About Danielle Nierenberg

Recent Posts by Danielle Nierenberg

Hunger & Food Production: Journalists Speak Out at Johns Hopkins

Earlier this month, the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of International Studies (SAIS) hosted a discussion on hunger and food production with journalists Alan Bjerga and Roger Thurow. Bjerga covers agricultural policy for Bloomberg News and has received multiple awards for his work in regards to Ethiopia and U.S. food aid, and Roger Thurow served as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal for 30 years and is currently a Senior Fellow for Global Agriculture and Food Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Both have recently written books on how to address hunger and the need to dramatically increase global food production.

The event was held as part of SAIS’s Year of Agriculture, a year-long theme that examines the important role that agriculture plays in international relations. The program aims to encourage discussion on topics such as food production and security, development of biofuels, the impact of global climate change, fresh water shortages, and decreasing availability of land for food production.

According to Bjerga, the global food crisis is a serious problem that has only been exacerbated by increasingly volatile food prices over the past several years. In order to address the current problem of hunger and meet the needs of a growing population, Bjerga and Thurow stressed food production will need to double by the year 2050. To meet this goal, said Thurow, “smallholder farmers of Africa are going to be indispensable.” These farmers, he explained, are far behind those in the developed world in terms of crop production, but this also means that they have huge potential to vastly increase yields.

Both journalists stressed that for smallholder farmers to be able to increase their yields, they need access to inputs and training. Inputs, including seed, fertilizer, storage, financing, crop insurance, and education can all make a dramatic difference in crop production and farmer livelihoods. Thurow noted that he had seen first-hand the benefits that such inputs can bring: during a visit to western Kenya, he met with one farmer who saw her maize yields in 2011 grow to 10 times what they had been in 2010 because she received inputs and training from the One Acre Fund.

Looking toward the future for agriculture, Bjerga also highlighted the importance of having “strength in diversity” by producing food in many different regions of the world. Diversifying food production locations, he noted, would help disperse the risk associated with regional droughts and floods. According to Bjerga, diversification can help “smooth out price volatility” and develop a “more robust agricultural ecosystem” that will be better suited to meet our growing food production needs.

Eleanor Fausold is a research intern with the Nourishing the Planet Project.

Philly Farm & Food Fest

On April 1, Fair Food Philly and the Pennsylvania Association for Agriculture (PASA) teamed up to host the first ever Philly Farm & Food Fest. Both non profits work to create a more sustainable local food system, linking farmers and consumers via a “farm to fork” mentality.

The Fest included a number of workshops, presentations, and activities, all held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center Annex in Philadelphia. The goal was to bring together farmers throughout the region, sustainable food businesses, food-focused organizations, and consumers, strengthening ties within the region’s food system. This event marked the start of the growing season, when consumers will now have abundant opportunities to buy local products.

Over 100 exhibitors participated ranging from suppliers of earth-friendly potting soils and all-natural cleaning products to organic farmers’ co-ops and organic coffee roasters. This celebration of local goods and agricultural products highlights the strength of the area’s local food system, as well as the opportunities for its further growth both in the region and in other areas throughout the country.

The Fest also included an educational component. There was a seminar on land use policy where the report Transforming Open Space to Sustainable Agriculture in Urban and Suburban Regions, commissioned by the Green Space Alliance and the William Penn Foundation, presented, followed by a panel discussion consisting of local leaders in food issues.

This event addresses the need to strengthen ties between consumers and farmers. Supporting local food systems can provide benefits for all, resulting in less strain on the environment for transport costs, lower prices and fresher products for consumers, and a higher value placed on producers, leading to a more ethical food system.

Marissa Dwyer is a research intern with the Nourishing the Planet project.

United Nations World Food Programme Teams Up with Italian Power Company Enel Trade

The United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) and Italian energy company Enel are teaming up in an effort to address food security and climate change by providing green cook stoves and solar panels to communities. The new partnership between WFP and Enel was announced at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP17) in Durban. Enel has pledged up to €8 million (US$10.7 million) in the agreement, which includes commitments by two Enel companies and the Enel Group’s nonprofit organization to support WFP humanitarian and environmental protection programs.

Enel Trade has committed to support WFP’s Safe Access to Firewood and Alternative Energy in Humanitarian Settings (SAFE) Initiative, which provides high-efficiency cooking stoves to schools, community centers and poor households for use in cooking WFP food rations. WFP has already distributed over 140,000 stoves to 927,000 people in Sudan, Uganda, Sri Lanka, and Haiti. The SAFE Initiative also aims to protect women against violence during firewood collection and to reduce deforestation and carbon emissions by making stoves more fuel-efficient. Enel Trade will work with WFP to develop a business model for generating carbon emission reduction credits by analyzing the use of these high-efficiency cook stoves.

Another Enel company, Enel Green Power, will help WFP decrease its carbon footprint by installing solar panels on UN Humanitarian Response Depots, sites managed by WFP where emergency supplies are handled and stored. Enel will pilot the solar initiative at sites in Italy, Panama, United Arab Emirates and Ghana.

Additionally, funds from Enel will go towards supporting WFP activities in Latin America. Enel Cuore, the independent, nonprofit organization within the Enel Group, has committed to support WFP initiatives in Latin America where the Enel Group is present.

Kicking Off in DC is 2012′s State of the World

The Worldwatch Institute’s 16th Annual State of the World Symposium will take place on April 11 and will be hosted at the Woman’s National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C. Worldwatch President Robert Engelman and senior researchers Michael Renner and Erik Assadourian will speak at the event, where they will officially release State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity.

Over the past 40 years, the world’s middle and upper classes have doubled their consumption levels, and in the coming years, an additional 1 to 2 billion people will aspire to join the consumer class. The report concludes that our planet cannot maintain these increases in resource demand, and therefore we must act quickly to redefine our understanding of the “good life” and redouble our efforts to make that life sustainable.

State of the World 2012 includes sustainability discussions that range from agriculture to biodiversity, green jobs to economic degrowth, communications technologies to sustainable buildings, and local politics to global governance. This wide array of topics will aid Rio+20 participants, as well as global leaders and concerned citizens, to reconsider how we fundamentally change our unsustainable economic system and consumer culture and collectively re-prioritize sustainable living.

After the initial overview presentations, the symposium will feature two panel discussions with other contributing authors of the report, including Joseph Foti of the World Resources Institute, Mia MacDonald of Brighter Green, Michael Replogle and Colin Hughes of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, Diana Lind of Next American City, and Bo Normander of Worldwatch Europe.

Click here for more information and here if you would like to register for the event. The launch will also be streamed live, with more details on how you can tune in to follow.

Jonathan Bloom’s American Wasteland: Why Food Waste Deserves Attention

Jonathan Bloom recently discussed his book, American Wasteland at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, MD. The book highlights the economic and environmental costs of food waste, and how consumers and policymakers can play their part in reducing waste to protect the environment, fight hunger, and save money.

Why We Waste

Bloom estimates that as much as 25 percent of all the food Americans bring into their homes goes to waste. Why? In the United States food is inexpensive—thanks largely to government subsidies—and abundant for most consumers. And it is often served in large portion sizes that can’t (or at least shouldn’t) be consumed in one sitting. As a result, Americans tend to value food less than they did before food was so readily available and inexpensive, and throw it away more frequently. In addition, they judge the quality of their food based on aesthetics. “Appearance trumps taste,” according to Bloom, so many perfectly edible foods, particularly fruits and vegetables, are discarded because they aren’t the right size, shape, or color.

Bloom also cites the loss of food knowledge as a primary contributor to food waste. “People don’t know when something’s good or not,” he says, explaining why people throw away food at home. Expiration and sell-by dates are used to fill this knowledge gap, but tend to be loose and often inaccurate indicators of how quickly a food should be eaten. Consequently, Americans discard a large amount of food that is completely fine for consumption.

Why Should We Care?

So why is any of this actually a problem? Bloom gives three primary reasons: ethics, the environment, and economics. At the heart of the ethical dilemma of food waste is the injustice that so many people can be going hungry while such vast amounts of food are going to waste. Currently, more than 48 million Americans live in households that struggle to get enough to eat, while the amount of food thrown out in the United States every year could fill the Rose Bowl to its brim. Bloom highlighted this discrepancy between need and waste, stating, “Redistributing only 2 percent of food waste would end hunger [in the United States].”

In addition to this ethical dimension, food waste has negative implications for the environment. As Bloom points out, many resources are intensively used in food production—including water and gas—and are wasted when we produce vast amounts of food that will never be eaten. Also, when food decomposes it releases methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Landfills are the third largest human-related source of methane in the United States.

Economics is the third reason to care about food waste, and is probably the issue most felt at home. Billions of dollars are spent by agricultural producers, consumers, restaurants and stores on foods that will never be eaten. This represents a significant expense: the average family of four in the U.S. discards an estimated US$1,350 worth of food annually.

What Do We Do About It?

Bloom laid out several ways both consumers and policymakers can address the problem of food waste. According to Bloom, the most effective way to prevent food waste is by banning organic waste from landfills. He explains that this would make people think twice about how much food to buy and better ways of using food purchases. It would also force more civic engagement around the issue, and has been successfully implemented in other countries. In fact, Nova Scotia’s landfill ban has been shown to increase composting in the province, create jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Bloom also suggests setting waste-reduction goals, streamlining tax deductions for donating food, and funding gleaning programs. And Bloom would like to see more data collected on food waste, and an increase in public awareness about the issue.

Bloom also provided some quick tips for the average consumer to help prevent food waste, including shopping smarter by planning meals and making lists, thinking about portion sizes, increasing food knowledge, and volunteering with gleaning and food recovery programs. He ended with a challenge for the audience: to buy 25 percent less food than usual at their next trip to the grocery store.

With an ever-growing population and the lingering question of how to feed everyone, consumers and policymakers alike must address the issue of food waste. This will eventually require bigger institutional shifts, but also hinges on the actions of individuals. As Bloom points out, everyone can do their part to reduce food waste, to ultimately save resources, protect the environment, fight hunger, and cut unnecessary spending.

To learn more about ways to prevent food waste, read Five Simple Things Consumers Can Do to Prevent Food Waste, and check out Jonathan Bloom’s blog, Wasted Food.

Marlena White is a research intern for the Nourishing the Planet project.

Women Deliver 2012 in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia (Scholarships Opportunities)

Women Deliver—a global advocacy organization for women and maternal health—is offering scholarships to its third global conference, Women Deliver 2013. The conference will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from May 28 to 30, 2013. It will bring together more than 5,000 public- and private-sector participants from around the world, with the goal of mobilizing action, commitment, and investment to improve global reproductive health.  According to Women Deliver, the scholarships aim to “maximize participation from those who are traditionally under-represented; namely, young people and those from the Global South.”

Women Deliver is offering both youth (applicants under 30 at the time of the conference) and regular scholarships (applicants aged 30 or over). The scholarships will include conference registration, round-trip economy-class airfare, hotel accommodations, and a stipend for visa fees and other expenses. Application for youth scholarships opened February 15, 2012, and regular scholarship application opens March 26. The deadline for both  scholarships is April 15, 2012.

Women Deliver is an international organization that advocates for maternal health as “both a human right and a practical necessity for sustainable development.” Reducing maternal mortality and achieving universal access to reproductive health were designated a Millennium Development Goal in 2000, but according to the United Nations, around 350,000 women and girls still die from pregnancy-related causes each year. And huge disparities in maternal health exist between developing and industrial countries: a woman’s maternal mortality risk in sub-Saharan Africa is 1 in 30, compared to 1 in 5,600 in developed regions.

Click here to find out how to apply for scholarships for the 2013 conference.

Why Home Cooking May Be the Answer to America’s Obesity Problem

Changes to demographics and the growth of the restaurant industry have shifted eating habits in a way that has devalued home -cooked meals and contributed to growing health problems, argues Craig A. Lambert in the August issue of Harvard Magazine.

Americans are eating out more than ever before.  The National Restaurant Association reports that people spend nearly twice as much of their food budget at restaurant than they did in 1955. Furthermore, restaurant industry sales have increased from$US42.5 billion  in 1970 to an anticipated US$604 billion dollars this year. Lambert argues that  demographic changes can help explain this increased reliance on  restaurant  to supply meals.  “Compared to the 1950s, there are now relatively more divorced adults, more single-parent and single-person households, and more two-income households whose earners haven’t time to cook dinner,” he explains.

Meanwhile, the nutritional value that consumers get out of their meals has declined, leader to an increase in health problems. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that one –third of the adult population in the United States is obese and that there are 12.5 million obese children in the United States. In addition to the prevalence of obesity doubling since the 1980’s, the CDC notes a rise in the number of people with diabetes . Home- cooking advocates argue that these health trends result from people eating out, rather than of having home- cooked meals.

Demographic changes are only half of the equation, however.  The increase in fast food chains is one reason why more American’s are not eating healthy meals. Locally owned eateries that offer fresh ingredients are often driven out of business by chains that rely on cheaper ingredients. “The basic ingredients of unhealthy food are incredibly cheap,” explains Walter Willett the chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. “Unfortunately, [fast food] has had an adverse effect on nutritional status and the obesity epidemic, Americans value quantity over quality: if you get a bigger serving, that’s value,” Willet concludes. John Willoughby, former executive editor of Gourmet magazine, agrees that fast food has replaced home cooked meals and has contributed to higher rates of obesity. “Fast-food joints are the enemy of home cooking” he emphasizes. “There are studies now showing that if you eat a constant diet of fast food, you get addicted to the high fat and sugar content of it, just as if it were a drug—so food without that content doesn’t satisfy you.”

Increasingly, Americans are only satisfied with bigger portions of food, points out Lambert. The obesity epidemic in the United States “owes much to large portions…” he argues. Food portions offered by restaurants began to rise in the 1970’s and have steadily increased since the 1980’s according to researchers Lisa Young and Marion Nestle of New York University.  Fast food establishments aren’t the only ones guilty of promoting unhealthy eating habits, argues Lambert. He points out that many fine dining restaurants are better at marketing their restaurant than offering healthy food, “foodstuffs become the raw material of art, not nutrition,” he explains. “The eating experience decouples itself almost entirely from food’s functional attributes: sustenance, nourishment, health”.

For many Americans their closest relationship with home cooking comes from watching celebrity chefs on television, points out Mollie Katzen­­ co-creator of Harvard’s Food Literacy Project and co-author of Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less. But John Willoughby points out that these cooking shows contribute to people relying on eating out because they don’t act as instructional shows but rather “these are professional chefs doing things in the kitchen that you cannot do—and that’s not what home cooking is about.” Craig Lambert agrees that cooking shows make people feel self conscious about their own cooking and argues that the “central challenge for home-cooking advocates is to give people confidence that—much of the time, anyway—they can make better food at home than they are likely to get in most restaurants”.

Graham Salinger is a research intern for the Nourishing the Planet project.

South American Alpaca: Packing Fiber

Alpaca are a species of South American camelid, a two-toed herbivore similar to the guanaco, vicuña, and llama. There are two types of alpaca: the Huacaya and the Suri. The former is more common, but the Suri distinguishes itself with long, dangling fleece. Alpaca are docile and able to endure harsh environments, such as high altitudes and dramatic temperature changes. They can also be gathered in large herds to graze on pasture grass and sedge. These traits make them an ideal farm animal; but while other camelids are often bred as beasts of burden, the alpaca is known for producing one of the most highly sought-after natural fibers in the world.

Alpaca have been domesticated for many centuries in the high Andean Plateau of western South America. The powerful Incan empire reserved a special place in their culture for the animal, regularly using hand-spun alpaca garments to trade, clothe royalty, and bury their dead. And while post-Columbian arrivals in the New World introduced new breeds of livestock and decimated native populations, alpaca retained their place in Andean culture and play an important economic role in modern Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile.

Peru still claims the most vibrant alpaca industry in the world, with numbers around 3.5 million head, or 85 percent of alpaca worldwide, as estimated by the country’s ministry of agriculture. In 2006, Peru exported over three tons of alpaca fiber, worth over USD$20 million. Most of the alpaca-rearing in the country is done by small-scale herders, or alpaqueros. These alpaqueros generally keep herds of less than 50 animals, which provide income for an estimated 120,000 families.

In the 20th century, alpaca herding has grown more popular in North America and Europe. The International Alpaca Association, a private-sector association of camelid breeders and herders, counts members in 12 different countries including Italy, Australia, Spain, and the United States.

This expanding interest in alpaca rearing and trading is probably due to the fiber’s excellent quality. The fleece is valued for its lightness, durability, insulation, and natural diversity of shades; it’s used in both the rugged outerwear and high fashion industries. Yet the international market for alpaca can be volatile. Alpaca fiber is a value-added commodity, meaning that it cannot be sold for any substantial price without first being processed and woven. And while the supply of fiber remains relatively steady, demand for luxury clothing can fluctuate from year to year. Despite these uncertainties, alpaca herding continues to spread in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Beyond their multipurpose fleece, alpaca are also attractive to farmers who practice integrated livestock management. For example, alpaca prefer to graze on native and perennial grasses, their droppings are concentrated and break down easily to provide high-quality natural fertilizer, and their low hoof weight keeps soil intact, which reduces soil erosion. All of these traits can help to enhance local farms and preserve fragile ecosystems.

The resilience and easy temperament of the alpaca have made them a centuries-old cultural icon in South America and a hot new commodity in other parts of the world. While the uniqueness of alpaca fiber will keep the animal in high demand, it’s also possible that this ecofriendly camelid may grow even more popular in the future as farmers become more cognizant of their environmental impacts.

Have you ever worn alpaca fiber? How does it compare to other materials? Tell us about your experiences herding alpaca.

Joseph Zaleski is a research intern with the Nourishing the Planet project.

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