Tag Archives: global food production

The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting Covers Book Launch at The Wilson Center

Lisa Palmer Book Launch Last month I gave a presentation at The Wilson Center about the publication of my new book, Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change (St. Martin’s Press). I write about how global agriculture is ready for sustainable solutions. The Pulitzer Center provided support for my reporting in India, where I found that climate change is altering agriculture across a variety of societies. I observed how people are working together to develop climate smart villages and asked: What does this mean for their food security, especially for the world’s most vulnerable people?

The Pulitzer Center covered my book launch at the Wilson Center, and this is how their report begins:

A confluence of environmental, social, and economic factors are leading to major food shortages around the world, especially in poorer countries. By drawing upon her reporting and research on the environment, sustainability, and agriculture, Pulitzer Center grantee Lisa Palmer looks at the factors threatening global food security in her new book Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change.

Palmer launched her book at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where she was previously a public policy scholar. The Wilson Center, a U.S. Presidential Memorial, serves as a policy forum on global issues and supports researchers and discourse. At the launch, the Wilson Center invited Palmer and a group of experts to comment on Hot, Hungry Planet and what challenges and opportunities are currently available to stem food shortages. Panelists included: Channing Arndt, senior research fellow at International Food Policy Research Institute; Roger-Mark DeSouza, Director of Population, Environmental Security, and Resilience at the Wilson Center; and Nabeeha Kazi, president and CEO of Humanitas Global.

In Hot, Hungry Planet, Palmer explores the future of food security through seven case studies located in six regions around the world: India, sub-Saharan Africa, the United States, Latin America, the Middle East, and Indonesia. Through these examples, Palmer looks at how the global population boom (expected to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050), climate change, and the widening socioeconomic divide will make feeding the world challenging.

To read the complete story on the Pulitzer Center website, please follow this link.

Book Launch for Hot, Hungry Planet at The Wilson Center

The Wilson Center recently published a story in the New Security Beat about my book launch event last month. “There is a real need for breakthroughs about how these complex social and environmental problems can be tackled, and I believe they can be tackled together,” I said at the Wilson Center on May 3. “Part of the challenge of this book is to challenge people across the world to start thinking outside of the box.” It’s a time for businesses, academia, governments, NGOs and ordinary people to work toward solutions to a more sustainable food system.

At the book launch, Nabeeha Kazi of Humanitas Global Development said, “We are in an unprecedented time, and I mean that in a very positive way…At all levels, we have tremendous knowledge that we need to reconstruct our food system, that it needs to adapt to climate change, and it also needs to reduce the harm that it’s already caused through our existing practices.”

Channing Arndt, a senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), provided further context. He said, “The good news is that there is quite a lot of scope to sustainably increase food production,” especially in developing countries. But solutions will not be easy – or fast. Smarter agriculture that is both higher in productivity and more environmentally sound requires higher levels of education, he said, and efforts to improve these systems take time to implement and see the results of.

I recently learned that several university professors plan to use my book in their classes. Please let me know if you are planning to do the same.

To read about the book launch and find a link to the video archive of the event, please continue reading on the New Security Beat.

My New Commentary in Scientific American

Here is my latest commentary for Scientific American. I write that creating sustainable food systems in the face of a changing climate isn’t easy—but innovators around the world are making real progress.

sustainable food systemsI argue that “[w]e need to move beyond thinking about the environment—our land, water and air—only as a source of inputs for the food system,” I write. “Instead we need to recognize that global environmental changes can diminish yields, reduce the amount of food we produce, and affect how nutritious it is and where we produce it.”

But change is not easy. How can leverage points in food systems and in institutions help us work toward solutions? I cover some solutions in my new book, Hot, Hungry Planet.

In my commentary, I write:

“Weather extremes and environmental shocks, for instance, will likely occur more frequently in the future. In California, the multi-year drought and recent lifting of the drought emergency after a heavy rain and snow year has had a cascade of lingering effects, calling for greater management of both extremes and making water conservation “a way of life” by executive order. The four objectives of California’s new management plan include educational and policy nudges such as using water more wisely, eliminating water waste, strengthening local drought resilience and water holding capacity, and improving agricultural water use efficiency and drought planning.

Any successful answer to feeding a hot, hungry planet will result from continual changes, shifts, and adaptation to an uncertain future. Figuring out where society can sustainably grow more food and how people might try to do that under climate change will be inextricably linked to national security, public health, and economic goals. Food system challenges in a changing climate have already led to political instability in some places, and migrations and tensions over changing amount and location of natural resources are likely to grow.

Creating sustainable food systems that deliver nutritious food while also satisfying long term food security is a complex undertaking, as I learned over the past few years while writing and researching my new book Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change. I met with the people who are working at the issue from every angle. The farmers, agronomists, and researchers I talked with are trying to fulfill economic, social and environmental objectives while not compromising prospects for future generations.”

To continue reading, please go to my piece in the Observatory blog in Scientific American.

HOT, HUNGRY PLANET: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change

The world is on the cusp of a global food crisis. In only a couple decades, an additional 2.6 to 4 billion people will be sitting down at the global table wondering what’s for dinner. That’s the equivalent of adding another New York City each month to the world’s grocery lines for the next 35 years. In HOT, HUNGRY PLANET: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change (St. Martin’s Press; On-sale: May 9, 2017; 9781250084200; $26.99) I address what needs to happen to reconcile two extreme global threats: climate change and global hunger. Christiana Figueres, diplomat and former executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, says Hot Hungry Planet is, “A deep dive into the realities of some of the Sustainable Development Goals. Through moving personal stories Palmer shows how increased food security and addressing climate change are mutually reinforcing. We can and we must do both at the same time.”

Hot, Hungry Planet focuses on three key concepts that support food security and resilience in a changing world: social, educational, and agricultural advances; land use and technical actions by farmers; and policy nudges that have the greatest potential for reducing adverse environmental impacts of agriculture while providing more food. Palmer breaks down this difficult subject though seven concise and easily-digestible case studies over the globe and presents the stories of individuals in six key regions—India, sub-Saharan Africa, the United States, Latin America, the Middle East, and Indonesia—painting a hopeful picture of both the world we want to live in and the great leaps it will take to get there.

Early reviews:

“This lively, concise book is packed with practical and often surprising ideas for meeting the profound challenges of global food scarcity. Lisa Palmer is a clear-eyed realist, but her fascinating tour of our Hot Hungry Planet will leave you more optimistic than you may have thought possible.”―Dan Fagin, Pulitzer-prize-winning author of Toms River:A Story of Science and Salvation

“A penetrating and sensitive analysis of the urgent need for a sustainable global food system despite widespread socioeconomic inequality, swelling population, and ominous climate change.”― Richard C. J. Somerville, Ph.D., climate scientist

“The global food crisis is a critical issue. Producing more food is key but insufficient by itself. Palmer speaks in no uncertain terms about the peril we find ourselves in. But she also manages to find the bright spots―areas of hope that those of us in the environmental, business, and policy communities can address to cope with and even reverse some of the most alarming trends.”―Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, Food & Markets, World Wildlife Fund

“The time to talk about diet for the health of people without addressing the health of the planet is past. With inspiring examples of sustainable agriculture, thoughtful attention to matters as disparate as biodiversity and family planning, and precautionary tales from around the globe, Hot, Hungry Planet gives us a clear-eyed view of the perils we face, and the promise of overcoming them by truly understanding them.”―David Katz, M.D. President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and author of Disease-Proof, The Way to Eat,  and The Flavor Point Diet

“A deep dive into the realities of some of the Sustainable Development Goals. Through moving personal stories Palmer shows how increased food security and addressing climate change are mutually reinforcing. We can and we must do both at the same time.”―Christiana Figueres, diplomat and executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 2010-2016

Hot, Hungry Planet is a sober analysis of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in feeding a changing and growing world. Palmer takes her readers on a journey from Vermont through Colombia, India, and the shores of Lake Victoria, examining innovations for sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture all along the way. Her work trumpets the benefits of smaller, more varied systems of food production that increase yields without the ecological harms of monoculture. Above all else, Palmer pens a passionate plea for the inclusion of women in all levels of food production through education and smart investments that forge a path toward a planet that can feed itself in a hotter, more crowded future.”―Shenggen Fan, Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute

Fighting Climate Change AND Hunger

In the U.S., we waste approximately 34 million tons of food a year.

CAVIN: “That is astronomical. That’s so much food that either just never made it to table or went home and then got thrown away because it wasn’t eaten.”

Keep Austin Fed number of surplus food deliveriesThat’s Russell Cavin of Keep Austin Fed, a Texas not-for-profit that rescues nutritious, edible food, and delivers it to local Austin charities. In a county where almost one in five people do not know where their next meal is coming from, Cavin says food rescue makes sense. The food comes from supermarkets and restaurants, which often toss perfectly good fare that looks less than perfect – like a pre-made sandwich with wilted lettuce.

CAVIN: “At the end of the day, a little wilted lettuce is not bad, it’s not going to hurt you. It’s still good, nutritious food, it’s just that it’s not in pristine show condition.”

Keep Austin Fed is moving mountains of edible food. In 2014 …

CAVIN: “We had twenty-one donors that provided 391,533 pounds of food, the equivalent of 522,044 meals.”

It’s a huge amount of perfectly good food that is now filling hungry bellies. And with less ending up in the landfill, there is less climate-warming methane gas being released into the atmosphere – a win for everyone.

Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media.
Photos source: Keep Austin Fed website.

More Resources
Keep Austin Fed
Waste Not: Local groups work to reduce, redistribute, and “rescue”food from loss and landfills

Originally published in Yale Climate Connections
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Engineering better food ingredients

Walk down any baking aisle at the grocery store, and you’ll notice two types of vanilla on the shelf. The one with the higher price tag is vanilla extract, made from the seedpods of the vanilla orchid, which grows in the shade in tropical areas like Madagascar and Indonesia. The other “vanilla” is a much lower-priced flavoring made from a chemical compound called vanillin, using a chemical process with petroleum as the base.

Pioneering synthetic biology efforts, however, are leading to a third option that now allows food scientists more control over its flavor profile: the first “synbio” vanilla flavoring. Synbio vanillin, the primary chemical inside the vanilla bean that gives it its flavor, is produced with brewer’s yeast that has been genetically engineered to be able to make a chemical compound—in this case, vanillin. This process is also being used to produce synbio stevia (a sweetener), synbio saffron, and synbio resveratrol, a dietary supplement with antioxidant properties, says Todd Kuiken, a senior program associate with the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Synbio vanillin and synbio resveratrol have been on the market since 2014, while synbio saffron and stevia will likely be available next year, he says.

Unless we are eating directly from a local farmer, we don’t have a good understanding of what’s in our food.” —Todd Kuiken

And that’s just the start of a wave of new “synbio” food products, predicts Kuiken, whose program at the Wilson Center aims to inform public and policy discourse on synthetic biology. He envisions synbio increasingly being used to make food flavorings and key perfume ingredients that, like vanilla or saffron, are very high in value and difficult to grow or produce.

Synthetic biology uses tools like computers, DNA sequencing and chemicals to design organisms that do new things. The fermentation process that results in the new synbio vanillin, made by the Swiss company Evolva and sold almost exclusively as an ingredient to food companies, is just one method of synthetic biology; others more closely resemble breeding.

“Basically they [Evolva] are able to use yeast as the production factory,” says Kuiken, who adds that the synbio fermentation process is less energy intensive than using petro-chemical methods to make flavorings. Evolva also claims that this process allows the flavor profile of vanilla in foods to be controlled more precisely.

Read the full article as published in Future Food 2050

A Diet For a Warmer Planet

The choices we make at the grocery store can help reduce climate change.

LAPPE: “I was actually shocked personally when I discovered how much of a connection there is between food and climate.”

Diet For A Hot Planet book cover

That’s Anna Lappé, author of a book called Diet For a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis At The End Of Your Fork And What You Can Do About It.”

From clearing forests for agriculture to manufacturing synthetic fertilizers, using energy-intensive farming, and meeting a rising demand for meat – our complex food system accounts for almost one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. But Lappé says there is a silver lining.

Organic strawberry farm
Organic strawberry farm

LAPPE: “One of the best things about talking about that food and climate connection is that it is something we can touch and taste. It is something we can do something about on a daily basis.”

About half of the grain produced around the world today is being used to feed livestock instead of people.

LAPPE: “And so it’s a way of producing food that’s very energy-intensive, that uses up a lot of crops and feed.”

So Lappé suggests shifting to a more plant-centered diet.

People can also consider how their food was grown. She says organic practices mean less synthetic fertilizers, agrochemicals, and energy use.

LAPPE: “So by choosing organic foods, we’re choosing to support farms that are having that smaller climate footprint.”

Lappé’s message is upbeat. She says what’s healthiest for our bodies is also best for the planet.

Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media.
Photo: Organic strawberry farm (copyright protected).

More Resources
Diet For A Hot Planet
SmallPlanet website

Originally published by Yale Climate Connection
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A River Runs Again: Reporting on India’s Natural Crisis

  • November 17, 2015 By
    Broken Landscape River
    The world’s second most populous country – projected to be first by 2022 – is developing faster than ever before, roiling the social, political, and environmental landscape. [Video Below]

     

    In her new book, A River Runs Again: India’s Natural World in Crisis, From the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka, environmental journalist Meera Subramanian chronicles India’s efforts to balance economic development and environmental protection, including innovative programs to educate youth about sexual and reproductive health.

    Subramanian was inspired by the five elements – earth, fire, water, air, and ether – to investigate five aspects of sustainable development: organic farming, clean cookstoves, freshwater, endangered species, and population and family planning. Traveling throughout the subcontinent, she found stories of “ordinary people and microenterprises determined to revive India’s ravaged natural world.”

    At  the Wilson Center book launch on October 13, Subramanian was joined by freelance journalists Priyali Sur and Lisa Palmer, who offered comments on the book based on their own reporting from India on the interconnections between climate change, food security, and gender.

    Sur, a former television reporter for CNN-IBN, has covered the spike in human trafficking spurred by extreme flooding in the northeastern state of Assam. “Vulnerability that arises from looking for livelihood options, wanting to get work, wanting to sustain the family and wanting to provide for the family, which I think is a [bigger] responsibility for the woman than the man, makes them more vulnerable, and traffickers recognize this,” she said.

    Palmer, a former Wilson Center fellow and current fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center in Annapolis, Maryland, discussed the technological revolution taking root in Indian agriculture. Some organizations, like the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, are supporting “climate-smart villages” in India, which use solar energy pumps and sensors to measure crop health and reduce water consumption. The organization aims to create 1,000 climate smart villages across six states including the grain baskets of Haryana and Punjab, said Palmer.

    Read the full article originally published in The New Security Beat by the Wilson Center

India’s climate tech revolution is starting in its villages

Camels pulling wooden carts loaded with coconuts plod down the main road amid speeding motorcycles, buses, rickshaws and cars. Farmers sit atop slow-moving oxcarts loaded with grasses and other cattle feed. In this region of central Gujarat, India, it appears that rural life has not changed for decades.

But drive down a dirt road outside the village of Thamna, about an hour north of Anand, and the 21st century comes into view. Solar panels drive a water pump that irrigates the fields of farmer Raman Bhai Parmar, 65, who grows bananas, rice and wheat on seven acres of land.

Raman Bhai Parmar
Raman Bhai Parmar. Photograph: Lisa Palmer

Parmar’s solar energy pump is one of the technologies being promoted by a new project designed to help rural Indians adapt to climate change. The project, run by the international NGO, the Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research programme on climate change, agriculture and food security (CCAFS), aims to create 1,000 so-called climate smart villages across six Indian states including Haryana, Punjab and Gujarat.

Haryana and Punjab are known as the grain basket states of India, producing the majority of the country’s staple wheat and basmati rice for export to the Middle East and European markets. The pumping of groundwater for irrigation over the past thirty years has led to a spike in productivity and increased food security.

However, the region faces increases in temperature up to 5C by 2080 and wheat is particularly vulnerable to heat stress. A recent study by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute indicates that climate change may reduce wheat yields in India between 6% and 23% by 2050. Environmental problems such as depleting groundwater and variable rains – delayed monsoons and intense rainfall – limit yields. Indian farmers also typically use almost twice the amount of fertiliser needed, damaging soil, contaminating groundwater and adding to greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the full article originally published in The Guardian.

Ocean Acidification Poses Risks to Coastal Economies

Oysters, scallops and clams … they’re an iconic part of American cuisine and a critical source of jobs in many coastal communities. But the nation’s approximately one billion dollar shelled mollusk industry is at risk.

When cars, factories, and power plants emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, some of the pollution gets absorbed by the oceans – increasing their acidity and making it hard for mollusks to build their shells.

According to a new report, the problem has economic consequences for coastal communities – from Maine to the Chesapeake Bay, and from the Louisiana Bayou to the Pacific Northwest.

Continue reading and listening at Yale Climate Connections.

Associated SESYNC Researcher(s):

Dispatches from Lisa Palmer on the future of food and the environment