Sustainable Agriculture & Food Policy

Climate change-related food scarcity can lead to 500,000 deaths around the world by 2050, a new study has found. The research was the first to come up with an estimated number of deaths, based on changes in diet composition due to global warming.

Startups in the fields of edible crickets, the Internet of Things and durable women’s gear won this year's Pitch Oregon competition. The annual pitchfest hosted by the entrepreneurial support organization TiE Oregon was revamped this year with a more statewide bent. Now called Pitch Oregon, the event featured nine companies at different stages of life — concept, seed and mature — vying for a $5,000 cash prize plus smaller prize packages for the each stage winner.

A new report from Fellow Kendra Klein's organization, Friends of the Earth, examines how we can create a food system that feeds all people, now and into the future.

New research by IIED's Seth Cook, which features in the journal World Development, uses the agri-food sector in Ethiopia and Ghana to show how the role of Chinese migrants in Africa is poorly researched and understood. Read more

Daniel Mountjoy, director of Resource Stewardship at Sustainable Conservation and a UC Davis alumnus, is this year’s recipient of Eric Bradford and Charlie Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award, presented by the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UCD. Mountjoy is being honored for his leadership in promoting practices and approaches that enable farmers and ranchers to steward the environment. ...

Watching the world food system race towards a moment when it can’t possibly produce enough food to nourish the world’s population, the World Wildlife Fund launched last week a Markets Institute to Advance Sustainable Food Production with the help of some big food companies. Mars, Kellogg, Unilever and others are involved. Their mission is to quickly scale market-based solutions across the industry to change how food is grown, procured, shipped and distribute so that natural resource will be sustained to grow food for future generations, too. ...

Like rainwater harvesters and solar panels, biodigesters generate power by reinvesting natural resources back into their own ecosystems. Because of their potential to reduce both waste and operating costs, it seems like every family farm should have one on hand. Fellow Alexander Eaton's company, Sistema Biobolsa, is working to create a base of users that leads to a tipping point.

Theoretically, weather-index insurance is an effective risk reduction option for small-scale farmers in low income countries. Renewed policy and donor emphasis on bridging gender gaps in development also emphasizes the potential social safety net benefits that weather-index insurance could bring to women farmers who are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change risk and have low adaptive capacity.