Ban Ki-moon appoint Gerda Verbrg, new coordinator SUN Movement

NaijaAgroNet:

The Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Mr. Ban Ki-moon has appointed former German Agriculture Minister, Gerda Verburg as the new Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Mr. Ki-moon, NaijaAgroNet gave this approve in February 2016 with the anticipation that Madam Gerda Verburg will assume full office by August 2, 2016.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that Gerda had participated in the 2016 Women Deliver Conference on May 16 through 19, to demonstrate that empowering women is essential for sustaining improvements in the nutrition status of everyone, everywhere. 

She spoke recently at the European Development Days held between June 15 and 16, about the centrality of nutrition to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the action needed from European development partners to build country nutrition capacity.

NaijaAgroNet also gathered that this came as SUN countries in the last quarter, shared their experiences through two virtual meetings of the SUN Country Network, discussing national commitments and setting nutrition targets, and the steps you are taking to build and sustain political commitment for nutrition action.

Arnold said, SUN Countries from across Asia came together in a regional workshop, held in Bangkok on April 25 through 27, to mobilise public finance for nutrition and another workshop to be held in Nairobi, Kenya between August 22 and 25, 2016 for African SUN countries.

SUN, is a unique movement founded on the principle that all people have a right to food and good nutrition and tends to unite people from governments, civil society, the United Nations, donors, businesses and researchers—in a collective effort to improve nutrition.

Remmy Nweke/ED, Ops

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 Pix: Gerda Verburg

UN agencies provide seeds, tools and food to drought stricken areas

NaijaAgroNet:

Two United Nations (UN) agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have commenced provision of seeds, hand tools and food to nearly 50,000 hungry farming families in the most food-insecure areas of the Central African Republic (CAR), NaijaAgroNet reports.

This, NaijaAgroNet gathered is being done under the ‘seed protection’ initiative of the UN in which FAO uses to provide crop and vegetable seeds, while WFP provides groundnuts, maize, rice, sorghum, and beans to the same families.

The FAO country representative Jean-Alexandre Scaglia, said that “critical we make sure families don't cope with the current scarcity by eating their seeds meant for planting”, while the WFP Central African Republic Country Director, BienvenuDjossa, said that the food provided by WFP ensures that the seeds get planted and families don't go hungry at the same time, saying, "Our support now can help people escape the vicious cycle of hunger."

It was gathered by NaijaAgroNet that the exercise is being funded by governments of Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the African Development Bank, the European Union and ECHO, the FondsBêkou, the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund, the Common Humanitarian Fund for the Central African Republic, UN Women, and the World Bank.

NaijaAgroNet further gathered that another 50,000 families will be supported during the second planting season in August/September, meaning 100,000 families in total (500,000 people) will be supported under the initiative this year, which is not enough as the WFP requires US$83 million to respond to the urgent needs of 1.4 million people until the end of September in CAR and in neighbouring countries hosting Central African Republic refugees, while the FAO is appealing for US$86 million to support 1.55 million people with inputs to produce crops and keep their livestock healthy, and strengthen the government's efforts to boost food security. However, there is a serious funding gap, to date only 8 percent of these requirements have been met.

Okoli Vincent/GEE

 

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Food security: UN, EU launch global network for joint assessments, coordinated action

NaijaAgroNet:

A new network to achieve joint global food-security assessments and joint responses to food crises, including those related to phenomena such as El Niño, was launched in Istanbul Monday by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the European Union, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Global Network for Food Insecurity, Risk Reduction and Food Crises Response, NaijaAgroNet gathered, would pave the way for enhancing the impact of future responses to food crises at the global level by regularly producing, in real time, joint reports based on key analyses and containing timely response options.

According to FAO, this will prompt coordination among stakeholders and promote joint planning and joint responses to food crises, in addition, to improving learning from past crises and increase the level of transparency and availability of crucial analysis of global needs.

The "Global Network" and its outputs are public goods, available for everybody. Participation in the network will be broadened to all key stakeholders that can contribute to the analysis and/or to the response. The network’s pilot publication “Global analysis of food and nutrition security situation in food crisis hotspots 2016” is the example that a joint analysis is possible. It covers 70 countries affected by a food crisis in 2015, including chronically vulnerable countries at or above Phase 2 of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). 

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Over $20m needed to rescue Nepal farmers – FAO

NaijaAgroNet

Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as part of the revised United Nations (UN) Flash Appeal for Nepal has said over $20 million is urgently needed to support farmers in earthquake-hit Nepal to resume agricultural activities, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The organization seeking to starve off the threat of prolonged food insecurity facing an estimated one million people, NaijaAgroNet learnt has received only 13 per cent of the $23.4 million emergency agricultural assistance.

The disaster, according to an FAO-led Agricultural Livelihood Impact Appraisal, has disrupted agricultural activities threatening the livelihoods of rural families, hitting hard in six Nepal districts causing half of all farming households to lose nearly all of their stored crops of rice, maize, wheat and millet, with some 16 percent of cattle and 36 percent of poultry lost in the disaster creating a detrimental effect on rural household consumption and income.

A representative of FAO in Nepal, Somsak Pipoppinyo told NaijaAgroNet that two-thirds of Nepalis depend on farming for their livelihood, "agriculture is a critical priority because two-thirds of Nepalis depend on farming for their livelihoods,’ he added that,’current levels of international assistance for Nepal's earthquake-affected farmers will deliver ‘only a fraction’ of the assistance urgently required."

Somsak also stressed that there is limited window to act, noting how rice seeds have to be distributed urgently before the start of the heavy monsoon rains which are expected to arrive in the coming days.

In addition, FAO’s appraisal team, noted that the repair and functioning of irrigation systems will be critical for the winter cropping season, as well as barley and wheat seeds and recommends that the most urgent needs for the current cropping season are seeds and fertilizers, followed by irrigation, tools and technical support, as well as urgent shelter, feed water, medicine and vaccinations, for livestock breeding.

NaijaAgroNet learnt that the organization has received around $3 million for emergency relief from Belgium, Italy and Norway; which has aided it to distribute 40,000 (5 kilogram) bags of rice seeds to the six most-affected districts of Dhading, Dolakha, Gorkha, Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Sindhupalchowk, in time for farmers to plant before the monsoon.

Daniel Nsolibe/GEE

  

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Adopt Forest and Land-use policies to alleviate global hunger – IUFRO

NaijaAgroNet

International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), at a United Nations Forum on Forests in New York, called on countries with big forest-dependent population to adopt national policies and land-use strategies that support the planting of multi-functional trees to provide food, timber, fuel wood, medicine and a host of environmental services that could access safe nutritious food for all, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The Union, NaijaAgroNet gathered, estimates that some 805 million people – one in nine citizens of Earth – are undernourished, primarily in Africa and Asia. At the same time, between 1.2 and 1.5 billion people worldwide depend on forests for all or most of their diet and livelihood.  

Stepha Mcmullin, social scientist and member of the Union report’s Authors, also concurred that forests and tree-based farming systems such as agroforestry can complement agricultural production to ensure greater food security and better nutrition for some of the world's most vulnerable communities.

“If you're familiar with shade-grown coffee, then you have an idea of what agroforestry is all about. By planting fruit trees and other useful species, selectively weeding and otherwise managing the forests as intensively as any farmer might tend their fields and rotate their crops; people all over the world have created gardens that resemble natural forests in many ways, including providing suitable habitat for a diverse array of flora and fauna.” He said.

McMullin who, NaijaAgroNet gathered, advocated that forests and tree-based systems also benefit people indirectly, sited an instance in the Sahel region of Africa, noting that by planting trees, poor farmers have turned millions of acres of what had become semi-desert by the 1980s into more productive land, where trees now account for 80 per cent of average household incomes in the region, largely through shea-nut production.

Coordinator of IUFRO’s Global Forest Expert Panels initiative, Christoph Wildburger, told NaijaAgroNet that tree-based farming can help prevent climate change calamities, which is also a threat, not just to the productivity of agroforests but to conventional agricultural operations, as well.

“Large-scale crop production is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, which may occur more frequently under climate change. Science shows that tree-based farming can adapt far more better to such calamities. We know that forest already play a key role in mitigating the effects of climate change. It should also be made very clear that they also play a key role in alleviating hunger and improving nutrition.” He said.

Ultimately, lack of community control over forests and, of course, deforestation could limit the abilities of forests to enhance food security. Forest management in most countries is fragmented across different governmental agencies and administrative jurisdictions.

Daniel Nsolibe /Ed, Ops.

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