Issues 89, December 2009
THE GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS

Editorial

The 2009 Global Hunger Index: More Attention to Women’s Role Needed
Joachim von Braun
Recent world events have hit developing countries hard. Improving opportunities for women, especially with regard to education, could significantly reduce hunger and malnutrition.

Food for All: What Australia Can Do?
Denis Blight
The world food crisis is here to stay, or to recur, as long as demand for food outstrips supply. Demand will grow as a growing population looks to eat better and more nutritious food. Will productivity growth in the next 50 years meet growing demand?

Improving Agriculture with Zero Tillage Cropping Systems in Iraq
Colin Piggin, Project Coordinator, International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas, Aleppo, Syria
Australia has been involved in the rehabilitation of agriculture after wars and natural disasters in countries such as Cambodia, East Timor and Afghanistan. The impact of these efforts, such as those underway in Iraq, has been quite astounding, and often includes unforeseen benefits.

Growing More Food Beats Hunger and Boosts Incomes
Nick Austin
On Australia’s doorstep, where millions of people face hunger on a daily basis, Australia is helping smallholder farmers to boost production and improving people’s prosperity.

The Blue Revolution
Colin Chartres
Water scarcity is going to be one of the critical limitations on agricultural production and our ability to feed the growing world population.  However, the overall productivity of water use can be increased to help cope with increasing food demand.

Fish: The Way of the Future?
Meryl J. Williams
The seas, ponds, lakes and rivers play an important role in feeding the world. Meryl Williams explores how fish are produced and some of the interesting challenges facing fish production.

Feeding the World with Grains
Tony Fischer
The yield of grains, the source of much of the world’s food, has risen to exceed world population growth in the past 50 years, resulting in cheaper food for the world’s poor. Can this continue over the next 50 years as world population rises to just over nine billion?

“Hidden Hunger”: Food Security Means Balanced Diets
Dyno Keatinge and Warwick Easdown
Vegies are often overlooked in the global debate on hunger. What solutions can they bring to the current food crisis?

Livestock, Food and Climate Change
Carlos Seré
The 800 million livestock keepers of the developing world are among those communities at greatest risk of climate change. They need technological and policy support to produce the greater amounts of milk, meat and eggs needed to feed the world – and to do so more efficiently with less environmental cost.

Forests and Food: Harvesting the Low-Hanging Fruit
Frances Seymour
Forests have an important role in ensuring food security for hundreds of millions of rural households and the global community. The goods and services that forests contribute to human nutrition and agricultural sustainability deserve greater recognition in the food security debate.

The End of Hunger?
Glenn Denning
Through benign neglect of agriculture, the planet is fast running out of food. The G8 and G20 have pledged to increase funding to smallholder agriculture, but is the end of hunger an attainable goal?

Biodiversity Conservation and Food Security
Tony Gregson
Agricultural biodiversity is often seen simply as a source of interesting traits to improve crops and livestock. However, it can deliver far more than that if given the opportunities.