Heat waves emphasize need for retooled climate research

A major heat wave and drought has sent world grain prices skyrocketing for a second of three summers suggesting it is time to address supply through repurposed climate research. Tackling high food prices among the leading G20 nations has so far bent on fixing demand issues, including grain trading, export bans and the role of

Food security not a supply issue

There has been a lot of debate in the news lately about the Canadian food system. UN Right to Food Rapporteur Olivier De Schutter recently visited Canada and indicated there are currently 800,000 Canadian households that are food insecure. He concluded that Canada has a lot of work to do in making sure more people


UN envoy says Canada needs a “right to food strategy”

The special rapporteur on the right to food's visit marks the first time the UN has 
dispatched an official to investigate food insecurity in a developed country

If everyone using a food bank in Manitoba lived in one place, it would be the province’s second-largest city. There are approximately 56,000 Manitobans who lack access to food because they either can’t afford it, or have nowhere to produce any themselves — or both. They are the Manitobans that Winnipeg Harvest has been trying

The challenge of civility

Awareness days, weeks and months are a rapidly growing phenomenon in the modern world, a bid by groups with a special interest to flag down our fast-moving society for just a few moments to consider their cause. They can be altruistic, as in World Food Day, observed by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization every


Cutting co-op support destabilizes rural economies

The termination of the Co-operative Development Initiative and the drastic cuts to the Rural and Co-operatives Secretariat announced in the federal budget will have a significant impact on the development of new co-operative businesses, jobs, and services for communities throughout Canada. In the year that the United Nations has declared the “International Year of Co-operatives,”

World grain prices to stay strong

Reuters / World grain prices should remain “very firm” over the near term as demand from Asia exceeds forecasts and dry weather cuts into supply, the senior economist of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said March 26. South American corn and soy yields took a beating from drought this season, while China’s rapidly


UN-backed land use rules ready for final OK

milan / reuters / After three years of debate, the United Nations is issuing guidelines on responsible land use as part of an effort to regulate so-called land grabbing and boost food security. The guidelines include promoting equal rights for women in securing title to land, creating transparent record-keeping systems accessible to the rural poor,

New housing co-op first to adopt “unequal share equity” approach

Construction has begun in Brandon on the new housing co-operative 
envisioned by another co-op — the city’s Seniors for Seniors Co-op

Construction has begun on a seniors’ housing co-operative in Brandon that supporters say offers a new model for affordable housing other communities may want to explore. Last week future residents and supporters of the Western Manitoba Seniors Non-Profit Housing Co-operative gathered at the 620 McDiarmid Street site where a 34-suite residence will be built by


Syria needs to import more grain milan / reuters / Syria, hit by a civil unrest, needs to raise cereals import by about a third in the current marketing year after its local grain output 10 per cent dropped in 2011, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said March 14. “Continued civil unrest