Global Health Hub: news and blogosphere aggregator » Nutrition & Food Security

The impact of food price spikes

Sara Gorman — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:09:56 +0000

As we discussed in a previous post, several causes led to a massive spike in food prices internationally in 2008 and again a few years later. The average world price of rice, for example, rose by 217% between 2006 and 2008. Classical theories have suggested that we shouldn’t worry about these spikes: that the high prices will lead to more production (attracting farmers to produce more, which will drive prices back down), people’s wages will adjust to costs of living, and people will be able to substitute for expensive items with other foods. But a new report tracking how the most-affected people have responded to the food spikes reveals that classical theories may be a bit out of touch…

via The impact of food price spikes | [ EpiAnalysis ].

Could African Crops Be Improved With Private Biotech Data?

GHHub — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:45:49 +0000

“I’m shocked by the optimism here,” Howard Yana-Shapiro, the chief agricultural officer for Mars Inc. said Tuesday to the audience of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C.

via Could African Crops Be Improved With Private Biotech Data? : The Salt : NPR.

21st Century Progress in Africa: Eradicating Hunger and Poverty (MDG1) in…

TEDxChange — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:35:00 +0000

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21st Century Progress in Africa: Eradicating Hunger and Poverty (MDG1) in…

Getting Good Nutrition Safely to Young Children: Do We Have What It Takes?

TEDxChange — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:13:00 +0000

Getting Good Nutrition Safely to Young Children: Do We Have What It Takes?

New Report: Smart Investment in Nutrition Needed Now

TEDxChange — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:13:00 +0000

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New Report: Smart Investment in Nutrition Needed Now

An estimated 165 children worldwide permanently damaged by hunger

Humanosphere — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:35:00 +0000

This is an outrage that gets little attention, perhaps because it is so chronic and massive and non-dramatic. Something like 165 million children on the planet have failed to achieve normal brain and body development and live at increased vulnerability to illness and early death. Due to hunger, and lack of proper nutrition. Source: Go … Continue reading →

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An estimated 165 children worldwide permanently damaged by hunger

The Daily Impact: New Index Tracks Country Commitment to Hunger and…

PSIHealthyLives — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:09:00 +0000

April 12, 2013 Guinea-Bissau ranked as the worst among 45 developing countries assessed in the new hunger and nutrition commitment index. From the Guardian: Guinea-Bissau has stunting rates of 28% and its situation is also considered “alarming” in the global hunger index, but it shows weak political commitment to redress the problems of hunger and undernutrition. Guinea-Bissau fails to invest in agriculture, despite committing to invest 10% of its budget in agriculture as part of the African Union’s Maputo declaration. Access to agricultural extension (advisory) services is weak and its nutrition policies need strengthening through, for example, time-bound nutrition targets. Hanci revealed that sustained economic growth does not necessarily translate into government commitments to tackle hunger and undernutrition. Ivory Coast and Kenya rank 31 and 34 respectively despite solid economic growth

Obama wants to overhaul ‘wacky’ U.S. food aid system

Humanosphere — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:03:00 +0000

Most Americans are perhaps not aware that our approach to food aid overseas is widely regarded as incredibly inefficient, self-serving and, as The Atlantic recently noted, sort of wacky. At the risk of over-simplifying, the problem with the way we do food assistance to poor countries is that the system has been designed to serve … Continue reading →

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Obama wants to overhaul ‘wacky’ U.S. food aid system

Do hunger and malnutrition make you want to cry? Time to get your HANCI out

From Poverty to Power — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:40:00 +0000

Today sees the launch of the Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index (HANCI), produced by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) with funding from Irish Aid and DFID. It looks like it could become one of the more useful annual league tables. It may not be seen as a progressive view in the UK, but I’m a

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Do hunger and malnutrition make you want to cry? Time to get your HANCI out

Hunger and Poverty: Still Core to the MDG Agenda

TEDxChange — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:05:00 +0000

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Hunger and Poverty: Still Core to the MDG Agenda

Famine in Somalia and the Failure of Data-Driven Humanitarianism

PLoS Medicine Blog — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:16:00 +0000

Andrew Seal and Rob Bailey discuss the limitations of data-driven humanitarian efforts, and the lessons learned from the 2011 Somalia famine. In May 2012, the UN Secretary General published a report on ‘Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations.’ The report identified the need to ‘…build systems to support data-driven humanitarian decision making,’ noting that ‘…the current humanitarian system often struggles to furnish timely and consistently reliable information and analysis in order to provide an appropriate response.’ Perhaps there was a certain irony that the UN report was published just 3 months after the end of the famine in Southern Somalia. One year on from its officially declared end, we reflect on what has been learnt from the various evaluations of the response to the famine, and what that says about the limits to data-driven humanitarian decision making. The 2011 famine in Somalia was the most recent to afflict humankind and one of the best documented. It affected extensive parts of Southern Somalia and is thought to have cost the lives of tens of thousands of people, while hundreds of thousands more fled across the border into Kenya and Ethiopia.

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Famine in Somalia and the Failure of Data-Driven Humanitarianism

Food price volatility and obesity – a new development challenge?

From Poverty to Power — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:30:00 +0000

Continuing on the ‘new development threats’ theme of yesterday’s post on Big Tobacco, the latest issue of the World Bank’s Food Price Watch looks at the links between increasing food price volatility and obesity. A blog post by the Bank’s José Cuesta starts with a nice counter-intuitive quiz (below). The correct answers, by the way are

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Food price volatility and obesity – a new development challenge?

Asia–Pacific Analysis: Refugee malnutrition

SciDev.net — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Child malnutrition among refugees who fled conflict in Myanmar still needs attention, writes Sandy Barron.

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Asia–Pacific Analysis: Refugee malnutrition remains

WHO issues new guidance on dietary salt and potassium

WHO News — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 19:01:00 +0000

31 January 2013 — Adults should consume less than 2,000 mg of sodium, or 5 grams of salt, and at least 3,510 mg of potassium per day, according to new guidelines issued by the WHO.

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WHO issues new guidance on dietary salt and potassium

The Impact of State-Level Nutrition-Education Program Funding on BMI:…

Social Science and Medicine — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Available online 30 January 2013 Publication year: 2013Source:Social Science & Medicine Currently, there is insufficient evidence regarding which policies will improve nutrition, reduce BMI levels and the prevalence of obesity and overweight nationwide. This preliminary study investigates the impact of a nutrition-education policy relative to price policy as a means to reduce BMI in the United States (US). Model estimations use pooled cross-sectional data at the individual-level from the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC), Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), state-level food prices from the American Chamber of Commerce Research Association (ACCRA) and funding for state-specific nutrition-education programs from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 1992 – 2006. The total number of observations for the study is 2,249,713 over 15 years. During this period, federal funding for state-specific nutrition-education programs rose from approximately $660 thousand for seven states to nearly $248 million for all fifty-two states.

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The Impact of State-Level Nutrition-Education Program Funding on BMI:…

Op-Ed: To stop hunger, it’s not enough to change policy; we must…

Humanosphere — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:00:00 +0000

A big new push to end hunger called the IF campaign has laudable aims, but this writer contends real change will only come from tackling unfair trade and the financial sector’s power. Source: Guardian A lot of people will be looking at the If campaign to see if it has the potential to achieve its … Continue reading →

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Op-Ed: To stop hunger, it’s not enough to change policy; we must…

Launch of ‘If’ – new megacampaign to tackle global hunger: how does…

From Poverty to Power — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:00:00 +0000

Sorry for a second post in one day, but the launch of If is a biggie Ah the perils of age – am I becoming one of those annoying old guys who greets every new idea (however excellent) with a weary sigh and ‘we already did/discussed all that back in the 19XXs’? I ask because I

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Launch of ‘If’ – new megacampaign to tackle global hunger: how does…

Two Global Campaigns Launched Focusing On Ending Hunger, Reducing Food…

Kaiser GH Update — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:00:00 +0000

“A coalition of 100 U.K. development charities and faith groups will on Wednesday launch [the If campaign,] a major campaign to lobby David Cameron, the prime minister, to use Britain’s presidency of the G8 to leverage action on ending global hunger,” the Guardian reports. “As well as more money for nutrition programs and small-scale farming, the coalition, which includes Oxfam, Save the Children, ONE, Christian Aid and Tearfund, is calling on the U.K. government to close loopholes that allow companies to dodge paying tax in poor countries; stop international land deals that are detrimental to people and the environment, and lobby the World Bank to review the impact of its funding for such deals; launch a convention on tax transparency at the G8 to ‘reinvigorate the global challenge to tax havens’; and force governments and investors to be more open about their investments in poor countries,” the newspaper writes (Ford, 1/22).

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Two Global Campaigns Launched Focusing On Ending Hunger, Reducing Food…

Horn of Africa ‘should grow more climate-hardy cassava’

SciDev.net — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:15:00 +0000

New varieties of cassava may dramatically increase harvests of the drought-resistant root crop in the Horn of Africa, show Ethiopian tests.

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Horn of Africa ‘should grow more climate-hardy cassava’

WFP Plans To Reach 2.5M People In Syria As Government Expands List Of Local…

Kaiser GH Update — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:30:00 +0000

“The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) plans to reach 2.5 million people inside Syria with food aid — a million more than it is currently assisting — now that the government has expanded the list of local partners it can work with, the agency’s chief said” Wednesday, the U.N. News Centre reports (1/16). “Ertharin Cousin, the WFP head, said on Wednesday that Syria had allowed the organization to work with local aid groups to reach more of those in need,” Al Jazeera writes, adding, “Until now most of the agency’s food aid was delivered through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which was overstretched and only able to provide help to some 1.5 million Syrians a month” (1/16).

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WFP Plans To Reach 2.5M People In Syria As Government Expands List Of Local…