UN agency calls for urgent action to protect global soil from depletion, degradation

UN News Centre:  The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is calling for urgent action to improve the health of the world's limited soil resources to ensure that future generations have enough supplies of food, water and energy.

"Soil is the basis for food, feed, fuel and fibre production," Maria Helena Semedo, FAO Deputy Director-General, said in a news release issued today. "Without soils we cannot sustain life on earth and where soil is lost it cannot be renewed on a human timeline. The current escalating rate of soil degradation threatens the capacity of future generations to meet their needs.”

Government officials and experts are meeting today in Rome for a three-day meeting of the Global Soil Partnership – which brings together a broad range of stakeholders stressing the need for governments to preserve soil. Under its Global Plans of Action, leaders have endorsed a series of measures to safeguard soil resources through strong regulation and investment. Without soils we cannot sustain life on earth and where soil is lost it cannot be renewed on a human timeline. The current escalating rate of soil degradation threatens the capacity of future generations to meet their needs.

"We need commitments from countries and civil society to put the plan into reality. This requires political will and investments to save the precious soil resources our food production systems depend on," Ms. Semedo said.

Experts at the conference warn that some 33 per cent of world soil is already moderately to highly degraded due to erosion, nutrient depletion, acidification, urbanization, and chemical pollution. And the growing global population – which is expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, resulting in a 60 per cent increase in the demand for food, feed and fibre – will put an even greater strain on land resources....

Image by 4028mdk09, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

FAO initiative brings global land cover data under one roof for the first time

A press release from FAO: A new FAO database released today collects previously scattered and unharmonized land cover information from around the globe into one centralized database, marking a major improvement in information regarding the physical characteristics of the Earth's surface.

Up to now, one of the major challenges to getting a good global overview of land cover - e.g. how much land is covered by croplands, trees or forests, bare soils, etc. - has been the fact that different countries and organizations go about identifying, measuring and recording such data in diverse ways.

But for FAO's new Global Land Cover SHARE database (GLC-SHARE), data pulled from multiple sources and partners was quality-controlled and harmonized using internationally accepted definitions and standards, bringing a wealth of country-level information into one consolidated dataset spanning the entire planet.

Applications of the new GLC-share database include monitoring of global land cover trends, evaluating the suitability of land for various uses, assessing the impact of climate change on food production, and land-use planning. "A strong understanding of our planet's land cover is essential to promoting sustainable land resources management - including agricultural production to feed a growing population - that makes efficient use of increasingly scarce natural resources yet safeguards the environment," said John Latham, of FAO's Land and Water Division....

A farm in Azna, Iran, shot by Hamid Soufi, public domain 

FAO calls for increased support for mountain family farming

A press release from the FAO: Securing land tenure, providing access to resources for mountain family farms, and improving basic infrastructure in mountain regions are among the key solutions to improving the livelihoods and food security of mountain and lowland communities, FAO said today.

Around 40 percent of mountain populations in developing and transition countries - about 300 million people - are food insecure, with half of them suffering from chronic hunger, according to a new FAO publication, Mountain Farming is Family Farming, launched today to mark the UN's International Mountain Day.

Globally, mountains provide freshwater to half of the world's population, mainly due to the water and soil management practised by millions of mountain farmers. Mountains are also reservoirs of global biodiversity and mountain farmers have been the custodians of this genetic wealth, while providing valuable nutrition for their families for centuries.

"The report comes out at a time when the post-2015 development agenda is being discussed," said Eduardo Rojas-Briales, FAO Assistant Director-General for Forests. "We need to ensure that issues related to sustainable mountain development are adequately reflected in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 development agenda. Raising the profile of mountain farmers and supporting them through an enabling policy environment will benefit both mountain people as well as populations living in lowlands who benefit from their products and services."....

Tutemani with its single farm settlements is a cultural landscape typical for eastern Nepal. Despite the barren landscape, rice, wheat and maize is grown. The surrounding hills used to be covered in trees. Photo: Fritz Berger/Etter Studio, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

FAO warns of the risk of a double tragedy in the Philippines

A press release from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization: Immediate assistance from the international community for Philippine farmers is critical to avoid a double tragedy befalling rural survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, FAO announced today.

FAO is calling on the donor community to urgently step forward and provide more than $11 million to get money to rural people to help clean and clear agricultural land and de-silt irrigation canals in the aftermath of the devastation caused by the typhoon.

The Philippine Department of Agriculture has requested that FAO support this cash-for-work scheme, covering more than 150 000 hectares and some 80 kilometres of communal irrigation canals. Placed in perspective, it takes 10 person-days to clear just one hectare of farmland. Funding is also needed for some 1 400 communal irrigation pumps.  The call for assistance is in addition to the $20 million already requested by FAO to help typhoon-affected farmers plant, fertilize, irrigate and maintain their crops to ensure the next harvests in 2014.

“We are in a race against time,” said Rodrigue Vinet, Senior Officer in charge of FAO’s programme in the Philippines. “There is an immediate need for resources to help farmers clear their land and plant their crops. Therefore, we need to make the required purchases now and provide substantial resources directly to farmers to help them through this period.”

FAO is calling on the international donor community to recognize the urgency of the situation and contribute to the government’s efforts in meeting this critical recovery initiative without delay....

An aerial view of Tacloban on November 24, 2013, shot by DFID - UK Department for International Development, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Typhoon wiped out third of Philippines' rice crop: UN

Seed Daily via AFP: Typhoon Haiyan wiped out one-third of the Philippines' rice-growing areas, the UN food agency said Tuesday, calling for "urgent assistance" to farmers who need to sow new seeds. "Regions most severely affected by the typhoon account for one-third of the total rice production in the country," the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said in a statement.

"Hundreds of thousands of farmers in the Philippines whose crops were destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan need urgent assistance to sow new seeds before the end of the current planting season," it said.

The main-season harvest of the staple grain was well under way in the central Philippines when the typhoon hit, also "badly disrupting" ongoing planting for the secondary season, the FAO said.

The Rome-based agency added: "There is concern that many storage facilities may have been destroyed, along with their contents."...

A rice terrace in Banau, in the Philippines, before the 2013 typhoon, shot by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

African countries consent to tackle illegal timber trade in Congo Basin

UN News Centre: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today welcomed a declaration, adopted jointly by Governments from Africa’s main timber producing countries, timber industry representatives and civil society organizations, to curb illegal logging in the Congo Basin.

Representatives of six countries – the Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon – adopted jointly with timber industry representatives and civil society the “Brazzaville Declaration,” named for the capital city where an international conference on sustainable forestry in the region was held from 21-22 October.

According to FAO, which estimates the net loss of forest in the Congo Basin at some 700,000 hectares per year from 2000-2010, the newly-agreed declaration marks an unprecedented commitment towards the sustainable and legal development of the wood industry in the region. “The Brazzaville Declaration could help slow down the pace of deforestation in the region,” said Olman Serrano, a forestry officer from FAO.

The Congo Basin, covering an area of 300 million hectares, harbours the world’s second largest rainforest after Amazonia. As a key resource for stabilizing the global climate, however, it is also a major supplier of illegal timber.

According to FAO-backed studies, Congo Basin tree species are generally larger in height than their Amazon counterparts. This suggests that the African rainforest may be a larger carbon storehouse and a crucial resource for productive and sustainable forest management....

NASA image of logged forest in Democratic Republic of Congo

FAO's hunger data - getting better

IRIN: In 2012 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) attracted criticism for its methods of calculating the number of hungry people in the world in its annual report, the State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI). The debate continues in 2013, with a calculated total of 842 million, or 12 percent of the world's population, experiencing chronic hunger over the past two years.

The FAO announced in 2012 that it was exploring new ways to measure "hunger", "food insecurity" and "undernourishment" - terms that are often used interchangeably. The 2013 SOFI is an improvement over the 2012 report, say experts, but there are still problems with the quality of data.

At issue is the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) - the main indicator FAO uses to calculate the global numbers. Questions have been raised about not only how the indicator is constructed, but how it is used and who uses it to measure hunger at a single point in time and to track trends over time.

Perhaps the fiercest critics of FAO's methodology in 2012 were a group of scholars in the US and Canada, who raised their concerns in Framing Hunger: A Response to SOFI 2012.

"A measure of chronic undernourishment, [the PoU] is defined as inadequate calorie intake lasting more than one year. The estimate is based on minimal calorie requirements to engage in a 'sedentary lifestyle'. This threshold, and the requirement that the undernourishment last at least a year, makes the measure quite restrictive, as it leaves out those suffering serious hunger for a shorter period, such as from a spike in food prices," said Timothy Wise, Director of Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, one of the authors of the report....

OECD-FAO expect slower global agricultural production growth

A press release from the OECD: Global agricultural production is expected to grow 1.5% a year on average over the coming decade, compared with annual growth of 2.1% between 2003 and 2012, according to a new report published by the OECD and FAO today.

Limited expansion of agricultural land, rising production costs, growing resource constraints and increasing environmental pressures are the main factors behind the trend. But the report argues that farm commodity supply should keep pace with global demand.

The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2013-2022 expects prices to remain above historical averages over the medium term for both crop and livestock products due to a combination of slower production growth and stronger demand, including for biofuels,

The report says agriculture has been turned into an increasingly market-driven sector, as opposed to policy-driven as it was in the past, thus offering developing countries important investment opportunities and economic benefits, given their growing food demand, potential for production expansion and comparative advantages in many global markets.

However, production shortfalls, price volatility and trade disruption remain a threat to global food security. The OECD/FAO Outlook warns: “As long as food stocks in major producing and consuming countries remain low, the risk of price volatility is amplified. A wide-spread drought such as the one experienced in 2012, on top of low food stocks, could raise world prices by 15-40 percent.”

China, with one-fifth of the world’s population, high income growth and a rapidly expanding agri-food sector, will have a major influence on world markets, and is the special focus of the report. China is projected to remain self-sufficient in the main food crops, although output is anticipated to slow in the next decade due to land, water and rural labour constraints....

View from Bukowica hill, Nowotaniec, farmland, parish and main market, Lipiec. Poland, shot by Marek Silarski, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Global irrigated area at record levels, but expansion slowing

KTIC Radio: In 2009, the most recent year for which global data are available from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 311 million hectares in the world was equipped for irrigation but only 84 percent of that area was actually being irrigated, according to new research conducted by the Worldwatch Institute for its Vital Signs Online service (www.worldwatch.org). As of 2010, the countries with the largest irrigated areas were India (39 million hectares), China (19 million), and the United States (17 million), writes report author Judith Renner.

...The increasing availability of inexpensive individual pumps and well construction methods has led to a shift from public to private investment in irrigation, and from larger to smaller-scale systems. The takeoff in individual groundwater irrigation has been concentrated in India, China, and much of Southeast Asia. The idea of affordable and effective irrigation is attractive to poor farmers worldwide, with rewards of higher outputs and incomes and better diets.

"The option is often made even more appealing with offers of government subsidies for energy costs of running groundwater pumps and support prices of irrigated products," said Renner, a senior at Fordham University in New York. "In India's Gujarat state, for example, energy subsidies are structured so that farmers pay a flat rate, no matter how much electricity they use. But with rising numbers of farmers tapping groundwater resources, more and more aquifers are in danger of overuse."

If groundwater resources are overexploited, aquifers will be unable to recharge fast enough to keep pace with water withdrawals. It should be noted that not all aquifers are being pumped at unsustainable levels----in fact, 80 percent of aquifers worldwide could handle additional water withdrawals. One troubling aspect of groundwater withdrawals is that the world's major agricultural producers (particularly India, China, and the United States) are also the ones responsible for the highest levels of depletion....

A floating pumping station on the Nile River, shot by Rémih, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

North Korean food harvest improving, but still tight: FAO

Reuters: Food production in North Korea has risen for a second year but the impoverished country still faces shortages and widespread malnutrition, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization on Monday. The U.N. organization forecast a 10 percent increase in the main 2012 harvests and 2013 early season crops compared with a year earlier, and said production was expected to hit 5.8 million metric tons.

The country faced a staple food deficit of 207,000 metric tons, the lowest in many years, but 2.8 million people remained vulnerable to undernutrition, the FAO added.

The body issued its findings after carrying out a mission to the isolated country to measure its cereal production.

"DPR Korea still needs international help," Kisan Gunjal, FAO economist and the mission's co-leader, said in a statement. "The new harvest figures are good news, but the lack of proteins and fats in the diet is alarming."...

UN warns of rising food costs after year's extreme weather

John Vidal, Rebecca Smithers and Shiv Malik in the Guardian (UK): The UN has warned of increasing meat and dairy prices in the wake of extreme weather in the United States and across large parts of Europe and other centres of global food production. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome, global wheat production is expected to fall 5.2% in 2012 and yields from many other crops grown to feed animals could be 10% down on last year.

"Populations are growing but production is not keeping up with consumption. Prices for wheat have already risen 25% in 2012, maize 13% and dairy prices rose 7% just last month. Food reserves, [held to provide a buffer against rising prices] are at a critical low level

"It means that food supplies are tight across the board and there is very little room for unexpected events," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the FAO. "The decrease in cereal production this year will result in a significant reduction in world reserves by the close of seasons in 2013, even with world demand sliding as a result of high prices," he said.

The warning of further food prices came as some British supermarkets said they were struggling to keep shelves stocked with fresh produce and the National Farmers Union (NFU) reported that UK wheat yields have been the lowest since the late 1980s as a result of abnormal rain fall.

The NFU president, Peter Kendall, said: "There are many farmers who are down 25% to 30% on the wheat crop. In some cases you looked from the outside and you thought, this crop will do over four tonnes to the acre – and it's been struggling to do three and some cases two tonnes to the acre. It's been soul-destroying for the farmers growing the crops," he said....

The cheese market in Gouda, in the Netherlands, shot by Johi, public domain

Africa: FAO warns of food shortages in urban settings

James Tasamba in AllAfrica.com via the New Times: Africa's urban population is growing faster than that of any other region, but many of its cities are not keeping pace with the increasing demand for food that comes with that growth, says the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report released on Thursday.

It says policymakers need to act now to ensure that African cities will be "green" enough to meet their nutrition and income needs in a sustainable manner. The Growing Greener Cities in Africa Report includes data from 31 countries across the African continent, and was released ahead of the sixth session of the World Urban Forum due on September 1 until 7 in Naples, Italy.

"The challenge of achieving a "zero hunger" world - in which everyone is adequately nourished and all food systems are resilient - is as urgent in African cities as it is in rural areas," Modibo Traoré, FAO Assistant Director-General for Agriculture and Consumer Protection, said in the report.

"African policymakers need to act now to steer urbanisation from its current, unsustainable path towards healthy, 'greener' cities that ensure food and nutrition security, decent work and income, and a clean environment for all their citizens".

It is the first status report on African urban and peri-urban horticulture - the home, school, community and market gardens that produce fruits and vegetables in and around the continent's cities….

Diets must become sustainable say FAO and Bioversity

FAO: Immediate action to promote sustainable diets and food biodiversity so as to improve the health of humans and of the planet is urged in a book just published by FAO and Bioversity International. “Regardless of the many successes of agriculture in the last three decades, it is clear that food systems, and diets, are not sustainable,” says Barbara Burlingame, Principal Officer of FAO’s Nutrition and Consumer Protection Division, in a preface to the book, Sustainable Diets and Biodiversity.

“While over 900 million people in the world suffer from hunger, even more – about 1.5 billion – are overweight or obese, and an estimated two billion suffer from micronutrient malnutrition including vitamin A, iron, or iodine deficiency,” Burlingame notes.

The problem of feeding the world’s growing population has so far been seen largely in terms of providing sufficient quantities of food, the book points out.  But the pace of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, coupled with emerging health issues related to diet, make it urgent to address the quality of agriculture and food systems. Poor diets are linked to marked increases in non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases across the world.

High-input industrial agriculture and long-distance transport have made refined carbohydrates and fats affordable and available across the globe, leading to an overall simplification of diets and reliance on a limited number of energy-rich foods. But such foods lack nutrient quality and have heavy carbon and water footprints.  Cheap, energy-dense foods have also come at the cost of flavour, diversity and cultural connection....

FAO says traditional crops key to facing climate change

FAO: Traditional food crops and other plant varieties worldwide are in urgent need of protection from climate change and other environmental stresses, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today, as it observed the tenth anniversary of the international treaty to protect and share plant genetic resources.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf called on countries to develop specific policies to conserve and make wider use of plant varieties for generations to come. He lauded the injection of $6 million made available through the treaty to help farmers of traditional crops adapt to climate change.

"The conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture are key to ensuring that the world will produce enough food to feed its growing population in the future," Diouf said.

Diouf pointed out that the global gene pool of more than 1.5 million samples of plant genetic material governed collectively and multilaterally by signature countries under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture "constitutes the basis for more than 80 percent of the world's food derived from plants and it is possibly our most important tool for adapting agriculture to climate change in the years to come."

..."The effects of climate change on agriculture do not respect national borders, they cover entire agro-ecological zones," said Shakeel Bhatti, Secretary of the International Treaty. "For this reason, this portfolio of projects is taking a pioneering approach in generating a global knowledge base. Some of these projects will help us to establish clear priorities and action plans across borders for future actions."...

FAO calls for better monitoring of water use

Carol Campbell in SciDev.net: Developing countries are failing to account for where water is going, how it is being used and how much of it remains, according to a major report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The report, 'Climate change, water and food security', published earlier this month (9 June), aims to sum up current scientific understanding of the impacts of climate change on agriculture and agricultural water management, and to highlight knowledge gaps.

"Water accounting in most developing countries is very limited, and allocation procedures are non-existent, ad hoc or poorly developed," the report said. "Acquiring good water accounting practices (hydrological analysis of water resource availability and actual use) and developing robust and flexible water allocation systems will be a first priority [for adaptation]."

Such data would help more accurate forecasting of droughts and floods. Although forecasting technologies are commercially available in some developed countries, their quality, as well as their communication and understanding among farmers, must improve if farmers are to better adapt to climate change and reap the benefits, the report says…

A water meter in Austria, shot by Clemens Pfeiffer, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 1.0 Generic license

Climate change to reduce water availability, FAO warns

Xinhua: Climate change will make water less available to produce food crops in years to come, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a report issued Thursday. River runoff and aquifer recharges will decrease in the Mediterranean, the Americas, Australia and southern Africa, it said.

Areas in Asia which depend on the melting of ice and mountain glaciers will also be affected, while areas with a lot of fluvial deltas are threatened by reduced water flow, increased salinity and rising sea levels, said the report entitled "Climate Change, Water and Food Security". The report also predicted an acceleration of the hydrologic cycle of the planet because high temperatures will raise the evaporation rate of the soil and sea.

"The rain will increase in the tropics and at higher altitudes, but it will decrease in areas that already have dry and semi-dry characters and are located inland on the big continents," the report said. Because of this, there will be a higher frequency of droughts and flooding, which will lead to an increased use of ground water and limit the water available for agriculture even more…

An irrigation pipe in India, shot by Sebastianjude, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

The big fat lie about doubling food production

The Soil Assocation (UK): In the UK and globally the future direction of food and farming is being driven almost entirely by two frequently quoted statistics. Experts such as the UN Secretary General, the UK Government’s Chief Scientist, the current Secretary of State for the Environment, Hilary Benn MP, the Conservative Party, the National Farmers’ Union and Monsanto, are all saying that we need to increase food production 50% by 2030 or that it needs to double by 2050.

A new investigation from the Soil Association reveals that the widely used statistics are based on a ‘big fat lie’. ‘Telling porkies: The big fat lie about doubling food production’, reveals that all those claiming we need to double global food production by 2050, or 50% by 2030, are wrong about the figures, are wrong about what the figures apply to, and are wrong to claim that achieving these figures will mean we will feed the hungry or end starvation.

Research into the doubling figure shows it doesn’t actually exist in the stated source -and that it is based on a number of incorrect assumptions. The scientific basis for the claims are based on a report which on close inspection actually says production would need to increase by around 70%, not 100%. As the Government states this is a significant difference. The closest the report comes to the doubling claim is projecting that meat consumption in developing countries, except China, could double. The scientific paper that the 50% by 2030 claim is based on appears to have been withdrawn by the authors.

These apparently scientific statistics are leading to an assumption that we need vast increases in agricultural production to feed the projected population of 9 billion by 2050. Many commentators are using this inflated claim to justify the need for more intensive agricultural practices and, in particular, the need for further expansion of GM crops.

Peter Melchett, Soil Association policy director, said: “The ‘big fat lie’ of needing to double global food production by 2050 has dominated policy and media discussions of food and farming, making it increasingly difficult for advocates of sustainable farming methods, such as organic, to convince people we can actually feed the world without more damage to the environment and animal welfare….

A vegetarian pizza, shot by Roberta F., Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

New FAO database eyes gender gap in land rights

Food and Agriculture Organization Media Centre: A new database launched by FAO puts the spotlight on one of the major stumbling blocks to rural development - widespread inequalities between men and women in their access to land. The Gender and Land Rights Database, produced in consultation with national statistics authorities, universities, civil society organizations and other sources worldwide, offers up-to-date information on how men and women in 78 countries differ in their legal rights and access to land.

In most of the world, women lag well behind men in ownership of agricultural land and access to income from land, even though women are major producers of food crops and play crucial roles in providing and caring for their households.

"Disparity in land access is one of the major causes for social and economic inequalities between males and females in rural areas. It jeopardizes food security at the household and community levels, and has an impact on national food security and development. It is vital information for policy makers. But until now, finding information on this phenomenon in one place has been difficult to come by," Marcela Villarreal, Director, FAO Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division said as the new database was placed online.

The new information tool, available to anyone with access to the Internet, provides policymakers and other users with a better picture of the major social, economic, political and cultural factors which affect access to land and enforcement of women's land rights.

The database covers both national and customary laws governing land use; property rights and inheritance; international treaties and conventions; land tenure and related institutions; civil society organizations that work on land issues, and other related statistics.

By searching country profiles, users can find out the answers to specific questions on topics like the total number of land holders, the total number of women land holders and the number of rural households headed by women. They can also call up comparisons on a given topic between two or more countries….

Chili vendors on the street in Tiruchirappalli, India. July 2008. Shot by Adam Jones Adam63, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license