Global Food for Thought

Multiplying Agriculture by the Power of Mobile

Today's top stories on global agricultural development and food security issues.

January 30, 2012
By Sung Lee

Multiplying Agriculture by the Power of Mobile, World Economic Forum, January 2012
The World Economic Forum’s new report, Multiplying Agriculture by the Power of Mobile, highlights the current revolution in mobile communications in developing world and how this technology can benefit farmers by providing information they need to grow their production and standard of living. The report states, “mobile platforms can make farming a more sustainable and profitable occupation with the potential to lift millions out of poverty.”

To Feed a Billion Mouths, Opinion, Himanshu, India Forbes Magazine, January 30
Agriculture today may contribute less than 15 percent of national GDP, but it still employs two-thirds of rural workers and more than half of all workers in the country. It is this livelihood issue which misses out from most of the discussions on agrarian revival. But the livelihood issue is key to not only agricultural production, but also to what happens to incomes to the bottom half of the population.

Trade barriers imperil African food security, Alertnet, January 30
Export bans are just one example of the problems that constrain regional trade, with a significant impact on regional food security for millions. Climate change will have a significant impact on the region’s already vulnerable food security, environmental experts warn.

Drought in West Africa threatens millions, Globe and Mail, January 27
Failed harvests and lack of rain are affecting millions of people in the Sahel region of eight countries in West Africa. Now the question is whether the world’s wealthy nations will respond in time – or whether they will repeat the disaster of the Somalia famine, when early warnings were ignored for nearly a year before massive aid was finally sent.

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Today's Agriculture and Food Security News

Today's top stories on global agricultural development and food security issues.

January 27, 2012
By Sung Lee

Today, the World Economic Forum launched a new report, “Putting the New Vision for Agriculture into Action”, outlining the key steps required to achieve an ambitious, lasting transformation in agriculture. The report sets goals of 20 percent improvement per decade on each of its three goals: economic growth and opportunity, food security and nutrition, and environmental sustainability. The report puts forward specific recommendations to achieve this goal. The report’s summary is available here.

Could High Food Prices Be a Blessing in Disguise?, Wall Street Journal, January 27
High food prices may sound catastrophic, but they may actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise for African farmers, says the head of the United Nations’ World Food Programme. “You can look at hunger as a Malthusian nightmare, or you can look it as a tremendous opportunity because everyone has to eat,” says Josette Sheeran, executive director of the WFP, referring to a theory that once population growth exceeds agricultural production, people will be forced to return to subsistence-level conditions.

Global hunger: do the figures add up?, Guardian, January 26
Unfortunately, little of the uncertainty surrounding global hunger estimates is ever reported alongside the emotive, top-line figures. Debating the merits of different statistical models could seem trivial, even distasteful, in the face of the scandalous situation whereby large numbers of people worldwide are going hungry. Global hunger figures are not just soundbites, however. They are also used to help guide where to send foreign aid, track progress towards international development goals, and hold governments to account for promises made.

Feeding the 9bn, Editorial, Financial Times, January 25
Small farmers who produce the lion’s share of agricultural commodities in the poorest countries also need better access to mobile networks that will bring them more reliable weather reports, advice on resource management, commodities pricing and money transfer arrangements. Countries with closed economies must recognise that the best way to rectify such weaknesses is to foster private investment. This may mean opening up to foreign as well as domestic investment.

Putting the New Vision for Agriculture into Action

January 27, 2012
By Sung Lee

Today, the World Economic Forum launched a new report, “Putting the New Vision for Agriculture into Action”, outlining the key steps required to achieve an ambitious, lasting transformation in agriculture. The report sets goals of 20 percent improvement per decade on each of its three goals: economic growth and opportunity, food security and nutrition, and environmental sustainability. The report puts forward specific recommendations to achieve this goal.

They are:

Agriculture and Global Food Security at the 2012 World Economic Forum

Today's top stories on global agricultural development and food security issues.

January 26, 2012
By Sung Lee

Today, the World Economic Forum held a panel discussion on ensuring global food security. Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Program, moderated panel of world leaders including Bill Gates, co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister of Nigeria; Bruno Le Maire, Agriculture Minister of France; Stefan Lippe, CEO of Swiss Re; and Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever.  Bill Gates called on G20 to keep world hunger on the agenda and not to ignore 1 billion hungry. “I believe the opportunity to double or triple [food] productivity is there,” said Gates.  French agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire also said, “We are facing in the US and especially in Europe a terrible economic crisis and there is a risk that leaders lose focus on food security. We should never forget that hungry is an economic but also a moral disaster for the world.” Summary of the panel discussion is available here.

Economic Crisis Mustn't Eclipse Battle Against Poverty, says Bill Gates, Guardian, January 26
Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, has urged national governments not to allow fiscal concerns to overshadow the need for continued investment in the developing world. Gates highlighted the negative impact of food price rises and enlarged on his belief that innovative strategies on agriculture and health – areas he believes are closely interrelated – hold the key to development's future.

Food Security: Dampened Prospects, Financial Times, January 25
Come 2050, the UN predicts earth will be home to another 2bn people; in order to feed us all, production needs to increase by an estimated 70 percent. The prospect of more starving people as staples become unaffordable has put the question of food security firmly on to the top table of global policymaking. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, made it a central plank of his country’s presidency last year of the Group of 20 leading industrialized and developing nations; Mexico, this year’s G20 chair, is taking up the baton. At the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, several sessions are devoted to the topic.

The Truth About Foreign Aid, Opinion, Bill Gates, New York Times, January 26
The question is, how do we continue to do the research needed to develop these new tools? Poor countries are investing more in their own agricultural sectors, but they don’t have the resources to lead on R&D. Aid is a key piece of the puzzle, and right now the entire research budget of the group responsible for agricultural science for the poorest is just $300 million per year. It’s a shame to see such a high-leverage opportunity generate such ambivalence.

Dispelling Myths About Foreign Aid, Council on Foreign Relations, January 25
U.S. citizens support foreign aid, particularly when it is targeted to alleviating poverty and humanitarian suffering. This is remarkable, given the magnitude by which Americans consistently overestimate the percentage of the federal budget actually devoted to foreign aid. These findings emerge from a newly updated digest of U.S. and international polling on global issues developed by CFR and the Program on International Policy Attitudes.

Investing in Global Agriculture to End Extreme Poverty

Today's top stories on global agricultural development and food security issues.

January 25, 2012
By Sung Lee

In his 2012 annual letter, Bill Gates stressed the needs for continued investments in global agricultural development to alleviate extreme poverty. Today, "over 1 billion people - about 15 percent of the people in the world - live in extreme poverty," said Bill Gates. "The world faces a clear choice. If we invest relatively modest amounts, many more poor farmers will be able to feed their families. If we don't, one in seven people will continue living needlessly on the edge of starvation. My annual letter this year is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency."

2012 Annual Letter from Bill Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, January 24
We can be more innovative about delivering solutions that already exist to the farmers who need them. Knowledge about managing soil and tools like drip irrigation can help poor farmers grow more food today. We can also discover new approaches and create new tools to fundamentally transform farmers’ lives.

Gates defends focus on high-tech agriculture, Associated Press, January 25
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent about $2 billion in the past five years to fight poverty and hunger in Africa and Asia, and much of that money has gone toward improving agricultural productivity.

Double agricultural research to help world's poorest, Reuters, January 25
The world needs at least to double its spending on agricultural research if it is to produce reliable crops and improve the lives of the one billion people who battle starvation every day, Bill Gates said. Referring to agricultural research, he said it was shocking - as well as short-sighted and potentially dangerous - that only $3 billion is spent each year on seeking to improve the seven most important staple crops on which the poor depend.

2012 Annual Letter from Bill Gates

By Bill Gates
January 24, 2012

My job is to learn about global health and development—and to travel to poor countries to meet farmers who can’t grow enough food, mothers who can’t keep children healthy, and heroes in the field who are doing something about those emergencies. Very few people can devote the time to really understand these complex problems. Even fewer can actually meet the people who are struggling to overcome them. That is why I write an annual letter every year.

I want people to know about the amazing progress we’ve made. I also want them to see how much more progress it will take before we live in a truly equitable world.

In this year’s letter, I focus on food and agriculture (though I also provide updates about all the global health and U.S. education work we do). When I was in high school, a popular book called The Population Bomb painted a nightmarish vision of mass starvation on a planet that has outgrown its carrying capacity. That prediction was wrong, in large part because researchers developed much more productive seeds and other tools that helped poor farmers in many parts of the world multiply their yields. As a result, the percentage of people in extreme poverty has been cut in half in my lifetime.  That’s the amazing progress part of the story, and not enough people know it.

Today's Agriculture and Food Security News

Today's top stories on global agricultural development and food security issues.

January 24, 2012
By Sung Lee

Researchers Aim to Flick the High-Carbon Switch on Rice, Guardian, January 24
Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines are working on changing the photosynthesis process in rice that will boost output by as much as 50 percent, bringing about another green revolution and produce enough food to feed more than 9 billion people by 2050. Rice is currently the staple foodstuff for more half the world's population, with more than 1 billion people depending on rice farming for their livelihoods.

Climate Change and Farming: How Not to Go Hungry in a Warmer World, Time Magazine, January 24
Warming isn't the only threat to our ability to feed ourselves — it acts in concert with rising population, the growing demand for grain and water-intensive meat and the civil dysfunction and conflict that often frustrates poor farmers in the developing world. That's why scientists are calling for more integrated research as the first step to adapting agriculture to climate change, to ensure that farmers know what's coming — and that they can prepare for it.

Top 5 Events in African Agriculture, Farm Chemicals International, January 23
Africa has seen a recent wave of investments and other encouraging developments in agriculture, including: 1) Ghana is on track to achieve “most, if not all” of the Millennium Development Goals – including halving poverty by 2015; 2) Rwanda has received $13 million in funding from the World Bank for agricultural developments; 3) Sofitex, the biggest cotton company in Burkina Faso, secured a $151 million loan to finance crop purchases in the 2011-12 harvest; 4) The Howard G. Buffett Foundation last week announced it would partner with Texas A&M University’s Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture to promote African agricultural research, extension, and education; 5) Tanzania approved 26 new seed varieties for planting, including varieties with resistance to drought and diseases.

Ending World Hunger Is Possible -- Davos is Part of the Process, Opinion, Perry Yeatman, Senior Vice President at Kraft Foods Inc. and President of the Kraft Food Foundation, Huffington Post, January 21
Fixing agriculture -- and in turn banishing hunger and malnutrition -- is clearly possible. We just need to change our mindset and our vernacular. We need to stop referring to insurmountable challenges as being "like solving world hunger." Because solving world hunger is NOT insurmountable. The capacity and capability to do this exists today. And against this new perspective, we then need to apply sustained collective action and demonstrated political will. The private sector is clearly part of the solution.

American Ertharin Cousin to head World Food Program

Today's top stories on global agricultural development and food security issues.

January 23, 2012
By Sung Lee 

American Ertharin Cousin to head World Food Program, Reuters, January 17
Last week, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Food and Agriculture Organization Executive Director Jose Graziano da Silva appointed Ertharin Cousin as the next head of the World Food Program.  U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement that the United Nations "will be well served by Ambassador Cousin's experience and commitment to the World Food Program's vision of a world in which every citizen has access to the food they need to survive and to thrive."  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also said in a statement that “I am confident that she will continue to be a powerful voice in the global fight against hunger and lend her energy, optimism and experience to the World Food Programme.”

Acting Administrator of the Foreign Agricultural Service: Who is Suzanne Heinen? AllGov.com, January 21
Appointed acting administrator on May 15, 2011, Suzanne Heinen has served more than 25 years with the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), the lead agency in international activities to develop foreign markets for U.S. agriculture. FAS is primarily responsible for helping American food producers increase their sales in foreign markets by collecting, analyzing and publishing data on world agricultural production, prices, policy, and trade competition and administering USDA’s export credit guarantee and food aid programs, which basically pay other countries to buy U.S. food products.

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah Highlights the U.S. government’s efforts to transform africa’s agriculture sectors, USAID, January 18
“The key to long-term, sustainable development is the development of local capacity,” said Rajiv Shah at Africa Conference in Wilmington, Delaware. “Through Feed the Future-our major Presidential development initiative on food security-we're driving the kind of investments in agricultural development that will ensure countries escape devastating cycle of famine and food aid. All told, Feed the Future will help countries sustainably develop their agricultural infrastructure, diversify their economies and ultimately lift 18 million people out of hunger and poverty-more than 7 million of whom are children.”

This Week's Edition of the Global Food for Thought News Brief

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