
Eat Insects for Fun, Not to Help the Environment
As the world searches for a more sustainable future for its growing population, there is increasing interest in getting more people to eat insects. Turning Westerners into insectivores has joined the long list of challenges that require behavior change: we should think less about combating disgust and more about appealing to taste. Most of the insects eaten in the world are cooked as part of interesting preparations that make them a genuine competitor to other foods, and often a more attractive option. These insects are eaten by choice, not necessity. This obvious fact is missed by most of the current research and policies.
The Anti-Poverty Experiment
World-wide, in 1981, 2.6 billion people subsisted on less than $2 a day; in 2011, 2.2 billion did. Poverty has barely budged in large swaths of sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Is it time for a new approach? Many experts who study poverty think so. They see great promise in a new generation of experimental programs focusing not on large-scale social support and development but on helping the poor and indebted to save more, live better and scramble up in their own way.
How Buckets and Digital Gingerbread Are Beating Child Malnutrition in Ghana
Governments in sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly looking at ways to strengthen and scale up sustainable school feeding programs that source their food from local farmers. To help schools develop nutritious school meals, Partnership for Child Development has launched a state of the art, easy to use web-based school meals planner which allows users to create and fully cost menus using locally available ingredients.
Climate Change-Ready Rice Keeps Farmers' Fields Fertile
Climate change is one reason farmland in Bangladesh is becoming increasingly saline. This is especially the case in the coastal south, which was traditionally the country's rice basket. There's a potential fix for the problem: Plant a variety of rice that's naturally resistant to salty soil. Since 2011, about 180,000 farmers in Bangladesh have received saline-tolerant rice seeds and training on how to grow them.
