Rural transformation

SIANI reported from the IUCN World Conservation Congress in South Korea between the 6-8th September participating in events relating to Food Security.  We produced daily digests from the events we attended and these you can find below.

A seminar co-organised between Focali, School of Global Studies at University of Gothenburg and Centre for Environment and Sustainability (GMV) was held last week in Gothenburg where presentations were made on current multi-disciplinary research in Burkina Faso on the topics of forests, climate and livelihoods.

You can find the official reporting from the event here

On March 19 and 20th 2015 the Chulalongkorn University School of Agricultural Resources (CUSAR) in Bangkok hosted a small expert group discussion followed the next day by a Public Forum and Academic Dialogue on “Higher Education for Sustainable Agriculture (HESA) and Food Security in Thailand.”  Government officials, scholars, international agency repre

Matthew Fielding and Madeleine Fogde from SIANI participated in the Swedish Delegation to the Committee on World Food Security CFS 40 in Rome  October 7-11. The CFS is the most important intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder platform to follow up on food security and nutrition policies .

Global forecast for 2050 is a continued growing, increasingly urbanized and more affluent population, which, most likely, will demand both more food and more water intensive food. As a result, the pressure on already stressed water resources for food production will increase further.

A gender lens was applied to a wide range of agricultural research topics in one of the parallel sessions on Thursday morning (Sep 26th). As is often the case at the gender related discussions, a female dominated audience filled the room and speakers and facilitator were all women. However, as the session commenced about a quarter of seats were occupied by men.

Substantial pre- and post-harvest losses occur as a result of inefficiencies of the agricultural value chain. Reducing losses caused by pest destruction, inefficient storage, and crop contamination would directly contribute to greater food security. One of the sessions at the Agri4D Conference was devoted to this particular issue.

In 2008 the world’s urban population exceeded the rural population for the first time in the history. This urbanization process is happening together with growing urban poverty and food insecurity and this trend is set to continue. 

Animal production represents more than a half of global agricultural output. Livestock products are generally more costly than arable crops and their consumption is still low in low-income countries.