1 Billion Hungry Mobilizes (Q&A)

by NourishingthePlanet

Q&A with Sharon Lee Cowan, Project Manager of “The 1 Billion Hungry Project”, a worldwide petition project launched by the FAO and partner organizations dedicated to pushing chronic hunger as a priority on national and international political agendas.

What is the goal number of signatures?
Our initial goal was to collect one million signatures on the petition to end hunger, and to present these results to national leaders in late October.  We felt that a million was significant to get people’s attention, to be an indicator that there IS popular demand for an end to hunger and also achievable in a short period of time between mid-May and late October. For logistical reasons the date for presentation to governments was later shifted to 29 November, so we will likely end up overshooting the original goal.  We are already at well over 900,000 signatures.

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/...

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Scary Evidence of Climate Crisis I Saw With My Own Eyes

by Jill Richardson

Last month, I spent 2 weeks in Bolivia, researching food and agriculture there. Toward the end of the trip, we headed south to the department of Oruro (they divide the country into 9 departments, which are then subdivided into provinces). The trip began with a few presentations on the climate crisis, and throughout the trip, our guides pointed out the receding glaciers on the mountains. People we met commented again and again about the flood last January, the rains being late this spring, etc.

But this was all known. Then, on the 9th day of the trip, we ran into a surprise. It was one more indication of global warming, but it was something that even our guide had not observed before.

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Texting on the Farm: Mobile Technology Provides Farmers with Useful Information in India

by NourishingthePlanet

According to the U.N. Population Division, over 70 percent of Indians live in rural areas and over half of all Indians are farmers. Yet access to technology and information in many areas is limited, meaning farmers are often left uninformed and at the mercy of erratic weather and disease and pest outbreaks. And even in good growing conditions, farmers may not have access to price information that could help them negotiate with buyers or decide which markets to bring their products to.

But across rural India, mobile phones are quickly becoming an indispensable tool for farmers, helping to shrink the information gap.

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/...

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It Takes a Region: A Working Conference to Build Our Northeast Food System

by gmoke

IT TAKES A REGION - 2010:
A  WORKING CONFERENCE TO BUILD OUR NORTHEAST FOOD SYSTEM

EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION ENDS TODAY!!  
WHEN:            November 12-13, 2010
                        Pre-conference trainings on November 11

WHERE:           Desmond Hotel and Conference Center, Albany, NY (Lodging availability not guaranteed after 10-19)

CHECK OUT THE GREAT AGENDA along with CONFERENCE INFORMATION: Visit http://www.ittakesaregion.org.

REGISTRATION: EARLY DEADLINE is Friday, OCTOBER 22.
Limited scholarships  available. Link to online registration via http://www.ittakesaregion.org.

HOSTED BY: the NORTHEAST SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE WORKING GROUP http://www.nefood.org. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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US Croplands, Climate Change, Biofuels and, um, Science.

by NNadir

I don't know if you've ever had occassion to sit at the dinner table with religious fundementalists and discuss science.

I have.   (I have, in fact, sat in the laboratory, and discussed science with religious fundementalists, but let's not talk about that.)

One of the more fun conversations like this - dinner table, not laboratory - involved a family member, who I happen to know has never opened a science book seriously in her life - informing all of the members of our family that "everything in the Bible has been verified by science."  

This is not by itself even remotely interesting except to inform us on one level about the prestige of science, since in former times science was only considered valid if it conformed to religion whereas, subtly without all that much notice, religions now seek validity from science and not the other way around.

Science has become a cultural talisman worldwide.   As it happens, the paper from the primary scientific literature comes from the journal Science...

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Maybe we should call it World Hunger Day Instead?

by rebb

postscript (even though it is at the beginning . .. )About 195 million children currently suffer from malnutrition. As I watched my 4 year old eat her dinner after writing this post, all I could think about was the unbearable pain that a parent unable to feed her child must suffer.

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Making Water Clean with Dirt (New 2 Minute Episode of Nourishing the Planet TV)

by NourishingthePlanet

In this week’s episode, Nourishing the Planet research intern, Elena Davert, introduces a counter-intuitive method of cleaning water. In 2004 Peter Njodzeka founded the Life and Water Development Group Cameroon (LWDGC) with a rather simple goal. “ I wanted to see the people in my area have clean water,” he said. “And we kept expanding. That’s how it started.” Now, LWDGC, with support from Engineers without Borders (EWB) and Thirst Relief International, is teaching households how to use dirt and bacteria to clean their water, greatly improving the quality of drinking water and all but eliminating diseases caused by contaminated water.

Here is the link: http://bit.ly/...

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What plant is a "supermarket on a trunk"?

by NourishingthePlanet

Moringa: The Giving Tree

Referred to as a “supermarket on a trunk,” moringa is potentially one of the planet’s most valuable plants. Serving not only as a reliable source of diverse foods, moringa also provides lamp oil, wood, paper, liquid fuel, skin treatments, and the means to help purify water.  But despite its multiple uses, and well-earned nickname, the tree is relatively unknown to most people in the United States.

Referred to as a “supermarket on a trunk,” moringa is potentially one of the planet’s most valuable plants.

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eKos: Bee Colony Collapse Mystery Clues Revealed

by FishOutofWater

An unlikely hybrid team of researchers - military security experts, interested in using bees to detect explosives, working with university of Montana entomologists - have uncovered clues to the mysterious colony collapse disorder that has wiped out 40% of U.S. honeybee colonies. When the university researchers' hives were hit by colony collapse, they were able to gather molecular clues from the dead bees. A disease caused by a combination of a fungus and a virus appears to have killed the bees.

Dead bees were found to have a combination of viral and fungal proteins at much higher than normal levels.

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Haitian Farmers: Growing Strength to Grow Food

by Bev Bell

Rony Charles, a rice grower and member of the Agricultural Producer Cooperative of Verrettes, said, “Instead of foreigners sending us food, they should give us the chance to do our own agriculture so it can survive.”

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MN Documentary "Troubled Waters" WILL be shown!

by Dr Envirocrat

Many people participated in the discussion on bobtmn's diary, University of Minnesota Cancels Agriculture Documentary. The story was horrible - an environmental documentary from a respected university seemingly cancelled because of corporate influence within the University of Minnesota. If you didn't read the diary, I urge you to do so.

But there is good news here in the heartland. It turns out that "Troubled Waters" will be shown after all. More on the flip side...

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University of Minnesota Cancels Agriculture Documentary (update*3)

by bobtmn

The UofM, my Alma Mater, and that of my kids, today embarrassed me and our state by suppressing the public broadcast of a film about the effect of large scale farming on our rivers and ground water.

The  premier was scheduled for October 5 on public television.  It had already been published and promoted.  Suddenly, a Vice President of the University, whose husband is a lobbyist representing corporate agriculture in Minnesota, decided to take it on herself to cancel the broadcast.  The newspaper quotes a representative as saying the documentary was not "Fair and Balanced".  

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NtP TV: Acting it Out for Advocacy

by NourishingthePlanet

Nourishing the Planet is excited to introduce a whole new way to experience innovative projects and practices that are helping to alleviating hunger and poverty around the world. A new weekly video series, NtP TV brings you images, interviews and more in-depth information about different agricultural innovation. Get to know the NtP team and the innovations we are highlighting regularly, and stay tuned for more NtP TV in the coming weeks!

In this week's episode, Nourishing the Planet Research Fellow, Molly Theobald, highlights Food and Natural Resource Policy Analysis Network's (FANRPAN) Theatre for Policy Advocacy project to explain how the organization is using theater to help improve the livelihoods of rural farmers -- especially women.

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Most new farmland cut from tropical forests {Earthship Friday}

by eKos

Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for green diaries and series.

Beneath the fold you will find news and notes, community announcements, and our eco-diary roundup.

Peruse the eKos Library to find previously listed diaries. You can also follow eKos on Twitter.

Tonight's editor: patrickz

Please remember to rec the BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 101

All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.

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Staying Tuned for More Innovations

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet

Listen to Radio Fanaka Fana and Radio Jigiya, in the Fana and Zégoua regions of Mali, and you are much more likely to hear tips for improving compost piles and soil quality than you are pop music hits or current events. That’s because the station is participating in Farm Radio International’s Africa Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI), a project to test the viability of using radio as a tool for spreading agricultural information to farmers throughout Africa.

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Urgent: Pavlovsk Seed Repository In Jeopardy - Action Item

by the fan man

The Pavlovsk Seed Repository and Gardens, located outside of Lennigrad, houses an extremely rare collection food crops seeds and living specimens of fruit trees including apple & cherry, berry plants (over 100 varieties of gooseberries and raspberries)and black currants, 9 out of 10 of which are found no where else in the world. During the WWII siege of Lenningrad, the Institute's scientists risked starvation rather than eat or allow starving residents to eat the repository's collection of wheat and potato seed. I had the privilege of meeting one of the scientists who risked death to save this collection at a Slow Food Presidia event in Turin many years ago. Through a translator, I thanked her for dedication and her fortitude. As we shook hands, I tried to imagine the physical and mental stress of having to choose between food today, and a nation's food supply in years to come. Having survived this brush with extinction, it was incredibly painful to hear that a Russian court recently ruled that the estate could be demolished to make way for a housing development.

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Understanding Consumers’ Responses to Genetic Engineering

by NourishingthePlanet

This is the third and final part of an interview with plant geneticist Pamela Ronald and organic farmer Raoul Adamchak. They are co-authors of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food. You can also feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 on the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

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Cinque Terre: an enchanted photo journey

by citisven

This April, after Eyjafjallajökull had thwarted a planned visit of an old friend in Spain and stranded us in my native Germany, my partner Deb and I spontaneously decided to take my dad's car to explore relatively nearby Italy instead. Our first stop on our impromptu tour was Cinque Terre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and National Park consisting of five villages located along beautifully terraced hillsides on the Ligurian coast.

While it was bound to be a marvelous vacation, I did not expect to be stepping into a model study for ecocities and villages, which, for those of you who know me, inevitably put me in trigger-happy and note-taking research mode...

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The Many Misconceptions About Genetic Engineering and Organic Agriculture

by NourishingthePlanet

This is the second of three parts of an interview with plant geneticist Pamela Ronald and her husband, organic farmer Raoul Adamchak. They are co-authors of the book Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food. Check out Nourishing the Planet for more and our Daily Kos diary on Tuesday for the first part of the series.

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Large Scale Land Investments Do Not Benefit Local Communities

by NourishingthePlanet

In April 2010, more than 120 farmers’ groups and non-governmental organizations all across the world signed a statement declaring their opposition to the guiding principles endorsed by the World Bank, the FAO, IFAD and UNCTAD on "responsible" land investments.

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