Somalia: Extremely Food Insecure

Somalia is close to going into famine.
According to FSAU, Somalia has an “ongoing and sustained humanitarian crisis,” with up to 200,000 children malnourished. Without immediate funding for emergency nutrition, more people will become malnourished and vulnerable to diseases. One in six children under the age of five are acutely malnourished and one in twenty are [...]

Biofuel Use Causing Poverty?

With the recent release of a study completed by Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors that projects that America could conceivably generate 90 billion gallons of ethanol by 2030, the United States seems bound to ignore the warnings OXFAM has made regarding the impact biofuel is making on the world food crisis. Over the [...]

New digital soil maps to help fight hunger

On January 13 the International Center for Tropical Agriculture introduced a new digital map technology that covers 42 countries, and will allow for soil scientists to pinpoint areas of soil degradation. According to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, “Low soil fertility is one of the major factors responsible for depressed yields on [...]

OXFAM: A billion people are hungry

In a report published this month by Oxfam entitled, “A Billion Hungry People,” the humanitarian organization says global hunger increased by 109 million people in 2008 due in large part to rising fuel and food prices, bringing the world’s hunger count to almost a billion people, roughly one sixth of the world’s population.
Based on this [...]

Access to food halved in Djibouti

Source: IRIN
Assignment Global is not responsible for the content of this article. The information and reporting are those of the author and news organization alone.
NAIROBI, 14 August 2008 (IRIN) – Access to food in Djibouti has been cut by more than 50 percent because of reduced availability and rising prices, according to a humanitarian official.
“The [...]

Food or Drugs? High food prices complicate AIDS fight

Rising global food prices and food shortages are an increasing threat to the poor living with HIV.
“For people living with HIV, who require more nutrition than healthy people, this will have terrible consequences,” said Alan Whiteside, an economist with South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal, according to an IRIN report from the 17th International AIDS Conference [...]

China to increase investment in African agriculture

The China Development Bank announced Friday that it plans to increase investment in African agriculture, just as the continent has been trying to increase production and curb rising food prices and shortages.
This is good news for Africa’s poor. Soaring food prices and shortages have made life more difficult for hundreds of millions people living [...]

“Last ditch” trade talks could produce deal

According to news reports, marathon negotiations this weekend might finally produce a deal on the so-called Doha round of world trade talks, after seven years.
The talks, begun in 2001 in Doha, Qatar, are supposed to help the world’s poorest countries to compete in global markets. The talks at the World Trade Organization in Geneva had [...]

Somalia nears crisis

Last week, we outlined how East Africa could be a flash point in the world food crisis. Now humanitarian organizations say that Somalia in East Africa is just months away from a major crisis.
According to the World Food Program (WFP), insecurity, drought, a succession of poor or failed harvests, are deepening the suffering of millions [...]

Food crisis threatens political stability

National leaders speaking Monday at the two-day U.N. General assembly debate on the global food and energy crisis warned that international investment in agriculture is critical for hard-hit countries to deal with food shortages and avoid political unrest.
United Nations General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim told the Assembly on Friday that, according to research by the [...]