sécurité alimentaire

The Guidelines on Land, Fisheries and Forests delivered today by the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) are a first essential step but there’s still a long road ahead before peoples’ rights to land, fisheries and forests are fully recognized and respected.

According to a recent field study conducted in communities in western and eastern Niger, between 70 and 90 per cent of people estimate their food stocks will run out before the next harvest, creating an imminent ‘hunger gap’.

Humanitarian actors are concerned by the early depletion of food reserves of many Nigerien families and warn of the risk of aggravation of the food and nutrition crisis if the aid response is not rapidly reinforced.

Burundi has alarming levels of food insecurity for a country dependent on agriculture: 72 per cent of the population do not have reliable access to enough food.

In the last year extreme weather events shocked global markets contributing to soaring wheat prices and imperiling food security in many parts of the world, according to research compiled by Oxfam at the start of the Durban climate talks.

This report by the Sahel Working Group discusses the chronic food and nutrition crisis across countries in the Sahel.

The UN’s Committee on World Food Security today showed that it is up to its role as the central body of the global governance on food security, agriculture and nutrition. However a number of governments showed that they are not yet ready to address the structural causes of the broken food system.

The new wave of land deals is not the new investment in agriculture that millions had been waiting for. The poorest people are being hardest hit as competition for land intensifies.

The G20 must scrap their most damaging biofuel policies and demand more open information about food stocks as part of urgent measures needed to tackle global food price volatility.