BY JABOURY GHAZOUL At the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, 26 countries pledged to introduce new policies to foster more sustainable and less polluting agriculture. “Nature-based climate solutions” were hyped as a means to make “food and farming sexy.” All of this is in the abstract. “Agriculture” itself is an abstraction that glosses over the diverse and complex realities of farming. International
As the world prepares to celebrate World Wetlands Day, IWMI reflects on the transformative power of nature-based solutions to tackle climate change — and more. By Matthew McCartney and Lisa-Maria Rebelo, IWMI It is now widely accepted that nature-based solutions are an imperative in our fight against climate change and biodiversity loss, and central to our efforts to address many other global challenges
Marleen Schutter is a postdoctoral researcher within the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center at the University of Washington EarthLab and is currently based in WorldFish. Her research focuses on relationships between people and the sea. In particular, she studies the values, world views and images of different communities in the world and their contributions to addressing equity and justice issues
Mohammed Yusuf walks out of an unfinished house with no roof and heads to his field. While the home may not show it yet, Yusuf feels he is making progress for the first time in his 50-year life. Born and raised Babile Woreda in Ethiopia, Yusuf has spent the past 30 years growing maize, sorghum, groundnut, and local sweetpotato cultivars
With the initial support of GIZ and with KfW as anchor investor, responsAbility and CGIAR have partnered to launch the first science-based impact investing solution targeting food systems transformation. The aim is to provide long-term expansion debt to innovative businesses operating in the food value chain in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Africa with the goal of mitigating climate
Faced with numerous challenges to nourishing a growing population, food system researchers are looking to shift focus beyond food production to a more holistic approach. Food systems research, which examines multiple aspects of food from production through to consumption, seeks to understand the relationship between different components of the supply chain and how they interact. Read more
The role of food crops as a conduit for transmission of antimicrobial resistance from soil and water to humans has not been widely studied. Contamination of food crops with antimicrobial-resistant pathogens presents an added foodborne risk to human health. A scoping review published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems (3 Feb 2022) consolidates the current state of knowledge on antimicrobial
The pig production sector in Rwanda is growing rapidly as a result of rising local and regional demand for pork. To better understand how the sector operates, a new study has analysed the country’s pig and pork value chains to map the various actors involved, the governance and sanitary risks and the potential impacts on food safety. The study, which