Ancient maize v agribusiness: why Colombia’s ‘seed guardians’ are fighting the use of GM crops
Biotech companies say genetically modified plants give higher yields and reduce pesticide use. But in rural communities, questions are growing over who really benefits – and the threat to native varieties
On a hillside farm in San Lorenzo, in the mountains of Colombia’s southern Nariño department, Aura Alina Domínguez presses maize seeds into the damp soil. Around her, farmers Alberto Gómez, José Castillo and Javier Castillo arrive with their selected seeds, stored in shigras – hand-woven shoulder bags – as has been done for generations.
In San Lorenzo, they call themselves “seed guardians” for their role in protecting this living heritage and passing it down the generations. “Each seed carries our grandparents’ story,” says Domínguez, arranging the dried cobs that hang from her rafters.
Continue reading...FEWS NET Relaunches Website, Resumes Global Food Security Analysis
Washington, D.C. – The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) relaunched its website Tuesday, coinciding with the release of an updated analysis on global acute food insecurity.
Following a brief pause in services during a review of U.S. foreign assistance programs, FEWS NET has resumed operations and published a new Global Food Security Update with analysis through September 2025. The FEWS NET program will reinstate its regular reporting cycle and restore full geographic coverage in the coming months.
“We are pleased to announce that FEWS NET is resuming its critical mandate of forecasting life-threatening food crises around the world,” FEWS NET spokesperson Hannah Button said. “FEWS NET was established as part of America’s response to famine in East and West Africa in the 1980s, and its strength came from connecting emerging satellite technologies to a deep local understanding of people’s livelihoods and the types of hazards that increase the risks of hunger. FEWS NET will continue to integrate cutting-edge data and space-based technologies with local human knowledge, in partnership with governments, NGOs, regional institutions, and the private sector. This defines our gold-standard approach to forecasting food crises and providing decision makers with the information they need to save lives, enhance human security, and support prosperity.”
In its June 2025 Global Food Security Update, FEWS NET warns of worsening hunger in conflict-affected areas of several regions. In East Africa, heightened insecurity remains a key driver of acute food insecurity in South Sudan, northern Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan, where extreme hunger and high levels of acute malnutrition and hunger-related deaths are likely ongoing in areas of North Darfur and Khartoum. A combination of conflict and drought are impacting food security outcomes for refugee and internally displaced populations in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, and Burundi. In the Middle East and Afghanistan, food assistance needs remain high across the region, with Gaza experiencing the most extreme outcomes amid mass starvation and hunger-related deaths. In West Africa, conflict, insecurity, and localized weather shocks are expected to drive increased food assistance needs, particularly in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria’s North East region, as violent extremist organizations continue their push to the Atlantic coast. Conflict has significantly disrupted agricultural and economic activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province. In Haiti, gang violence continues to drive mass displacement, heavily disrupting economic activity and significantly impeding household access to food. Hunger is expected to worsen in Central America’s Dry Corridor and Venezuela from June to September.
In several regions, violent conflicts are disrupting agricultural production, severing trade routes, and limiting humanitarian access. FEWS NET analysts continue to closely monitor ongoing conflicts to assess impacts on global food systems and localized levels of acute food insecurity.
“The world is facing a historic surge in organized violence. As of 2024, there are more active state-based conflicts than at any time since 1946, with at least 11 ongoing wars and over 160,000 conflict-related deaths,” Senior Conflict Advisor Dr. Yehuda Magid said. “The geographic reach of violence has expanded sharply, with conflict now affecting 65 percent more global territory than just three years ago. Nearly one in eight people worldwide are exposed to political violence. This escalation reflects not only a rise in the number of conflicts, but also their intensity and civilian impact.”
While the war in Ukraine has severely reduced grain exports from one of the world’s key suppliers, other ongoing conflicts have triggered price spikes through blockades and infrastructure attacks, hitting low-income, import-dependent countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia the hardest.
“In an interconnected world, the global food system is increasingly vulnerable to the ripple effects of conflict. Responding to this challenge requires not just humanitarian aid, but conflict-sensitive development, market stabilization, and sustained diplomatic engagement to prevent future shocks,” Magid said.
Since its formation in 1985, FEWS NET has systematized its collection, analysis, and publication of data on a wide range of integrated factors that contribute to food insecurity – including local livelihoods, conflict, markets and trade systems, agroclimatology and weather, and more – allowing for cross-nationally comparable forecasts of life-threatening food crises that are grounded in local realities. The network’s deep expertise in these areas has positioned it to become a global leader in food security analysis. FEWS NET is currently the only global program that provides 8-month projections that inform humanitarian response planning, with monthly updates to ensure timely adjustments to deliveries.
“The return of FEWS NET sends an important message: It reminds the world that American foreign assistance is both generous and strategic,” Button said. “By providing governments and aid organizations with the data and analysis needed to anticipate and prepare for food shocks, we can all work together towards achieving the shared goal of reducing human suffering and promoting global stability.”
FEWS NET will continue to inform U.S. government decisions on how much food to purchase from American farmers and where it should be sent to alleviate the greatest suffering. In 2023, the U.S. purchased $2.1 billion in food from domestic farmers and ranchers – including sorghum, corn, beans, rice, and vegetable oil – to help more than 45 million people in need of emergency food and nutrition assistance across 35 countries.
Regular monthly food security reporting for all FEWS NET-monitored countries will resume in the coming months, beginning with the publication of Key Messages for select countries in July 2025. FEWS NET teams will also work to fill gaps in data collection that occurred during this year’s pause in services. Please check the FEWS NET website regularly for updates to our reporting and data offerings.
“As humanitarian assistance levels decline amid a rise in global insecurity, FEWS NET remains committed to our role as the leading global provider of acute food insecurity analysis,” Button said. “Our ability to leverage our decades of expertise to continuously improve forecasting accuracy and timeliness uniquely positions us to help inform humanitarian responses and government decision-making.”
Publish Date Tue, 06/24/2025 - 12:00 Location Washington, D.C. Contacts
Hannah Button
Famine Early Warning Systems Network
hbutton@fews.net
ENSO-neutral is present. Dryness is observed in Central Asia, tropical Africa, Yemen, northern Central America and Hispaniola. Meanwhile, flood risk is present in Africa, Central America, and northern South America.
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16New study proposes smarter cropland allocation to support sustainable agricultural intensification in Senegal
The study explores how farmers’ land-use decisions can be guided by the relative risks and returns of different crops—similar to how financial investments are managed.
The post New study proposes smarter cropland allocation to support sustainable agricultural intensification in Senegal appeared first on IFPRI.
Global Food Security Update: June to September 2025
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8Global Food Security Update: May to September 2025
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8Send in armed UN troops to protect aid convoys or risk ‘dystopia’, says expert
UN rapporteur calls for move as food deliveries are attacked and starvation becomes a weapon of war in Gaza and Sudan
UN peacekeepers should be routinely deployed to protect aid convoys from attack in places such as Gaza and Sudan, a senior United Nations expert has proposed.
With starvation increasingly used as a weapon of war, Michael Fakhri said armed UN troops were now required to ensure that food reached vulnerable populations.
Continue reading...Sub-Saharan Africa can achieve grain self-sufficiency by 2050, new study finds
Sub-Saharan Africa can achieve grain self-sufficiency by 2050, new study finds
New research published in PNAS shows that it is feasible without further expanding agricultural land. The study, led by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in collaboration with partners including IFPRI, offers more optimistic projections compared to earlier research.
The post Sub-Saharan Africa can achieve grain self-sufficiency by 2050, new study finds appeared first on IFPRI.
New special issue of Food Policy examines fertilizer and soil health policies in the wake of global crises
Key findings were presented and discussed during the IFPRI policy seminar on June 11.
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‘When the river swells, it forces them to run backwards’: rising waters push Colombia’s farmers into hunger and despair
Communities in the Salaquí basin face deepening food insecurity, armed conflict and the collapse of a way of life – while government schemes ignore the real problem
Photographs by Antonio Cascio
Riosucio was established between rivers and swamps. For most of the year, the people of this Colombian municipality live above water and have developed ways to manage the fluctuating river levels. A network of makeshift wooden boards connects the houses in the town, allowing people to move between them.
Despite the resilience of these communities, their increasingly harsh environment is beginning to overcome all the methods and systems designed to tame it, causing crop destruction, hunger and deepening poverty.
Continue reading...UK must consider food and climate part of national security, say top ex-military figures
Former army and navy leaders urge government to think beyond military capability in advance of key defence review
Former military leaders are urging the UK government to widen its definition of national security to include climate, food and energy measures in advance of a planned multibillion-pound boost in defence spending.
Earlier this year Keir Starmer announced the biggest increase in defence spending in the UK since the end of the cold war, with the budget rising to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – three years earlier than planned – and an ambition to reach 3%.
Continue reading...Food Policy Priorities for A Changing World
Food Policy Priorities for A Changing World
IFPRI’s 2025 Global Food Policy Report reflects on 50 years of progress and examines priorities for food policy research in the run up to 2050.
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On World Hunger Day, make maternal nutrition a government priority | Letter
Former development ministers Valerie Amos, Lynne Featherstone and Liz Sugg call on leaders to commit to ensuring that women and children have access to good nutrition
Malnutrition and hunger are soaring across the world, leading to hundreds of millions of people suffering and posing a major threat to global security. Access to good nutrition is foundational to development. Without it, children cannot reach their full potential, physically or cognitively. As a result, economies are undermined and less productive, poverty is entrenched and instability spreads.
Women and girls are disproportionately impacted. One billion adolescent girls and women worldwide are suffering from malnutrition because they typically eat last and least. This has a generational impact as malnutrition passes from mother to child. Improving maternal nutrition is critical to arresting global malnutrition and building a healthier and more secure world.
Continue reading...EU’s ‘chocolate crisis’ worsened by climate breakdown, researchers warn
Cocoa one of six commodities vulnerable to environmental threats in ‘extremely worrying picture’ for food resilience
Climate breakdown and wildlife loss are deepening the EU’s “chocolate crisis”, a report has argued, with cocoa one of six key commodities to come mostly from countries vulnerable to environmental threats.
More than two-thirds of the cocoa, coffee, soy, rice, wheat and maize brought into the EU in 2023 came from countries that are not well-prepared for climate change, according to the UK consultants Foresight Transitions.
Continue reading...It’s time to stop the great food heist powered by big business. That means taxation, regulation and healthy school meals | Stuart Gillespie
The global food system has been captured by a few rapacious companies that profit from public ill-health. We need a radical overhaul
Our food system is killing us. Designed in a different century for a different purpose – to mass produce cheap calories to prevent famine – it is now a source of jeopardy, destroying more than it creates. A quarter of all adult deaths globally – more than 12 million every year – are due to poor diets.
Malnutrition in all its forms – undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity – is by far the biggest cause of ill-health, affecting one in three people on the planet. Ultra-processed foods are implicated in as many as one in seven premature deaths in some countries.
Continue reading...Nutrition issues to watch at the 78th World Health Assembly (Devex)
Nutrition issues to watch at the 78th World Health Assembly (Devex)
Purnima Menon was interviewed by Devex for this article on the 78th World Health Assembly held in Geneva, Switzerland.
The post Nutrition issues to watch at the 78th World Health Assembly (Devex) appeared first on IFPRI.
Fix social protection flaws instead of expanding outlay (The Daily Star)
Fix social protection flaws instead of expanding outlay (The Daily Star)
Bangladesh must urgently redirect resources within its fragmented social protection system and scale up a handful of proven programs that directly benefit the poorest, says IFPRI's Akhter Ahmed.
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‘If I had to choose, I’d prefer the earthquake’: the 2015 disaster left Nepal in ruins, now record rains wreak fresh havoc
Despite attempts to build resilience by improving infrastructure and first response, extreme weather events and US aid cuts have left many feeling vulnerable
When the monsoon rains came last September, they swept away most of the village of Panauti, in the foothills of the Nepali Himalayas. The Roshi River overflowed after the unprecedented rainfall, triggering landslides and destroying most of the roads and bridges.
Peering through the thick blanket of relentless rain “felt like waiting for morning to arrive so we could see the world again”, says Bishnu Humagain. “We lost everything – our home, our agriculture, and all of our belongings.”
Continue reading...Experts stress importance of irrigation to nutrition, health outcomes (Nebraska Today)
Experts stress importance of irrigation to nutrition, health outcomes (Nebraska Today)
Claudia Ringler delivered the keynote speech at the Heuermann Lecture at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
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As famine data dries up, can AI step in? (Devex)
As famine data dries up, can AI step in? (Devex)
Devex quoted Yanyan Liu in this article on how researchers are developing AI tools to predict famine more accurately and affordably.
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