The number of hungry people has shot to record levels. "World Food Day is actually 'No Food Day' for almost one out of every six people around the world this year," said World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran. ?Let us remember that more than one billion people won?t get enough nutritious food to eat today.

More than 1 billion people suffer hunger today, according to the United Nations. A crucial part of this complex problem is food production and distribution. Is it possible to increase food production in an environmentally and socially sustainable way? Can modernisation, research and investment enhance food security? Is there anything to learn from traditional knowledge? How do trade and energy policies affect the equation? And gender? Where and when is food aid really needed? Can the upswing of commodity prices be positive for some countries? How are farmers coping with climate change?

IPS finds the stories behind the food crisis to understand local and global causes of shortages and rising prices, and their long term effects.

AGRICULTURE-ZIMBABWE: “The Rule of Law Just Isn't There”
By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE (IPS) – Agriculture used to be Zimbabwe?s economic mainstay but it has been on the decline since 2000 when the ZANU-PF government embarked on a so-called land reform programme that resulted in about 4,000 productive white farmers losing their farms, many to members of the politically connected elite.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48884

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Two Part Series on Food Security by Miren Gutierrez, IPS Editor-in-Chief:

DEVELOPMENT: Rome, Food Capital of the World – Part 1
By Miren Gutierrez* and Oriana Boselli
ROME (IPS) – It was once true that all roads led to this ancient capital. Today it is the furrows of maize, wheat and rice fields that take you to Rome, where the biggest global food organisations are headquartered, and the World Summit on Food Security (Nov. 16-18) is being organised. The situation couldn’t be more momentous.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48712

DEVELOPMENT: Plenty On the Plate – Part 2
By Miren Gutierrez* and Oriana Boselli
ROME (IPS) – “From a current 6.5 billion population, a billion don’t get enough to eat right now. Extrapolate that to 2020, and you begin to recognise why this is not just a moral problem, it is a national security problem that has much more to do with civil strife, warfare, terrorism, immigration… This goes far beyond food.”
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48714

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WATER-ZIMBABWE: New Wells Protect Environment, Build Peace
By Vusumuzi Sifile
SHAMVA, Zimbabwe (IPS) – Twenty years ago, Isaac Chidavaenzi would worry when his neighbours set up vegetable gardens on river banks, trying to get closer to water sources. The number of gardens on the rivers’ banks has now decreased, but Chidavaenzi is even more worried.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48880

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DEVELOPMENT: A ‘Great Persuasion’ Gets Under Way
By Sanjay Suri
LONDON (IPS) – They are calling it ‘The Great Persuasion’ in Britain as millions prepare around the world to stand up for action against poverty.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48874

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NIGERIA: Fish Could Play Greater Role In Food Security
By Toluwa Olusegun
AKARAKUMO, Nigeria (IPS) – The smell of roasting fish fills the air as one approaches the bungalow a few metres from the shore of the lagoon. Like most families in the village schoolteacher John Sewanu and his family of seven depend on the sea for food and income.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48760

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AFRICA: Climate Change Worsening Farming?s Trade-Related Woes
By Julio Godoy
BERLIN (IPS) – Numerous research institutes and international organisations agree that climate change will in the short and medium term worsen Africa’s agriculture and food production capabilities, unless greenhouse gases emissions (GHE) are substantially reduced and adequate trade and investment policies put in place.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48834

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BRAZIL: Agribusiness Driving Land Concentration
By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO (IPS) – The growth of agribusiness in Brazil, with its vast monocultures of soybean or sugarcane, is responsible for the expansion of large estates belonging to fewer and fewer landowners, according to small farmers’ organisations and agricultural experts.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48734

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DEVELOPMENT: Hunger Hurts Also the Well-Fed
By Paul Virgo
ROME (IPS) – Ask food experts whether it is in the interest of well-fed people in wealthy countries to fight hunger, and most will say: Yes. But ask whether we should tell them, and the answer you are likely to get is: maybe not.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48809

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BIODIVERSITY: Dwindling Fish Catch Could Leave a Billion Hungry
By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada (IPS) – Fish catches are expected to decline dramatically in the world’s tropical regions because of climate change, but may increase in the north, said a new study published Thursday.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48796

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DEVELOPMENT: Resource Crunch Signals Larger Ecological Crisis
By Zarrín Caldwell
WASHINGTON (IPS) – How would development programmes look if viewed from the position of scarcity, especially the scarcity of food, water, and energy?
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48739

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MEXICO: Rural Poverty Has a Woman’s Face
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY (IPS) – Some transformations occur so imperceptibly that people only become aware of them when the new reality has set in. That?s exactly what happened in Mexico?s countryside, where economic and social conditions have combined to put rural production largely in the hands of women.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48727

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Only about 22 percent of the voices you hear and read in the news are women’s. You can change your perspective – Read the new IPS Gender Wire.
ipsnews.net/_newsletter/genderwire.asp

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Read More IPS Coverage of the Food Crisis from around the world:
www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/feedingfuture/

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Rome, where the largest global food organisations – FAO, IFAD and WFP – are headquartered, is preparing for the World Summit on Food Security (Nov. 16-18). The situation couldn’t be more momentous. IPS reports:
www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/food-crisis/index.asp

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IPS Coverage of Water security: www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/water/index.asp

DON’T MISS IPS SPECIAL COVERAGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE. Through special coverage of issues like food security, extractive industries, biodiversity and climate change, IPS is giving a voice to people whose stories are seldom heard. IPS is also highlighting the various challenges they face in the globalised world: health and food insecurity, environment degradation and poverty.
www.ipsnews.net/environment.asp

Read IPS Special Coverage of Sanitation:
Despite improved sanitation worldwide last year, there are still about 2.6 billion people – or about 41 percent of the world population – lacking adequate toilet facilities.
www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/toilet/

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