SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
food and agriculture organization
UN Says Food Availability Has Hit 'All-Time Low' in Gaza as Forced Famine Takes Hold
"The window of opportunity to deliver assistance is now, today, not tomorrow," said the deputy director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Dec 03, 2024
A top official at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday that food availability across Gaza has reached "an all-time low" under Israel's suffocating blockade, which has heavily restricted the entrance of lifesaving humanitarian assistance and plunged the enclave into famine.
"Food supply has sharply deteriorated," FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol said at a conference in Cairo, Egypt. "The window of opportunity to deliver assistance is now, today, not tomorrow. Food, medicine, and fuel are self-evident priorities, but we must also prioritize the ability to grow food locally where it is needed most to ensure survival."
Bechdol's grim assessment came weeks after the Biden administration pressured Israel to improve conditions on the ground in Gaza, which has been utterly devastated by more than a year of bombing.
Aid organizations say that far from improving, Gaza's humanitarian crisis has only gotten worse since the Biden administration threatened to cut off the supply of U.S. weapons to Israel. Last month, the U.S. effectively dropped its pressure campaign by concluding that Israel was not violating international law by blocking American humanitarian assistance.
Most of Gaza's population is currently experiencing "high levels of food insecurity," according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) figures, and the "risk of Famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip."
"The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity. The nightmare must stop."
In addition to obstructing aid deliveries, Israeli forces have decimated Gaza's agricultural infrastructure and cropland, repeatedly attacked aid workers, and facilitated the looting of humanitarian supplies, fueling desperation among Gaza's starving population. Last week, as The Associated Pressreported, "two children and a woman were crushed to death... as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza Strip amid a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory."
Amina Mohammed, the U.N.'s deputy secretary-general, said at the Cairo conference on Monday that "conditions for Palestinians in Gaza are appalling and apocalyptic," with malnutrition running "rampant" and famine "imminent."
"In the past four months alone, nearly 19,000 children were hospitalized due to acute malnutrition—nearly double the cases in the first half of the year," Mohammed said. "In the face of the gigantic needs, humanitarian aid is—outrageously—being blocked. This flies in the face of the clear requirements under international humanitarian law to respect and to protect civilians and to ensure their essential needs are met."
"It's past time for an immediate cease-fire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages," she added. "The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity. The nightmare must stop. We cannot continue to look away."
Keep ReadingShow Less
730 Million People—Including 20% of Africans—Faced Hunger Last Year
Jul 24, 2024
More than 730 million people around the world faced hunger last year, including 1 in 5 Africans, with over half a billion people set to be chronically malnourished by the decade's end if current trends continue, according to a report published Wednesday by a United Nations agency.
One in 11 people globally went hungry in 2023, the latest U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report revealed.
"The report shows that the world has been set back 15 years, with levels of undernourishment comparable to those in 2008-2009," according to the FAO. "An alarming number of people continue to face food insecurity and malnutrition as global hunger levels have plateaued for three consecutive years."
"Hunger is not something natural. Hunger is something that requires a political decision."
The agency noted significant variation in regional trends as "the percentage of the population facing hunger continues to rise in Africa (20.4%), remains stable in Asia (8.1%)—though still representing a significant challenge as the region is home to more than half of those facing hunger worldwide—and shows progress in Latin America (6.2%)."
"If current trends continue, about 582 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030, half of them in Africa," FAO said, warning that "the world is falling significantly short of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger, by 2030."
FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said in a statement that "transforming agrifood systems is more critical than ever as we face the urgency of achieving the SDGs within six short years. FAO remains committed to supporting countries in their efforts to eradicate hunger and ensure food security for all."
"We will work together with all partners and with all approaches, including the G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, to accelerate the needed change," Qu added. "Together, we must innovate and collaborate to build more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agrifood systems that can better withstand future challenges for a better world."
FAO argued that "achieving SDG 2 Zero Hunger requires a multifaceted approach, including transforming and strengthening agrifood systems, addressing inequalities, and ensuring affordable and accessible healthy diets for all."
"It calls for increased and more cost-effective financing, with a clear and standardized definition of financing for food security and nutrition," the agency added.
The new report comes ahead of this November's scheduled G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty Task Force Ministerial Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On Wednesday, Qu praised Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—who currently chairs the G20—for centering food security in the bloc's agenda.
In the 2000s, Lula's leftist government implemented plans including Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) and Bolsa Familia (Family Allowance) that significantly reduced malnutrition and poverty in Brazil.
"We need to build on the progress achieved in this region, and share this experience with other regions, especially Africa," Qu said.
Speaking in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, Lula said that "hunger is not something natural. Hunger is something that requires a political decision."
Cindy McCain, executive director of the U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP), said Wednesday that "a future free from hunger is possible if we can rally the resources and the political will needed to invest in proven long-term solutions."
"I call on G20 leaders to follow Brazil's example and prioritize ambitious global action on hunger and poverty," she continued. "We have the technologies and know-how to end food insecurity—but we urgently need the funds to invest in them at scale."
"WFP is ready to step up our collaboration with governments and partners to tackle the root causes of hunger, strengthen social safety nets, and support sustainable development so every family can live in dignity," McCain added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Big Ag Pressured UN Food Agency Over Role of Meat and Dairy in Climate Crisis, Staffers Say
"Wherever you go, whatever you do, if it involves revealing anything about the devastating impacts of animal agriculture... you are beaten down for it," said one advocate.
Oct 20, 2023
A landmark report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization forced global policymakers to consider greenhouse gas emissions from livestock and the corporate farming industry nearly two decades ago—and current and former officials at the agency revealed Friday that they were subjected to censorship and internal pressure from meat and dairy industry lobbyists for years afterwards, with ramifications that likely persist today.
As policymakers prepare to discuss agriculture and the climate crisis at the upcoming 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), The Guardian spoke to 20 former and current FAO officials about the response from the industry after the FAO revealed in 2006 that about 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions were attributable to livestock.
Between 2006 and at least 2019, the staffers said, FAO management frequently tried to suppress further investigations into the connection between livestock, factory farming, and the climate crisis—in an attempt to prevent the agency from building on its findings in the landmark report.
Big Ag lobbyists were a major driver of the suppression attempts, said ex-officials.
"There was substantial pressure internally and there were consequences for permanent staff who worked on this, in terms of their careers."
"They had a strong impact on the way things were done at the FAO and there was a lot of censorship," said one of the former staffers, many of whom spoke anonymously. "It was always an uphill struggle getting the documents you produced past the office for corporate communications and one had to fend off a good deal of editorial vandalism."
The "editorial vandalism" included the rewriting and diluting of key passages regarding greenhouse gas emissions and livestock, while management also "buried" a paper critical of Big Ag. Some officials who focused on the issue were excluded from meetings and summits.
"It's not that anyone would come to you and say: 'Stop this! We don't like this work,'" one former official told The Guardian. "They would just make your work difficult. They would not invite you to a meeting with a donor. You would not get a slot when you should be speaking. You would not get the support from project development, from capacity building, from all kinds of other units in the FAO that others would get."
Henning Steinfeld, the head of the FAO's livestock policy division who led the publication of the 2006 report, titled Livestock's Long Shadow, toldThe Guardian that he and like-minded staffers came to be seen as "a pest that needs to be eradicated," while lobbyists for the meat and dairy industries, which were each valued at close to $1 trillion in recent years, complained that the FAO had "fallen into the hands of vegan activists."
"There was substantial pressure internally and there were consequences for permanent staff who worked on this, in terms of their careers," said another former official. "It wasn't really a healthy environment to work in."
Joanna Randall, a plant-based food advocacy campaigner with the Humane Society International in the U.K., said considering the "absolutely historic impact" that the FAO's 2006 report had on public understanding of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by livestock, she was "absolutely not" surprised to learn about the censorship that followed.
The Guardian noted that the pressure felt by officials in recent years at FAO may have resulted in questionable official estimates regarding the current state of methane emissions from livestock and their contribution to planetary heating.
After estimating in 2006 that 18% of global emissions came from livestock, a 2013 paper by the agency claimed the number ws only 14.5%. The FAO currently estimates that about 11.2% of emissions are attributed to the meat and dairy industry.
"This seems counter-intuitive, given that during the same period, the FAO recorded a 39% increase in global meat production," The Guardiannoted.
Other studies completed outside the FAO have concluded between 16.5% and 20% of greenhouse gas emissions come from animal products
"It's no coincidence that industry's involvement has led to lower overall relative estimates of emissions for livestock," University of Miami environmental science professor Jennifer Jacquet told the outlet. "Industry was taken aback by Livestock's Long Shadow. It caught them on the backfoot and they had to regroup, double down, and figure out how to get control of the narrative—and over the science to some degree."
At COP28 next month, policymakers will participate in the first-ever dedicated "food day" at a U.N. climate change summit, and will discuss food, agriculture, and water at at least 22 major events at the conference in Dubai.
"The emissions from farming is a huge driver of the climate crisis," Jennifer Larbie of Christian Aid told The Guardian, "and one which needs to be tackled at COP28 if we are to keep global heating in check."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular