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Overfishing Threatens Critical Link in the Food Chain

Fri, 2013-02-01 21:05 — Maeryn Obley

earth-policy.org - January 30th, 2013 - J. Matthew Roney

The fish near the bottom of the aquatic food chain are often overlooked, but they are vital to healthy oceans and estuaries. Collectively known as forage fish, these species—including sardines, anchovies, herrings, and shrimp-like crustaceans called krill—feed on plankton and become food themselves for larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals. Historically, people have eaten many of these fish, too, of course. But as demand for animal protein has soared over the last half-century, more and more forage fish have been caught to feed livestock and farmed fish instead of being eaten by people directly.

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Ecosystems
Food
Oceans
Vulnerability
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Problem

Global Grain Stocks Drop Dangerously Low as 2012 Consumption Exceeded Production

Fri, 2013-02-01 20:50 — Maeryn Obley

Grain production in 2012Image: Grain production in 2012

earth-policy.org - January 17th, 2013 - Janet Larsen

The world produced 2,241 million tons of grain in 2012, down 75 million tons or 3 percent from the 2011 record harvest. The drop was largely because of droughts that devastated several major crops—namely corn in the United States (the world’s largest crop) and wheat in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Australia. Each of these countries also is an important exporter.

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Half of the world's food 'is just thrown away'

Thu, 2013-01-31 15:53 — LuLu2012

discarded food

www.independent.co.uk - by John von Radowitz - January 10th, 2013

 

As much as half of all the food produced in the world - two billion tonnes worth - ends up being thrown away, a new report claims.

 

The waste is caused by poor infrastructure and storage facilities, over-strict sell-by dates, "get-one-free" offers, and consumer fussiness, according to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Each year countries around the world produce some four billion tonnes of food.

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Food
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Global Drought Monitor

Sun, 2013-01-27 14:14 — Maeryn Obley

An working example of the Global Drought Monitor, focusing on Eurasia and Africa.

Image: An working example of the Global Drought Monitor, focusing on Eurasia and Africa.

drought.mssl.ucl.ac.uk - Benjamin Lloyd-Hughes and Mark Saunders

The Global Drought Monitor  is a free internet application which monitors the severity of drought worldwide on an ongoing basis. The product will aid humanitarian relief by assisting warnings of potential food, water and health problems. The Global Drought Monitor  will also benefit the general public, government and industry by improving awareness of droughts and their impacts.

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Global
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Climate
Disaster Risk Reduction
Drought
Environment
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Map
Visualization
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Solutions

MAFF Permits Rice Planting in Evacuation Zone/Fukushima City Rice Started Being Served for School Lunch

Sat, 2013-01-26 16:34 — Amanda Cole

Fukushima Diary Posted by Mochizuki on January 21st, 2013 · 1 Comment Share on twitterShare on linkedinShare on facebookShare on emailMore Sharing Services Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries permitted rice planting in 96 households (73 ha) of evacuation zone in Tamura city Fukushima, where the annual dose is under 20mSv/y. They also permitted 1200 households to produce rice in Fukushima, Soma, Nihonmatsu and Da-te city, where is 380 ha in total. In 2012, rice planting was not permitted in these areas. In order to preserve rice field and the motivation of farmers, MAFF is going to permit rice planting in other evacuation zones (under 20mSv/y) on the requests residents too. http://blog.goo.ne.jp/okawaraarishige/e/d9ec2e8fd74f89f867a012005e7b2f81

 

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Global
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Food
Radiation
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Food Risk

Fri, 2012-11-30 18:21 — Maeryn Obley

Correlation of violent protests in Africa and the Middle East with local food prices.

Image: Correlation of violent protests in Africa and the Middle East with local food prices.

compression.org - October 25th, 2012 - Robert W. "Doc" Hall

Formal risk management has become common in large organizations. Risk management has become complex, standardized in ISO 31000, and meriting university degrees. Most risk assessment multiplies the consequences of an event times its probability to create a risk index. Managements can then choose to eliminate, mitigate, or accept each risk.

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Global
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Food
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If Extreme Weather Becomes the Norm, Starvation Awaits

Sat, 2012-10-20 22:49 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

Drought-withered corn stalks in Indiana, August 2012. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

guardian.co.uk - by George Monbiot - October 15, 2012

With forecasts currently based only on averages, food production may splutter out even sooner than we feared

I believe we might have made a mistake: a mistake whose consequences, if I am right, would be hard to overstate. I think the forecasts for world food production could be entirely wrong. Food prices are rising again, partly because of the damage done to crops in the northern hemisphere by ferocious weather.

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Climate
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Food Scarcity: The Timebomb Setting Nation Against Nation

Fri, 2012-10-19 15:44 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Paul G.Kaplan

        

A drying corn field in southern Minnesota. Bad weather has resulted in a poor harvest this year. Photograph: David I. Gross/ Corbis

As the UN and Oxfam warn of the dangers ahead, expert analyst Lester Brown says time to solve the problem is running out

guardian.co.uk - by John Vidal - October 13, 2012

Brandon Hunnicutt has had a year to remember. The young Nebraskan from Hamilton County farms 2,600 acres of the High Plains with his father and brother. What looked certain in an almost perfect May to be a "phenomenal" harvest of maize and soy beans has turned into a near disaster.

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Book - Full Planet, Empty Plates
http://www.earthpolicy.org/mobile/books/fpep

Oxfam Report - 'Our Land, Our Lives': Time Out on the Global Land Rush
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/our-land-our-lives-time-out-on-the-global-land-rush-246731

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Situation Report

Food Distribution in the Horn of Africa Goes High-Tech

Mon, 2012-10-15 23:18 — Kathy Gilbeaux

huffingtonpost.com - by Cathy Herholdt - October 10, 2012

Getting food into the hands of the hungry in the Horn of Africa is about to go high-tech. Seattle-based humanitarian organization World Concern is piloting a new mobile phone app in the drought-stricken region, aiming to streamline the process of tracking food distributed to hungry families and payment to local merchants.

The system tracks beneficiaries and the food they receive via bar codes that are scanned into a mobile phone. Merchants have an I.D. card with a bar code, which is also scanned so they can be paid via wire transfer almost instantly.

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World Concern
http://www.worldconcern.org/

Scan My List
http://scanmylist.com/

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
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Disaster Response
Food
Technology
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Solutions

Cutting Food Losses in Half Would Feed an Additional Billion People

Thu, 2012-10-11 22:28 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - October 11, 2012

More efficient use of the food production chain and a decrease in the amount of food losses will dramatically help maintaining the planet’s natural resources and improve people’s lives; researchers have proved a valid estimation, for the first time, for how many people could be fed with reducing food losses

Researchers in Aalto University have proved a valid estimation, for the first time, for how many people could be fed with reducing food losses.

An Aalto University release reports that the world’s population is an estimated seven billion people. An additional one billion can be fed from our current resources, if the food losses could be halved. This can be achieved if the lowest loss percentage achieved in any region could be reached globally.

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