Global Food for Thought

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

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Due to the holiday, the next edition of the Global Food for Thought news brief will arrive on September 7th. On behalf of the Global Agricultural Development Initiative team, we apologize in advance for any inconvenience.

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

Please click here;to view this week's edition of the Global Food for Thought news brief.

If you have not signed up to receive Global Food for Thought by email, please do so by clicking here.

Guest commentary - the Global Hunger Event is Over: What Next?

The Global Hunger Event is Over: What Next?

By Dr. Howarth Bouis

Dr. Howarth Bouis directs HarvestPlus a global research program that develops and disseminates nutrient-rich staple food crops to improve nutrition globally. Bouis is based at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, D.C.

Nothing captures our imagination quite like the Olympics. For two weeks, we remain glued to our TVs, watching athletes from around the world perform at the top of their game and break records. So I echo Gordon Conway’s remarks when I say that David Cameron’s decision to tie a hunger summit to the Olympics was imaginative.

Imaginative because Cameron saw how the Olympics, that celebrate the best of human athleticism and teamwork, could also be used to draw attention to those who will never ever come close to competing in an Olympics event. Why?  Because they were given a poor start in life by not getting enough food, or, as the World Food Programme so aptly puts it, not getting “the right food at the right time.”

Biofortification was high on the agenda in London last week, and I am proud of our hundreds of partners around the world who have developed new varieties of staple food crops that are rich in key mineral and vitamins.  There are two important reasons we’ve succeeded.

First, we challenged those scientists who said that enhancing nutrient levels in crops must come at the expense of yields. This proved not to be true. In fact, all biofortified crops that HarvestPlus and its partners are developing are not just high-yielding, but have other traits such as drought tolerance or pest resistance built in.

Roger Thurow - Outrage and Inspire - "The Ryan Budget and One Particularly Pernicious Paragraph"

THE RYAN BUDGET AND ONE PARTICULARLY PERNICIOUS PARAGRAPH

Since Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, many people have peered into the House budget plan that the Wisconsin Congressman shaped – the so-called Ryan budget -- to see what it might portend for a Romney-Ryan administration.

We did some peering back in March of this year when the House voted on the budget.  There’s no mistaking what it would mean for Feed the Future, the Obama administration’s initiative to end hunger and bolster the global food supply through agricultural development.  One pernicious paragraph in that document is headlined, “Eliminate Feed the Future.”

That inspired the outrage of a March 30 column, which I think bears repeating now that Ryan is hitting the campaign trail.  We were both in Iowa earlier this week, but, alas, our paths didn’t cross.  I would like to ask him: Eliminate Feed the Future -- do you still believe that?  With the drought in the American breadbasket driving home the point that agricultural development in the poorer precincts of the world is essential for us all, that we are all in this global food chain together, that failed harvests in one corner of the world impact supplies and prices everywhere else.  Eliminate Feed the Future?  Really?

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

Please click here;to view this week's edition of the Global Food for Thought news brief.

If you have not signed up to receive Global Food for Thought by email, please do so by clicking here.

Roger Thurow - Outrage and Inspire - The Games And Hunger – True Inspiration

The Games And Hunger – True Inspiration

The London Summer Olympics have been chock full of wondrous achievements and inspiring moments: Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Sarah Attar, Oscar Pistorius, an impressive roster of African athletes rising from deep poverty to the medal platform.  Just imagine the journey from Somalia or Sudan to a stadium filled with 80,000 people, flashbulbs sparkling like stars.  Amazing.

But the most inspiring, significant moment of all may still await us.  On Sunday, as the sporting competition winds down and the athletes gather for the Closing Ceremony and the torch passes from London to Rio de Janeiro, another competition will be joined.  It is the push to make a huge dent in hunger and childhood malnutrition before the next Opening Ceremony in Rio in 2016.

Guest Commentary by Tom Arnold on Global Hunger Summit

By Tom Arnold

Tom Arnold is Chief Executive of Concern Worldwide.  He is a member of the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement.

I am writing this blog some hours after a wonderful young Irish woman called Katie Taylor has won an Olympic Gold Medal for boxing.  The country is ‘en fete’ and all our economic problems seem a little lighter.

Our island neighbour Britain has had a wonderful two weeks of the Olympics.  The magnificent opening ceremony set the tone.  Since then the organisation of the Games has been outstandingly good.  British athletes have won more medals than anyone expected.  In 1992, Queen Elizabeth spoke about her ‘annus horrabilis’.  Twenty years on, as she celebrates her Diamond Jubilee on the throne, this seems to be an ‘annus mirabilis’ for Britain.

As the Games draw to a close on Sunday next, Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to host a Global Hunger Event in 10 Downing St is both imaginative and politically important.  The Prime Minister and Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development, hope that this event will mean that London 2012 has a lasting legacy in creating the political momentum to improve the nutrition of millions of children.

Guest Commentary - Tackling Malnutrition: the 'Other' Olympic Legacy for London 2012

By Sir Gordon Conway 

Sir Gordon Conway is Professor of International Development at Imperial College London and Director of Agriculture for Impact.  His upcoming book, One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?, will be published on 9th October.

Gordon Conway writes for the Huffington Post

As the Olympics draw to a close, there is no doubt that the champions of London 2012 will leave a legacy of achievements that inspires large numbers of young people to fulfil their personal potential.

But for 200 million children in the world, a very different legacy is in prospect. These children are severely malnourished. Their height-for-age is substantially lower than that of the reference point for their national population. In some sub-Saharan African countries the proportion of children who are stunted in this way is as high as 50%. We need a new legacy for these children - one that is a global game-changer.

This Sunday, on the same day as the Olympics closing ceremonies, the UK Prime Minister and the Vice President of Brazil will host a very different type of high-level event, bringing experts together to take action on combatting child stunting and malnutrition around the world.

A disastrous burden

Malnutrition is socially and economically disastrous for children and their societies. Malnourished children are more at risk of contracting illnesses. Stunting, and related conditions, is responsible for over 3.5 million deaths of under-fives a year.

Guest Commentary - The Anti-Hunger Games

The Anti-Hunger Games

By Lucy M. Sullivan

Lucy Martinez Sullivan is the Executive Director of 1,000 Days. Prior to joining 1,000 Days, Lucy led strategic and fundraising planning for various non-profit and philanthropic institutions, and led successful business initiatives for several Fortune 500 companies.

This post is cross-posted with the Huffington Post's Impact Blog.

At the close of the London Olympics this Sunday August 12^th, a new race will begin - the race to tackle malnutrition.  This race will span over 30 countries and last four years until 2016 when Brazil hosts the next Olympic Games.  This race has nothing to do with great feats of athleticism, but rather with great feats of moral and political courage.  British Prime Minister David Cameron along with Vice President Michel Temer of Brazil are expected to start this race on Sunday by announcing a plan to dramatically reduce the number of malnourished children born into and living in this world over the next four years.

It is a race we must win.

Every year a new generation of children is condemned to a life in which they fail to thrive--never reaching their full physical, intellectual or economic potential.  These children are stunted—their bodies and brains irreversibly damaged by the ravages of malnutrition.  Most of this damage is done very early in a child’s life, often before he or she is even born.  Today there are an estimated 170 million stunted children living throughout the world.  They are victims of chronic malnutrition--the grinding poverty of a diet that does not provide children with the nourishment they require to develop and thrive.

12 Innovations to Combat Drought, Improve Food Security, and Stabilize Food Prices

This post originally appeared on Worldwatch Institute Blog. 

Worldwatch Institute highlights 12 ways to make the U.S. agriculture system more resilient to drought and, in the long run, more sustainable.

Soaring temperatures and low precipitation could not occur at a worse time for many farmers in the United States. Intensifying drought conditions are affecting corn and soybean crops throughout the Midwest, raising grain prices as well as concerns about future food prices. The U.S. Drought Monitor reports that 88 percent of this year’s corn crop and 77 percent of the soybean crop are now affected by the most severe drought since 1988. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is providing drought assistance to 1,584 counties across 32 states and warns of increased food prices in 2013 as a result of corn and soybean yield losses.

Corn is currently selling at around $9 a bushel, a 50 percent increase from June, while soybeans are selling at a record high of $17 a bushel as a result of drought-related losses in crop yields. “The increased prices may benefit farmers in the short run,” said Danielle Nierenberg, director of the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project, “but consumers will experience the aftermath of price increases in the form of more money spent on poultry, beef, pork, and dairy products.”