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Calling for a new type of “food democracy” that would start from the bottom and nourish those facing hunger in the midst of abundance, President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann today opened the General Assembly’s Interactive Thematic Dialogue on the Global Food Crisis and the Right to Food.

Olivier De Schutter: UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food

CSD-17 presents a unique opportunity for global governance to rise above the selfish interests of individual countries and regional blocks to work towards sustainable development worldwide, writes Nnimmo Bassey. But, he warns, a complicated negotiation text lacking in ideas to galvanise nations into acting in solidarity, is likely to maintain the status quo. Bassey expresses

Commenting on the declaration published today following the first G8 meeting dedicated to agriculture, Greenpeace said that the G8 Agriculture Ministers appear to be taking one step forward in putting agriculture and food security at the heart of the international agenda, but two steps back because they have failed to present proposals that will effectively

An assorted alliance of organizations published an open letter this Thursday, January 15, in the U.S. and internationally, warning of the dangers of industrially produced biofuels (called agrofuels by critics). The letter explains why large-scale industrial production of transport fuels and other energy from plants such as corn, sugar cane, oilseeds, trees, grasses, or so-called

On January 13th 2009 The European Parliament adopted by 482 votes to 24, with 59 abstentions, a resolution on the Common Agricultural Policy and Global Food Security. The resolution affirms that global food security is a question of the utmost urgency for the European Union and calls for immediate and continual action to ensure food

Don’t forget about agriculture in the upcoming global negotiations to combat climate change, experts warn. Not only is farming most at risk in an increasingly variable and tempestuous climate, it is also a major emitter of greenhouse gases. But with the right policies in place, agriculture could both continue to feed the world and play

As the world’s population approaches ten billion, issues like climate change, growing scarcity of oil and availability of quality land and water are challenging the planet’s capacity to produce enough food for everyone – a paradigm shift that could potentially pave the way for a new global ‘food crunch’.

At a World Food Programme summit, Gordon Brown said he will try to negotiate a new fund to help the world’s poorest through the economic downturn at April’s G20 meeting. Yet increased funding will not solve everything, says UNESCO’s Koichiro Matsuura. He outlines UNESCO’s efforts to inform decision-makers and explains what he thinks can create

Each month Andrew Simms is analysing how much closer the world has moved to catastrophic climate change. Desperate times might seem to call for desperate measures. And there is a tendency is to make a grab for the first and apparently the easiest solution to come to hand. In this context, magic-bullet technological fixes are