Famine/Water Crises

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London's Millennium Seed Bank goin' broke...

Global 'seed ark' running out of money
October 03, 2008 - A SEED bank billed as the world's ark of plant species is facing a funding shortfall that could force it to halt operations within a decade.

Scientists at London's Millennium Seed Bank need to raise more than £100m ($228.3m) in little more than a year to safeguard its future, Britain's The Times reports. If the money can't be raised, the survival of hundreds of species of plants are at risk. The seed bank was opened in 2000 with the aim of gathering seeds from every flowering plant on the planet and keeping them safely in cold storage.

It has enough funding to keep it open until the end of next year, but managers have been unable to secure adequate funding for 2010 or beyond, The Times report said. Less than a fifth of the 2020 funding target has been offered. Paul Smith, the head of the seed bank, fears that the global financial crisis will only exacerbate the difficulty of raising enough funds.

"We are running out of time. We are staring down the barrel of a gun. We have enough to maintain things as they are but we have the vast majority of the funding still to raise," Mr Smith said. "If we can't get it, our hopes of collecting seeds from the many plants under threat – the purpose for which the seed bank was built – will disappear."

More Global 'seed ark' running out of money | NEWS.com.au

[waltky]

Global financial meltdown collateral damage...

Global crisis may worsen Africa's hunger - U.N.
Fri Oct 10, 2008 - The global financial crisis could hamper efforts to alleviate hunger in Africa, the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa said on Friday.

Parts of the continent have been hit by drought and Africa has also felt the effects of rising world food and fuel prices. "I think this global financial challenge could impact our ability to deal with the food crisis ... and whether we can put measures in place to alleviate the current suffering," said Abdoulie Janneh, executive secretary of the ECA. Many African countries were on a World Bank list released on Thursday of 28 countries facing financial strains due to high food and fuel costs and from the credit crisis. International aid agency Oxfam said on Thursday that 13.5 million people needed assistance in Ethiopia alone.

Janneh appealed to the international community to continue providing aid to the world's poorest continent. "We hope our international partners will realise what a critical juncture this is for us. This is not the time to focus less attention on Africa," he said. "But Africa is making progress and foreign aid is only part of that. If there have to be cuts, it is a storm we will weather."

Financial experts say that while Africa is relatively insulated from the global credit crisis -- as many African banks do not offer credit -- there could well be a negative effect on foreign direct investment, remittances and aid flows. The ECA says Africa's economies grew at an average 5.8 percent in 2007 and project growth of 6.2 percent this year. "Africa is growing at a reasonable pace. It is developing," Janneh said. "We hope this crisis won't dampen that."

Global crisis may worsen Africa's hunger - U.N. | International | Reuters

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In food crisis, Cuba limits sales so all can eat
11 Oct 2008, Cuba is limiting how much basic fruits and vegetables people can buy at farmers' markets, irritating some customers but ensuring there's enough, barely, to go around.

The lines are long and some foods are scarce, but because the government has maintained and even increased rations in some areas, Cubans who initially worried about getting enough to eat now seem confident they won't go hungry despite the destruction of 30 per cent of the island's crops by hurricanes Gustav and Ike last month.

"Of the little there is, there is some for everyone,'' 65-year-old Mercedes Grimau said as queued up behind more than 50 people to buy lettuce, limited to two pounds per person. "I'm not afraid that I will be left without food, but it's a pain to think about all the work we are going to have to go through,'' Grimau added. "Two or three months ago the farmers markets were well-stocked.''

Cuba's government regularly stockpiles beans and other basics, and Economics Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said authorities are ready to increase the $2 billion they already spend on food imports annually. The world credit crisis won't affect much of those imports because US law forces communist Cuba to use cash to purchase American farm goods. But imports from other countries bought with credit could become more difficult or expensive.

MORE

[waltky]

Food crisis hits Haiti...

Children dying in Haiti, victims of food crisis
Nov 20, `08 - The 5-year-old teetered on broomstick legs - he weighed less than 20 pounds, even after days of drinking enriched milk. Nearby, a 4-year-old girl hung from a strap attached to a scale, her wide eyes lifeless, her emaciated arms dangling weakly.

In pockets of Haiti accessible only by donkey or foot, children are dying of malnutrition - their already meager food supply cut by a series of devastating storms that destroyed crops, wiped out livestock and sent food prices spiraling. At least 26 severely malnourished children have died in the past four weeks in the remote region of Baie d'Orange in Haiti's southeast, aid workers said Thursday, and there are fears the toll will rise much higher if help does not come quickly to the impoverished Caribbean nation.

Another 65 severely malnourished children are being treated in makeshift tent clinics in the mountainous area, or at hospitals where they were evacuated in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere, said Max Cosci, who heads the Belgian contingent of Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. One evacuee, a 7-year-old girl, died while being treated, Cosci said, adding: "The situation is extremely, extremely fragile and dangerous."

At a makeshift malnutrition ward at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the capital, 10 emaciated children were under emergency care Thursday, their stomachs swollen and hair faded by pigmentation loss caused by malnutrition. Several had the puffy faces typical of kwashiorkor, a protein-deficiency disorder. Five-year-old Mackenson Duclair, his ribs protruding and his legs little more than skin stretched over bones, weighed in at 19.8 pounds, even after days of drinking milk enriched with potassium and salt. Doctors said he needed to gain another five pounds before he could go home.

Dangling from a scale mounted from the ceiling, 4-year-old Venecia Lonis looked as limp as a rag doll as doctors weighed her, her huge brown eyes expressionless, her hair tied with bright yellow bows. Mackenson's grandmother, who has raised him since his mother died, said she barely has a can of corn grits to feed herself, the boy and her 8-year-old granddaughter each day.

More My Way News - Children dying in Haiti, victims of food crisis

[waltky]

Too many people goin' hungry...

U.N. Agency: Nearly 1 Billion Are Hungry
Dec. 9, 2008 - Rising Prices Means 40 Million More People Experience Food Insecurity, Lower-Quality Food

High food prices have plunged an additional 40 million people into hunger this year, pushing the overall number of needy to almost 1 billion, a U.N. agency said Tuesday. The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization put the number at 963 million. "This sad reality should not be acceptable at the dawn of the 21st century," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said at the presentation of "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008." "Not enough has been done to reduce hunger and not enough is being done to prevent more people (from) becoming hungry."

Even though prices of major cereals fell by over 50 percent from their peaks earlier this year, they remain high compared with previous years, especially in local markets, the agency said. Small farmers could not increase production and take advantage of the higher prices because they lack access to water, seeds, fertilizers and markets, the agency said. "For millions of people in developing countries, eating the minimum amount of food every day to live an active and healthy life is a distant dream," said Hafez Ghanem, the organization's assistant director-general.

According to the report, nearly two-thirds of the world's hungry live in Asia, while in sub-Saharan Africa one person in three is chronically hungry. Those who suffer most from the rises in prices - and are forced to eat less and lower-quality food - are households that have no land to rely on and are headed by females, the agency said. The agency also warned that reduced demand in industrialized countries due to the global financial crisis could threaten exporters in developing countries. Export volumes are projected to grow by 4.9 percent in 2009, down from 6.3 percent in 2007, the report said. Investments and other capital flows, including development aid, are also at risk, the agency said.

url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/09/world/main4658232.shtml]Countries Most At Risk Of Deteriorating Food Security Due To High Food Prices[/url]