and China responsible for global food crisis, US President George W Bush and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, have needlessly started a blame game which is so far removed from the facts as to be laughable, which does not improve Mr Bush's …
India, now under scrutiny due to rice export curbs and growing consumption that have helped drive grain prices to record highs, could help ease global food security fears, M S Swaminathan, the country's most revered rural economist, said. A rich diversity of secondary food crops, a huge base of rural …
Global cooperation is the need of the hour. Thanks to George W Bush, the Indian middle class has taken on global proportions of a greedy glutton. Noting that their numbers are more than the sum total of Americans, and that they are getting wealthier and demanding more food, more nutrition, …
Allowing four states to import wheat directly from abroad is a move to dismantle the food distribution system. First the Central government allowed global food giants and private companies to buy wheat directly from farmers, thereby deliberately initiating a shortfall in procurement for the Public Distribution System (PDS). It has …
From the rice paddies of Asia to the wheat fields of Australia, the soaring price of food is breaking the budgets of the poor and raising the spectres of hunger and unrest, experts warn. A billion people in Asia are seriously affected by the surging costs of daily staples such …
"The global fight against poverty will be won or lost in our region,' Kuroda said in a keynote speech to delegates at the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting. "Soaring food prices are hitting the poor very hard. This price surge has a stark human dimension and has greatly affected over …
