January, 12 2011, 09:11am EDT
State of the World 2011 Shows Agriculture Innovation Is Key to Reducing Poverty, Stabilizing Climate
Report provides a roadmap for food security and agricultural investment, revealing 15 high- and low-tech solutions that are helping to reduce hunger and poverty in Africa
NEW YORK
Worldwatch Institute today released its report State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet,
which spotlights successful agricultural innovations and unearths major
successes in preventing food waste, building resilience to climate
change, and strengthening farming in cities. The report provides a
roadmap for increased agricultural investment and more-efficient ways to
alleviate global hunger and poverty. Drawing from the world's leading
agricultural experts and from hundreds of innovations that are already
working on the ground, the report outlines 15 proven, environmentally
sustainable prescriptions.
"The
progress showcased through this report will inform governments,
policymakers, NGOs, and donors that seek to curb hunger and poverty,
providing a clear roadmap for expanding or replicating these successes
elsewhere," said Worldwatch Institute President Christopher Flavin. "We
need the world's influencers of agricultural development to commit to
longstanding support for farmers, who make up 80 percent of the
population in Africa."
State of the World 2011 comes at a time when many global
hunger and food security initiatives-such as the Obama administration's
Feed the Future program, the Global Agriculture and Food Security
Program (GAFSP), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), and the
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)-can
benefit from new insight into environmentally sustainable projects that
are already working to alleviate hunger and poverty.
Nearly
a half-century after the Green Revolution, a large share of the human
family is still chronically hungry. While investment in agricultural
development by governments, international lenders and foundations has
escalated in recent years, it is still nowhere near what's needed to
help the 925 million people who are undernourished. Since
the mid 1980s when agricultural funding was at its height, the share of
global development aid has fallen from over 16 percent to just 4 percent
today.
In
2008, $1.7 billion dollars in official development assistance was
provided to support agricultural projects in Africa, based on statistics
from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),
a miniscule amount given the vital return on investment. Given the
current global economic conditions, investments are not likely to
increase in the coming year. Much of the more recently pledged funding
has yet to be raised, and existing funding is not being targeted
efficiently to reach the poor farmers of Africa.
"The
international community has been neglecting entire segments of the food
system in its efforts to reduce hunger and poverty," said Danielle
Nierenberg, co-director of Worldwatch's Nourishing the Planet project.
"The solutions won't necessarily come from producing more food, but from
changing what children eat in schools, how foods are processed and
marketed, and what sorts of food businesses we are investing in."
Serving
locally raised crops to school children, for example, has proven to be
an effective hunger- and poverty-reducing strategy in many African
nations, and has strong parallels to successful farm-to-cafeteria
programs in the United States and Europe. Moreover, "roughly 40 percent
of the food currently produced worldwide is wasted before it is
consumed, creating large opportunities for farmers and households to
save both money and resources by reducing this waste," according to
Brian Halweil, Nourishing the Planet co-director.
State of the World 2011 draws from hundreds of case studies and first-person examples to offer solutions to reducing hunger and poverty. These include:
- In
2007, some 6,000 women in The Gambia organized into the TRY Women's
Oyster Harvesting producer association, creating a
sustainableco-management plan for the local oyster fisheryto prevent
overharvesting and exploitation. Oysters and fish are an important,
low-cost source of protein for the population, but current production
levels have led to environmental degradation and to changes in land use
over the last 30 years. The government is working with groups like TRY
to promote less-destructive methods and to expand credit facilities to
low-income producers to stimulate investment in more-sustainable
production.
- In
Kibera, Nairobi, the largest slum in Kenya, more than 1,000 women
farmers are growing "vertical" gardens in sacks full of dirt poked with
holes, feeding their families and communities. These sacks have the
potential to feed thousands of city dwellers while also providing a
sustainable and easy-to-maintain source of income for urban farmers.
With more than 60 percent of Africa's population projected to live in
urban areas by 2050, such methods may be crucial to creating future food
security. Currently, some 33 percent of Africans live in cities, and 14
million more migrate to urban areas each year. Worldwide, some 800
million people engage in urban agriculture, producing 15-20 percent of
all food.
- Pastoralists
in South Africa and Kenya are preserving indigenous varieties of
livestock that are adapted to the heat and drought of local
conditions-traits that will be crucial as climate extremes on the
continent worsen.Africa has the world's largest area of permanent
pasture and the largest number of pastoralists, with 15-25 million
people dependent on livestock.
- The
Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network
(FANRPAN) is using interactive community plays to engage women farmers,
community leaders, and policymakers in an open dialogue about gender
equity, food security, land tenure, and access to resources. Women
in sub-Saharan Africa make up at least 75 percent of agricultural
workers and provide 60-80 percent of the labor to produce food for
household consumption and sale, so it is crucial that they have
opportunities to express their needs in local governance and
decision-making. This entertaining and amicable forum makes it easier
for them to speak openly.
- Uganda's
Developing Innovations in School Cultivation (DISC) program is
integrating indigenous vegetable gardens, nutrition information, and
food preparation into school curriculums to teach children how to grow
local crop varieties that will help combat food shortages and revitalize
the country's culinary traditions. An estimated 33 percent of African
children currently face hunger and malnutrition, which could affect some
42 million children by 2025. School nutrition programs that don't
simply feed children, but also inspire and teach them to become the
farmers of the future, are a huge step toward improving food security.
The State of the World 2011
report is accompanied by other informational materials including
briefing documents, summaries, an innovations database, videos, and
podcasts, all of which are available at www.NourishingthePlanet.org.
The project's findings are being disseminated to a wide range of
agricultural stakeholders, including government ministries, agricultural
policymakers, farmer and community networks, and the increasingly
influential non-governmental environmental and development communities.
In
conducting this research, Worldwatch's Nourishing the Planet project
received unprecedented access to major international research
institutions, including those in the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research(CGIAR) system. The team also
interacted extensively with farmers and farmers' unions as well as with
the banking and investment communities.
The Worldwatch Institute was a globally focused environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C., founded by Lester R. Brown. Worldwatch was named as one of the top ten sustainable development research organizations by Globescan Survey of Sustainability Experts. Brown left to found the Earth Policy Institute in 2000. The Institute was wound up in 2017, after publication of its last State of the World Report. Worldwatch.org was unreachable from mid-2019.
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Bernie Sanders to Netanyahu: 'It Is Not Antisemitic to Hold You Accountable'
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Apr 25, 2024
Jewish U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing statement Thursday pushing back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's characterization of burgeoning protests on American university campuses as "antisemitic," declaring, "It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions."
"No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population."
"Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people," continued Sanders, who lost family members to the Nazi Holocaust. "But, please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government. Do not use antisemitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment you are facing in the Israeli courts."
No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – 70% of whom are women and children.
You will not distract us from this immoral war. pic.twitter.com/oDaiyU4ipD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 25, 2024
Sanders' statement came a day after Netanyahu
falsely described student protesters speaking out against Israel's catastrophic war on Gaza as "antisemitic mobs" and likened the demonstrations to "what happened in German universities in the 1930s."
"It has to be stopped," Netanyahu said of the campus protests, which have faced violent police crackdowns.
Students at Columbia, Princeton, the City College of New York, the University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern, and other schools nationwide are demanding that the institutions divest from any companies that are participating in or benefiting from Israel's war on Gaza and publicly support an immediate cease-fire.
On Wednesday, hundreds of UT Austin students walked out of their classrooms and marched to the main lawn of the campus before police officers with horses and riot gear
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Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at UT Austin, toldAl Jazeera that contrary to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's claim, there was "nothing antisemitic" about Wednesday's protests.
"These students were shouting 'free Palestine,' that's all," said Suri. "They were saying nothing that was threatening. And as they were standing and shouting, I witnessed the police—the state police, the campus police, the city police—an army of police almost the size [of] the student group... many were carrying guns, many were carrying rifles, and then, within a few minutes, this group of police stormed into the student crowd and started arresting students."
In his statement Thursday, Sanders emphasized that criticism of Israel's massively destructive assault on Gaza cannot be conflated with antisemitism.
"It is not antisemitic to note that your government has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure—electricity, water, and sewage," said Sanders, who earlier this week voted against a foreign aid package that included $17 billion in additional U.S. military assistance for Israel.
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A Holocaust survivor opposed to Israel's war on Gaza on Wednesday told U.S. student protesters they're on the right side of history, and that the global wave of demonstrations against the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians will soon force Western leaders to face up to their complicity in genocide.
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"As a Holocaust survivor, my message to the brave student protesters in America is just keep doing it. Don't give up," Kapos said in video published by Double Down News. "We are doing exactly the same, and in the long term we are going to prevail."
Holocaust Survivor Message to US Campus Protesters:
This survivor of the Holocaust is against Genocide in Gaza & conflating Jewishness with Zionism, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.
Your protests are so persistent, large and global that eventually the Western… pic.twitter.com/IDCH0NTO6m
— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) April 24, 2024
Kapos' comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found "plausibly" genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide.
According to Gazan and international officials, more than 122,000 Palestinians have been killed or maimed during 202 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks. This figure includes around 11,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Starvation and dehydration caused by Israel's bombardment and blockade of Gaza are killing children and other vulnerable people.
Instead of condemning Israeli leaders, the Biden administration has lavished them with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli crimes and blocking recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
As the suffering in Gaza continues, U.S. students have set up encampments or staged other forms of protest, some of which have been brutally repressed by police—who have also attacked and arrested journalists and bystanders.
On Wednesday, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored U.S. authorities to crack down even harder on the students, whom he called an "antisemitic mob."
Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that "the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they're doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust."
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Kapos predicted that "today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that."
"Today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it."
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Long before today's growing acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid state, the late Suzanne Weiss—whose parents were murdered in Nazi-occupied France—said in 2010 that "the Palestinians are victims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid" and that "the Israeli government's actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family's experiences under Hitlerism."
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A report published Wednesday found that the number of people around the world suffering acute hunger surged to 282 million last year amid the intensifying climate crisis and military conflicts—including Israel's assault on Gaza—that have further enriched weapons manufacturers.
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Israel's war on Gaza and Russia's assault on Ukraine have been a major boon for the global weapons industry, propelling arms makers to record profits as governments ramp up orders for tanks, howitzers, missiles, and other lethal military equipment.
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Late last year, AFSC created an online database that allows users to see which companies are profiting from Israel's military assault on the Gaza Strip.
WFP's global hunger report was released on the same day U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure containing tens of billions of dollars in additional military assistance for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
Reutersreported Thursday that Lockheed Martin and RTX—major arms manufacturers—"stand to profit" from the aid package's "$95 billion of mostly new weapons funding."
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Farr said Wednesday that "we cannot drastically change course without a global awakening."
"States must prioritize justice and peace over politics, and radically reform global peace and security bodies to protect international law rather than perpetuate impunity," said Farr. "Governments must also rehaul our global food system, tax the rich to invest in the public majority—the small farmers, workers, and vulnerable communities—and support green economies."
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