Without January rains, one of two heifers will be sold

Co-operator editor Laura Rance is travelling on a media food study tour with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Updates are being posted on the Co-operator website at www.manitobacooperator.ca. The highway southwest of Addis Ababa to Wolayto-Soddo is wide and smooth, but there is no such thing in Ethiopia as setting the cruise control and just cruising,

European agency launches food security initiative

London | Reuters — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development launched an initiative Nov. 28 to boost food security through private-sector investment to unlock the production potential of suppliers like Russia. The lending institution, which has traditionally focused on emerging European economies, announced in Novembera it planned to expand operations to the Middle East


European agency launches food security initiative

london / reuters /The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development launched an initiative Nov. 28 to boost food security through private-sector investment to unlock the production potential of suppliers like Russia. The lending institution, which has traditionally focused on emerging European economies, announced in Novembera it planned to expand operations to the Middle East and

Canada Well Positioned To Capitalize On Growing Food Demand

When, in 1965, Bob Dylan wailed, I ain t gonna work on Maggie s farm no more, he was echoing the mental picture almost all of us have about conditions on the farm. The dirty thirties largely spawned the identification of farming with grinding poverty, primitive technologies and capricious commodity prices, and the image has


Food Bank Use On The Rise In Canada

Higher food and housing costs are squeezing low-income Canadians and the 4,100 food banks across Canada that try to help them, says a study released Nov. 1. Even with the economic recovery, food bank use has risen 26 per cent since the start of the 2008 recession, Katherine Schmidt, executive director of Food Banks Canada,

Funding For Food Programs Facing Cuts

In China, dairy cows revolve on carousels in synchronized milking, while in Kenya, small farmers are planting a new high-yielding sweet potato. These projects, and scores more, are shaping a new century of agriculture. Whether it be cattle herders in sub-Saharan Africa or rice growers in rural Asia, farmers and ranchers need help to produce


China Unprepared For Increasing Urbanization

Beijing/Reuters More than 100 million rural Chinese people will settle in towns and cities in the next decade, testing provision of welfare and services as a new generation of migrants turn their backs on farming, according to a new government report. The National Population and Family Planning Commission report forecast that by 2020, China s

Where Clearing Land Is More Than Just Hard Work

Farming communities along the South Sudan- Uganda border are afraid to till their land. After years of civil conflict, the risk of landmines and other unexploded ordnance is great. Roselina Achan lives in Ngomoromo in northern Uganda s Lamwo district. She says, Landmines are a big problem here; my sister was blown up in 2007


Update From East Africa: People Pushed To The Brink

Canadian Foodgrains Bank executive director Jim Cornelius is on a study leave in Kenya and Ethiopia. Last week he sent this observation from southern Ethiopia, which is experiencing its worst food crisis in 60 years. Unlike the major Ethiopia famines in 1972 and 1984, which were concentrated in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, this food

The Climate Change Conundrum

ith the June 20 crop insurance past, farmers and their crop insurance agents are pulling on their galoshes to assess the W damages from yet another spring with too much water. Cattle producers are worrying about winter feed supplies as they watch flood waters inundate their hayfields. We are told this year is one for