News Overview

Latin America feeds the world, yet healthy diets are out of reach for most in the region, and the region also has the widest gender gap in food insecurity, with women facing much higher food insecurity than men as compared to other regions of the world. At the same time, the region produces significantly more sugar than needed as compared to the recommended dietary guidelines. What is the state of diets in LAC and what are we doing about it?

Thirty years after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action — what many hailed as a landmark global framework for gender equality—progress remains uneven and inequalities still exist in many spheres. The Declaration, adopted by 189 nations, made one thing clear: development will not be advanced unless we also advance women’s empowerment. However, progress has been slow and at the current pace, it could take decades to close global gender gaps. Women and girls continue to face systemic barriers to rights, resources, decision-making and opportunities. Nowhere is this more evident than in food, land and water systems.

In southern Senegal, in the department of Goudomp, the market garden of the GIE Malouthiandi in Anice has become a concrete symbol of women’s resilience. This transformation is part of the AVENIR project, funded by Global Affairs Canada and implemented by MEDA in collaboration with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. The rehabilitation of the fence, the establishment of a living melliferous hedge, and the reconnection of irrigation basins have strengthened site security and water management. In a country where agriculture accounts for about 17 percent of GDP and where women make up nearly 40 percent of the agricultural labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa the daily work of the women in Anice shows that appropriate infrastructure combined with structured technical support can sustainably transform household food security and economic autonomy.

International Plant Health Day Feature | 12 May 2026 - Healthy plants are the foundation of agricultural productivity, food security, and resilient farming systems. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, plant pests and diseases are responsible for the loss of up to 40% of global food crops each year, resulting in agricultural trade losses exceeding USD 220 billion annually.

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and CIMMYT, with funding support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, have launched a landmark research initiative to dramatically shorten the time required to develop climate-resilient and market-preferred crop varieties for farmers in the drylands of Eastern Africa and India.

In the early 1600s, the German polymath Johannes Kepler studied years of astronomical observations and discovered that planets move in ellipses. But Kepler had no idea why planets moved that way. He had found a pattern in the data. A few decades later, Isaac Newton identified the mechanism underlying Kepler’s laws of planetary motion—gravity.

Landmark decision recognizes non-GMO status of gene-edited banana. 12 May 2026 - Nairobi, Kenya: A quiet but significant shift in Kenya’s agricultural landscape is opening new opportunities and doors for innovation and renewed hope for banana farmers affected by bacterial wilt disease.