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Reducing food loss and waste to address climate change in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia

Jan 8th, 2025 • by Nandita Srivastava

The problem of food loss and waste (FLW) undermines global food and nutrition security and makes a significant contribution to climate change, primarily through greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Reducing or minimizing FLW requires coordinated action to align stakeholders, promote responsible investments, and incentivize sustainable agricultural practices.

From space to soil: Advancing crop mapping and ecosystem insights for smallholder agriculture in Kenya

Jan 2nd, 2025 • by Zhe Guo, Upeksha Hettiarachchi, and Wei Zhang

Crop mapping—identifying what farmers are growing on their fields—is essential to agricultural and land use planning and management. It is used to generate yield estimates and crop acreage statistics, predict food prices and assess damages from disasters and also to evaluate ecosystem health—all functions essential for agricultural export nations such as Kenya.

Famine Continues to Spread in Sudan: New IPC Alert Released

Dec 24th, 2024 • by Sara Gustafson and Rob Vos

As the conflict in Sudan enters its twentieth month, acute food insecurity in the country is spreading rapidly. According to a new alert from the IPC Famine Review Committee, Famine conditions have been identified in five areas of the country, with an additional five areas expected to face Famine between December 2024 and March 2025. As many as 17 additional areas are at risk of Famine, and half the country’s population—24.6 million people—is currently experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity.

Commercialization carries both benefits and challenges for agricultural households

Dec 16th, 2024 • by Sara Gustafson

Creating opportunities to more effectively link farmers in Africa south of the Sahara with local, regional, and global markets has become a key development focus in recent years. However, questions remain about the impacts that increased agricultural commercialization may have on household food consumption and food and nutrition security. A recent article in Food Security examines such impacts in Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe and finds both positive and negative trade-offs to increased market integration.

A shock to the (food) system: Using new IFPRI tools to evaluate household food security outcomes

Dec 12th, 2024 • by Andrew Comstock, Olivier Ecker, and Eleanor Jones

Recent crises and shocks have eroded food security in many countries. These crises take many forms. Some are global shocks, such as a sharp rise in food commodity prices in world markets. Some are local shocks—for instance, flooding from an extreme weather event, or another from the ever-increasing list of climate impacts.