What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Rising to the Challenge: Changing Course to Feed the World in 2050, Action Aid

Commentary: And the prize goes to … genetically modified foods, Global Post

No scientific consensus on safety of genetically modified organisms, Phys.org

Biofuel not off the hook for ‘land grabs’, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Commentary – Technological innovation for small-plot farms, Global Food for Thought

Why does climate change adaptation in Africa ignore politics? Great broadside from Matthew Lockwood, From Poverty to Power

Genetically modified crops should be part of Africa’s food future, The Washington Post

Retailers urged to accept more ‘ugly fruit’ to reduce food waste, Farmers Guardian

Seeking sustainable crops, Science on the Land

New Effort Launched to Measure and Monitor Global Food Loss and Waste, UNEP

Grabs for land include water

A paper on the impact of so called ‘land grabbing’ on freshwater resources has recently been published. Authored by researchers at the University of Virginia and the Polytechnic University of Milan, it is the first assessment of the amount of water appropriated within land investment deals.

Land is thought to be in short supply while at the same time demand for food, livestock and biofuels is growing, driven by population growth, changing diets and increasing food and oil prices. In an effort to ensure national food and energy security some countries over the past decade have been buying up land in other countries on which to grow crops and livestock. The World Bank has estimated that around 45 million hectares of land has been purchased since 2008 involving 62 countries doing the ‘grabbing’ in 41 countries across every continent except Antarctica.

Land grabs have hit the headlines and received strong criticism when large-scale land investments have proven to be inequitable and unsustainable. Problems include the reduction in natural resource access for local land users, displacement of local inhabitants without compensation and without the creation of job opportunities or consideration for the environment. Indeed in many places land that was a natural landscape or dominated by smallholder farming is transformed to large-scale commercial farming. In Ethiopia residents are thought to have been moved to new villages lacking adequate food and water resources to make way for the lease of land to foreign investors. Indeed where 100% rights over natural resources such as water are part of the deal both environmental sustainability and the livelihoods of local land users are negatively impacted. This has been seen in Sudan where land deals around the Blue Nile have affected local water users further downstream.