August 2011
24 posts
4 tags
Supermarkets in Africa
While South African supermarkets have been making inroads into Africa and changing the retail geographies of low income areas of South Africa for some time, the Kenyan Nakumatt has just announced expansion plans:
“While Shoprite’s African adventure has come with many challenges, serious competition hasn’t been one of them. Undeniably the only genuine pan-African supermarket, with 113...
Food allowances for students in Tanzania
University World News are reporting that the Tanzanian government has increased food allowances to their students by 50% in the wake of food price increases.
“”We have decided to have meal allowances increased from the current 5,000 Tanzanian Shillings to 7,500 Tanzanian Shillings (US$4.72) per day. We have considered the students’ complaints and hope this increase will be...
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Changing lives at UCT
Last night I had the pleasure of speaking at the UCT Centre for Criminology’s Changing Lives Seminar Series, co-hosted by Project 90 by 2030 (http://www.90x2030.org/).
I was speaking on “Feeding the City: A 21st Century Challenge” and was fortunate to share the panel with Green Communities (http://www.greencommunities.co.za/) who were speaking about their AMAFAMA project in...
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UK Obesity
The Independent has an eye-catching graphic on rising obesity rates in the UK.
(source)
It is accompanied by this article which says the following: “A series of research papers published in The Lancet ahead of next month’s United Nations meeting on non-communicable diseases, which is expected to single out obesity as the world’s greatest challenge, says the drivers of the...
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Food prices an political instability
Just out in Physics and Society:
The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East
Marco Lagi, Karla Z. Bertrand and Yaneer Bar-Yam
“Social unrest may reflect a variety of factors such as poverty, unemployment, and social injustice. Despite the many possible contributing factors, the timing of violent protests in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011 as...
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Agricultural Urbanism -- new website / book /... →
urbanfoodproduction:
Our awareness of the significant challenge our food supply faces in the 21st century is growing rapidly. However, few people offer more than a suggestion that we all grow our own food in our backyard or balcony, attend a farmers’ market, and lobby for global change. This book, rooted in a sustainable food system approach and written by leaders in planning and design,...
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ABC's "Hunger at home" series →
This from the Huffington Post: ABC News will kick off a series called “Hunger at Home: Crisis in America” on Wednesday, exploring the growing number of American families who battle hunger.
The basis for the series is a glaring statistic that some may find startling: one in six Americans does not get enough food.
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Urban food security in Kenya
Irin Africa have a fascinating piece on urban food insecurity in East Africa (link).
It highlights the large numbers of urban poor falling into food insecurity and hunger, and that these often go un-noticed in part because of Emergency Agency’s use of percentages rather than absolute numbers. Confused? I’ll let the article explain.
“
Part of the reason malnutrition in slums is...
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We are hungry
I’ve spent the last few days at an Urban Agriculture Exchange Event hosted by the City of Cape Town with Rooftops Canada, the City of Toronto and Nairobi’s Mazingira’s Institute. We spent a lot of time visiting community garden projects in the City, like the one below in Atlantis.
After the event I took the Toronto representatives to the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA),...
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Shoprite marches on
From Engineering News:
“
Shoprite, Africa’s biggest grocery retailer, is spending $416-million to expand and upgrade its distribution centres as South African merchants gear up to take on US-based Wal-Mart Stores.
Shoprite, one of the companies seen likely to lose from the entry of the world’s biggest retailer into South Africa, said on Tuesday it spent R1.5 billion in the...
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Land Bank
“The entire land reform budget for the department of Rural Development and Land Reform for making new, black-owned farms productive is R1.3 billion. In the meanwhile – in the middle of a debate about seizing farms without compensation and the realisation that new-job targets can’t possibly be met – the Land Bank has been sitting on more than half that amount, R745 million, in...
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Transfats in South Africa
As you yesterday, South Africa has legislated against Transfats. A maximum of 2% of oil content may now be from transfats and a maximum of 1% of oils in foods claiming to be transfat free.
The Daily Maverick reports on it here: Link
In the article they quote a Pretoria University Nutritionist who notes that while Europe has had such legislation for some time, they have continued to send foods to...
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Food Bank SA
Food Bank South Africa is making significant inroads into the food security movement in SA and is looking to extend their reach beyond simple food distribution. Here’s a section of nice article on what they’re doing:
“To fuel its efforts, FBSA has applied the same spirit of efficiency to spreading information and raising awareness about hunger in South Africa. “Nelson Mandela...
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Now Brazil starts buying up land in Mozambique
Hmmm,
“The Mozambican government is providing large tracts of land at a symbolic price to Brazilian farmers to produce soy, maize and cotton, Mozambique’s agriculture minister, José Pacheco told Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.
“Brazilian farmers have accumulated experience that is very welcome,” said Pacheco, adding that, “we want to repeat in Mozambique what they managed to do...
5 tags
Now Brazil starts buying up land in Mozambique
Hmmm,
“The Mozambican government is providing large tracts of land at a symbolic price to Brazilian farmers to produce soy, maize and cotton, Mozambique’s agriculture minister, José Pacheco told Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.
“Brazilian farmers have accumulated experience that is very welcome,” said Pacheco, adding that, “we want to repeat in Mozambique what they managed to do...
4 tags
Lexicon of Sustainability
Just stumbled on this project through Grist. The Lexicon of Sustainability has some beautiful images. Have a look at the site - it has some great material
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GM Corn for fuel?
The Guardian are reporting today that the US is now growing corn specifically modified for fuel production rather than food, “The corn, developed by a branch of the Swiss pesticide firm Syngenta, contains an added gene for an enzyme (amylase) that speeds the breakdown of starches into ethanol. Ethanol plants normally have to add the enzyme to corn when making ethanol.” (full article)....
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Comment on de Schutter's Right to food in SA... →
Glenn Ashton pulls out some good points on the right to food in SA here
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On eating ethically
Last night I had the privilege of speaking at a meeting at a church on Just Food, co-ordinated by A Rocha (http://www.arocha.org/gb-en/resources/1257-DSY/10730-DSY.html). It was a great chance for me to think through my discontent at the disconnect between the rhetoric of the Foodie movement and the Food Security movement and to use a theological approach to seeing a path through this.
...
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Opinions Behind Africa’s famine, more than just... →
From the Washington Post. My old colleague Bill Moseley makes some good points on the longer term factors behind the famine.
Nice turn of phrase: “Just as death from exposure is not an inherent result of a cold winter, famine is not a natural consequence of drought. Simply put, the structure of human society often determines who is affected and to what degree.”
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why the famine?
The Guardian has a good piece today looking into what went wrong (link):
““How can we have people dying like flies of hunger in 2011?” said Luca Alinovi, an economist who lived in Somalia in the late 80s and now runs the Somalia country office of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, based in Nairobi. “It is so unacceptable. Famine is a middle ages...
The anti-supermarket protesters →
Supermarket sweep
In Britain a new Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s or Asda opens every other day. But across the country people are battling the relentless march of the ‘Big Four’. John Harris, who has taken up the fight himself, reports
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Eat your waste
This article from the New York Times looks at uses for parts of fresh produce that are usually thrown away these days.
“If home cooks reconsidered what should go into the pot, and what into the trash, what would they find? What new flavors might emerge, what old techniques? Pre-industrial cooks, for whom thrift was a necessity as well as a virtue, once knew many ways to put the entire...
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Food security in Cape Town podcast →
About 6 minutes into this podcast is a 20 minute interview with me on food security in Cape Town. The sound quality isn’t great, but it turned out OK
