Food Security

The Department of Agriculture (DA), together with local government units, should play a more decisive role in rolling out urban farming technologies ...

Frost & Sullivan anticipates agriculture production through indoor vertical farming to be popular in the UAE post-COVID-19, utilizing mass-scale ...

B.C. businesses are strengthening food security and food safety by adopting new traceability technology with funding from the governments of Canada and B.C.

Significance of technology in agriculture has its own importance because it is mostly associated with provide results, for feeding a nation’s population. On the back of environmental degradation, pollution, and water scarcity, finding our ways for food security is always a priority based question that needs to be addressed. Involvement of Hi-tech agriculture has increased of late

The world is facing food insecurity problem due to shortage of workforce and growing world population. Robotization of crop production will help to boost food production, through effective labour conservation. This study was carried out to optimize the performance of tomato fruits' robotic harvesters,…

The wild plants that grow along our roadsides and ditches—like the salt-tolerant wild sunflowers and disease-resistant wild pumpkins—may hold crucial traits that can protect our food supply. Breeding commercial food crops using their wild relatives can help those crops become more pest and disease-resistant and resilient in the face of climate change. But according to a new study, many of the “crop wild relatives” are endangered in their natural habitats and in dire need of conservation.

Colin K. Khoury, the study’s lead author, has been a long-time advocate of wild plants and food crop diversity. He has worked for seed companies and seed conservation nonprofits, including Native Seeds/SEARCH. He currently works (remotely) for the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia and is also a researcher at Saint Louis University, based at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Ft. Collins, Colorado facility.

Civil Eats spoke with Khoury about the study, the threats to these plants, and what can be done to help crop wild relatives thrive.

Sustainable food and #agriculture is key 🔑 to meeting all four pillars of food security – availability, access, utilization and stability.

Here at IAG, we’re taking #action to combat food insecurity in the U.K. and beyond. Learn more in our website. pic.twitter.com/oO0UgHLRTt

As the population continues to grow and the effects of climate change, global warming, pollution and other factors impact humanity’s ability to grow and provide enough food for itself, the concern that the world could run out of food is increasing.. The COVID-19 pandemic has put more focus on how fragile the food supply chain is and how easy it is to disrupt the process of feeding the world. For years, it has been mostly a topic of discussion. But with so many disruptions, it is now an issue that needs to be acted on. Social groups, civic associations, government bodies and food manufacturers have taken notice of the problem and are attempting to get their hands around the issues. One of the key points in this discussion revolves around the amount of food and food sources that will be needed in the future. It always starts with the same question: “Will there be enough food?” Most people immediately say no. But is that 100% true? This is where the debate between food insecurity and food waste begins.

Vertical farming in urban areas would help produce food for consumption. Some agricultural-technology companies are also adopting this farming ...

#DeepSpaceFoodChallenge twitter.com/csa_asc/status…

MEDIA – Developing innovative food production technologies with the #DeepSpaceFoodChallenge — the CSA and @NASA tackle food accessibility in space and on Earth: canada.ca/en/space-agenc…. pic.twitter.com/mrqDBEhHD3

China will complete the new national crop germplasm bank, with which it seeks to boost the country's capacity to develop new crop varieties and improve food security, this year. According to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Tang Renjian, the bank has a designed capacity of 1.5 million…

An international consortium of scientists has developed a hardy new wheat variety that is resistant to a particularly virulent fungal disease that threatens global food security.

More people around the world are going hungry, with tens of millions of people having joined the ranks of the chronically undernourished over the past five years.

In the 2020 edition of the ‘State of food security and nutrition in the world’, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that almost 690 million people went hungry in 2019, which was up by 10 million from 2018, and nearly 60 million in five years.

In addition, the report forecasts, the COVID-19 pandemic could cause about 130 million more people to suffer from chronic hunger across the world by the end of 2020.

The numbers explained In total, the amount of people suffering from hunger worldwide was revised down from 820 million, as stated in the 2019 report, to the current 690 million.

Food is a basic need, but this year saw an astounding number of Americans lacking the ability to meet their basic nutrition requirements. Even before the pandemic, roughly 35 million Americans were food insecure. Now, almost a year later, the ongoing health and economic crises have taken a heavy toll: nearly 54 million Americans face food insecurity. Communities that already experienced low levels of food access have been especially impacted during the pandemic, as have school food programs. Yet even with expanded food aid, programs are struggling to meet the nation’s food security needs.

This year, we reported exhaustively on food access, covering not only the challenges of getting fresh, healthy food to people, but also the community-level solutions that are working. As the number of food-insecure Americans is anticipated to grow, we expect continued and expanded analysis and reporting on this topic for the foreseeable future. For now, here are some of our best stories on food access in 2020.

Every year in India, it has been estimated about Rs 92,000 crores worth, over 67 million tonnes of food is wasted. In other words, this amount is adequate to feed all of Bihar for a year.

Hunger and food insecurity are not the same. On the night when Congress will likely approve its first direct aid package in months, @simransethi breaks down why that distinction matters. thecounter.org/hunger-food-in…

An increasing number of Canadians have been facing challenges in putting food on their tables due to COVID-19. As a result, food banks and food security organizations have experienced increased pressures such as higher demands and fewer resources. With the holidays approaching, these organizations need our support more than ever to help feed families and keep Canadians healthy and safe.

The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, together with the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Indigenous Services,

A new generation of Desert Locust swarms is threatening agricultural and pastoral livelihoods and the food security of millions of people in the Horn of Africa and Yemen despite intense efforts to control the pest throughout 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said today.

Off-grid food production facility in Yukon 'another step closer' to reality cbc.ca/producing-food…

We are also witnessing the introduction of vertical farms where fruits and vegetables can be grown in large rotating frames. Traditional farming relies ...

Officials with Nutrition North say they continue to monitor how food supply chains are impacted by the pandemic. What they're seeing, through changes in food distribution following relief funds, is the true extend of food insecurity that Nunavut households face. 

As rapid urban population, global warming, energy consumption, and water supply issues continue to mount, controlled environmental agriculture or CEA is becoming increasingly important amongst growers needing sustainable and readily available crops regardless of location or climate. LESA’s Plant Science…

Remotely observing global vegetation from space has endured for nearly 50 years. Many datasets have been developed to monitor vegetation status. Tailored to specifically monitor global food security concerning drought and crop yield, a suite of datasets based on vegetation health concepts and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) observation was developed in the 1980s and utilized throughout the world. Nowadays, satellites based imaging radiometers have evolved into the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) era. With proper algorithm development, the blended version of the data suite, composed of the AVHRR dataset from 1981 to 2012 and VIIRS dataset from 2013 and afterwards, has bridged the long-term AVHRR observation and high-quality VIIRS data. This paper explains the blended version of the data suite.

Kenyan researchers and entomologists have called for the introduction of stringent regulations on the use of pesticide to protect insect species that are crucial for food production. In a report, named ‘Insect Atlas 2020’ by Heinrich Böll Foundation and Friends of the Earth, it was made clear that around…

France has unveiled a national plant protein strategy that aims to increase domestic production of vegetable proteins for feed and human nutrition, boosting agri-food sovereignty and sustainability. However, in failing to address what campaigners say is the 'overconsumption' of animal proteins, critics argue the plan is 'doomed'.

Find records of fraud such as those discussed in this column and more in the Food Fraud Database. Image credit: Susanne Kuehne

Herbs remain a target for fraudsters. The latest investigation of sage samples by the Institute of Global Food Security (IGFS) at Queen’s University Belfast used a combination of spectroscopic and chemometric methods to check whether sage contained 100% of the actual herb. One quarter of samples from the UK included unapproved (fortunately, no hazardous) bulk material, such as tree leaves, some in significant concentrations of more than half of the product.

Some people may call it urban farming, urban agriculture, food plant cultivation, community plot farming or town agriculture or whatever it is, but in the ...

Microsoft has been partnering with public and private organisations to develop systems that support better policy making around agriculture. This is made clear by the number of organisations working with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives (MALFC) in Kenya to bring state of…

UK scientists have created a new modified wheat variety that can increase grain production by up to 12%. They claim the innovation is a potential solution to help meet rapidly growing global demand, but also expect it to trigger heated debate around genetically modified crops.