North Koreans Suffering Chronic Malnutrition

In a pediatric hospital in North Korea s most productive farming province, children lay two to a bed. All showed signs of severe malnutrition: skin infections, patchy hair, listless apathy. Their mothers have to bring them here on bicycles, said duty doctor Jang Kum Son in the Yellow Sea port city of Haeju. We used

Slow Food:

Taking cows to pastures high in the Italian Alps and then making cheese by hand in a nearby tent while the milk is still warm may all seem a bit too much like unnecessary drudgery in an age of high-tech agriculture. But for a group of 14 makers of the rich Italian cheese Bitto Storico,


RecipeSwap

Hunger is exclusion. Exclusion from the land, from jobs, wages, income, life and citizenship. When a person gets to the point of having nothing to eat, it is because all the rest has been denied. I keep Josue de Castro s words pinned near my desk, lest I be tempted to believe I m really

Market Power: 50 Years Forward, 50 Years Back

As a farmer, I m alarmed at an elected government denying farmers a say in arguably the most important question in the history of Prairie farming. Without the marketing and representative power of the Canadian Wheat Board, grain farmers would be a scattered bunch of thousands peddling their wares to a handful of powerful grain


Floods Damage 70 Per Cent Of Crops In Southern Pakistan

Heavy rains and floods have destroyed or damaged 73 per cent of crops and 67 per cent of the food stocks in southern Pakistan s Sindh province, the United Nations food agency said Sept. 23 urging donors to step up support. Millions of people are destitute and face an uncertain and food-insecure future, the UN

Co-Operator Editor Receives International Writing Award

Co-operatoreditor Laura Rance has placed third in an internat ional writing competition focused on sustainable agriculture, contest organizers announced Sept. 17. The newly launched IFAJYara Award for Reporting on Sustainable Agriculture honoured the top three entries at the recent International Federation of Agr icultural Journalists (IFAJ) congress held here last week. The competition, which drew


In World’s Breadbasket, Climate Change Feeds Some Worry

It can t happen here, can it? The United States, the breadbasket and supplier of last resort for a hungry world, has been such an amazing food producer in the last half-century that most Americans take for granted annual bounteous harvests of grain, meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables and other crops. When horrific images of drought

In Brief… – for Sep. 8, 2011

Get on the list:Door-to-door enumeration for the October 4 provincial general election is complete, but voters who were not home when the enumerator called can still have their names added to the voters’ list, Elections Manitoba says in a release. Prospective voters can contact their returning office to arrange for an election official to visit


In Brief… – for Jul. 28, 2011

Rain, rain go away:Wheat crops in western Europe have rallied after a spring drought, but the rains that helped them recover may soon pose a threat to crop quality. “We are waiting for some sunshine we definitely don’t need this rain any more,” said Jack Watts of Britain’s Home-Grown Cereals Authority. In France, heavy showers

U.S. Must Lead Fight Against Hunger — Bill Gates

Billionaire Bill Gates knows how to end the poverty and hunger that afflicts nearly one billion people worldwide – help them grow more food. At a food security conference May 24, Gates called for U.S. leadership in a global campaign to expand food production. Agriculture ministers of the Group of 20 major developing and emerging