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Food Security and Nutrition Forum

The Agricultural Development Economics Division of FAO is launching a Food Security and Nutrition Forum (FSN Forum) on 16th October.

The purpose of this Forum is to provide an online platform where practitioners can share their experiences and resources, provide peer coaching and support and find collective solutions to issues related to Food Security and Nutrition (FS&N), with a focus on FS&N Policies and Strategies. Discussions will take place on the Forum’s mailing list and directly on the Forum’s website. The Web site is also an important pool of relevant resources and information on FS&N. The forum is public. Joining the forum is free, voluntary and open to anyone interested in contributing advice, experience and expertise for use by others, or for adapting others’ advice, experience and expertise for their own use.

I’ll keep an eye on the discussion and post any really interesting stuff that comes up on the role of agrobiodiversity in food and nutritional security.

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Vitamin A makes a convert

Grahame Jackson is a plant pathologist and root crops expert who’s been working in the South Pacific for I guess going on for 30 years now. ((Full disclosure: He’s also a good friend of mine.)) Yet he’s not afraid of admitting he can still learn something by doing intensive fieldwork, as you can read over at my old stamping ground, PGR News from the Pacific, now ably helmed by Tevita Kete:

Continue reading “Vitamin A makes a convert”

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Chinese torture water report

Green energy, blue impacts, a report from the International Water Management Institute yesterday, says that plans to rapidly increase biofuel production in China and India threaten their ability to meet future food and feed needs. China plans to increase biofuel production fourfold, to 9% of its projected demand for petrol, by 2020. India aims to double the requirement for ethanol in petrol to 10% in the next year. Mainstream press bulletins cover that side of the report. But Scidev.net reveals that Chinese officials have countered and say that the IWMI report’s concerns have already been met, for example by a directive in May 2007 that bans the use of corn and by a shift to non-staple crops.

Just one little thing. Would someone at SciDev.net (or elsewhere) explain exactly what they mean when they describe batata as “a type of sweet potato”. And maybe the same person (or someone else) can explain how shifting the burden to non-staple crops, which the Chinese say they are doing, eases food shortages. Those crops use less water than corn, it is true, but they are edible too. Doesn’t that make them more valuable as food and feed?

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Farmer Field Schools

I think we may have blogged before about a series of educational videos on the management of the rice crop aimed at your actual rice farmer. But there’s no harm in mentioning them again, especially since it gives me the opportunity of linking to the very useful resource centre of the Global Farmer Field School Network, which brings them all together and packages them with additional information. The site is serchable, and a quick look revealed quite a few interesting things on agrobiodiversity. Again, thanks to the indefatigable Danny for the link.