September 19, 2016

Big Ideas and Emerging Innovations


A fisherman rides on a banca to inspect fish pens that needs to be dismantled to make way for an expressway at Laguna de Bay in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila October 7, 2015. REUTERS/Erik De Castro​

This New Digital Tool Can Help Fight Overfishing around the World
Oceana’s Global Fishing Watch uses satellite tracking data to reveal the movements of at least 35,000 commercial fishing vessels around the world. Now anyone can see the activity of a specific vessel and whether that activity appears to be suspicious or suggestive of illegal fishing. Global Fishing Watch will aid enforcement of fishing policy and increase transparency to reduce seafood fraud.

TV Dinners
Microsoft has been developing a suite of technologies to slash the cost of precision agriculture by employing unoccupied slices of radio frequencies used for TV broadcasts to make crop data available to farmers. In cities, tiny slices of these white-space frequencies sell for millions, but in the sparsely populated countryside there is unlicensed space galore. These new technologies allow farmers to save money and boost outputs.

Going for Gold: Introducing the WINnERs Project
You’ve probably been consumed recently by the summer Olympics, but athletics are not the only arena to look for the mastering of exceptional feats. There’s a future gold medalist winner of a different ilk that you might want to keep your eye on: a project called WINnERS (Weather Index-Based Risk Services) that is working to build climate-resilient food supply chains.

Irrigation Turns Drought to Cash for Cameroon's Vegetable Farmers
A new channel irrigation system is allowing farmers to access water for their fields despite Cameroon’s steep, rocky terrain, helping them grow vegetables throughout the year and better manage worsening drought associated with climate change. With access to irrigation, farmers—many of them women—can produce five vegetable harvests a year.

Hidden Data: The New Weapon that Could Beat Hunger
A major agricultural data consortium aims to spur innovation by making information already being gathered from satellites, fields, and villages available to the public. Villages often have mountains of data on issues from land ownership to harvest records, but until now, no processes for sharing it at regional or national levels, or putting it online.

Smarter Farming Could Cut Hunger in Drought-Hit Southern Africa: Researchers
Southern African farmers facing hunger as a result of worsening drought know a lot about climate change, but lack the resources to put solutions that work into place, agriculture and development researchers say. But a new regional push, focused on promoting actions to adapt agriculture and curb growing hunger, could help.

 

About

The Global Food and Agriculture Program aims to inform the development of US policy on global agricultural development and food security by raising awareness and providing resources, information, and policy analysis to the US Administration, Congress, and interested experts and organizations.

The Global Food and Agriculture Program is housed within the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan organization that provides insight – and influences the public discourse – on critical global issues. The Council on Global Affairs convenes leading global voices and conducts independent research to bring clarity and offer solutions to challenges and opportunities across the globe. The Council is committed to engaging the public and raising global awareness of issues that transcend borders and transform how people, business, and governments engage the world.

Support for the Global Food and Agriculture Program is generously provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Blogroll

1,000 Days Blog, 1,000 Days

Africa Can End Poverty, World Bank

Agrilinks Blog

Bread Blog, Bread for the World

Can We Feed the World Blog, Agriculture for Impact

Concern Blogs, Concern Worldwide

Institute Insights, Bread for the World Institute

End Poverty in South Asia, World Bank

Global Development Blog, Center for Global Development

The Global Food Banking Network

Harvest 2050, Global Harvest Initiative

The Hunger and Undernutrition Blog, Humanitas Global Development

International Food Policy Research Institute News, IFPRI

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center Blog, CIMMYT

ONE Blog, ONE Campaign

One Acre Fund Blog, One Acre Fund

Overseas Development Institute Blog, Overseas Development Institute

Oxfam America Blog, Oxfam America

Preventing Postharvest Loss, ADM Institute

Sense & Sustainability Blog, Sense & Sustainability

WFP USA Blog, World Food Program USA

Archive


Commentary - Sharing Agricultural Success with President Obama

When I first got the idea back in 2008 that the women farmers like myself in central Senegal should join together to help one another succeed, I never would have guessed that five years later I would be sharing that story of success with the president of the United States. 


Commentary - Is Feed the Future delivering results? Yes – with some limitations.

Robai Nyongesa, a smallholder farmer in western Kenya, used to struggle to grow enough maize to feed her family. Last year, she was able to harvest 20 bags of maize from 1 acre of land, a fivefold increase over her previous poor harvests. Her large harvest enabled her to feed her three children, and to hire a tutor to give her children private lessons at home.



Photo of the Week

Farmers of the Faulu group in Bungoma South, Kenya, stand proudly in front of Beatrice Masila’s sorghum that has now grown taller than they are!


Call for Innovators: Bridging Dairy Data Gaps

Dairy, especially milk, can play an important role in providing essential nutrients to a woman of child-bearing age, a gestating or lactating mother, and children.




Commentary - Building a More Nutritious Future for All

A silent crisis is happening right now. It affects 165 million children globally, robbing them of the future they deserve and leading to more child deaths every year than any other disease. In a world of plentiful, nutritious foods and advanced science, this is unacceptable.


Commentary - Nourishing a Stronger Future

With less than two years until the end of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the health and development communities are looking back at what has been accomplished, and looking ahead to where we have opportunities to do more.


Commentary - Solvable problem

Whenever I have the privilege of spending time among the people that the World Food Programme (WFP) serves, I come away enriched with precious extra knowledge and inspired by the new ways in which governments are tackling the world’s greatest solvable problem – hunger.



The Chicago Council’s #GlobalAg summit in one word? Innovation.

With an introductory message from USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah and keynote remarks from Helene Gayle, CEO of CARE; Lauren Bush Lauren, founder of FEED; and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, this year’s event was global agriculture’s version of the Oscars.



Commentary - Food Aid Reform: Making Every Dollar Count

Today, almost 1 billion people are hungry. By 2050, world population will top 9 billion, only increasing the demand for food, fuel, and natural resources and straining our ability – and the planet’s ability – to feed and nourish all.