News from The Guardian Food Security Blog (<front>)

Heavy rain likely to cause low yields in Britain and other parts of Europe, with drought in Morocco hitting imports

• Which UK foods are at risk?

The UK faces food shortages and price rises as extreme weather linked to climate breakdown causes low yields on farms locally and abroad.

Record rainfall has meant farmers in many parts of the UK have been unable to plant crops such as potatoes, wheat and vegetables during the key spring season. Crops that have been planted are of poor quality, with some rotting in the ground.

Poverty reduction drive all but halted across many nations as Bank calls for more money to tackle a ‘great reversal’

• Larry Elliott: At last G20 is showing how to fund an assault on poverty

The devastating impact of the pandemic on the world’s poorest countries has brought poverty reduction to a halt and led to a widening income gap with nations in the rich west, the World Bank has warned.

In a report released to coincide with its half-yearly meeting, the Washington-based organisation said half of the world’s 75 poorest nations had seen income per head rise more slowly than in developed countries over the past five years.

Economic crisis has driven Warao communities from their traditional life in lush forest to a Brazilian slum

• Photographs by Nicola Zolin

At 4pm, the sound of sirens is fading. On the pavement, a teenage girl – her eyes darting back and forth to monitor police presence – starts smoking crack. She is across the street from “Hotel 583”, a makeshift shelter in a dangerous part of downtown Manaus, the capital of Amazonas in Brazil.

On the second floor of the building, in the Cidade de Deus slum, 20 of the 27 Warao people who live here cram into a sweltering room measuring about 20 sq metres. Some sleep on the floor, while the more fortunate are in hammocks. The children’s stomachs are swollen, the effect of parasites, and their skin is covered in rashes.

Warao people are crowded into a makeshift building in the Cidade de Deus slum

Foreign Office paper says not enough being done, with over half the population living on less than $1.90 a day

• UK politics – latest updates

New fears have arisen about the suitability of Rwanda as a destination to send UK asylum seekers after a damning government assessment about the prevalence of poverty and malnutrition in the country.

The paper, from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), highlights key concerns about the state of Rwanda in a “problem statement”. More than half of the population – 56.5% – live on less than $1.90 a day and FCDO’s analysis finds that poverty reduction has “stagnated” since 2014.

Reports of exorbitant cost of basic foods such as onions, as well as oil and flour, come amid warnings Gaza faces imminent famine

People living in Gaza are facing exorbitant food prices as more than 1 million residents of the Palestinian territory face famine.

Since Israel’s invasion in October, it has become common for Gaza’s displaced population to share pictures of their shopping baskets and document how high prices have risen amid food shortages.

Thousands of farmers have been persuaded by TREES scheme to replace barren monocultures with biodiverse forest gardens

In a world of monoculture cash crops, an innovative African project is persuading farmers to plant biodiverse forest gardens that feed the family, protect the soil and expand tree cover.

Could Trees for the Future (TREES) be a rare example of a mass reforestation campaign that actually works? The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) certainly thinks so and last month awarded it the status of World Restoration Flagship.

Struggling to compete with large-scale landowners, smallholder farmers move ever deeper into Brazil’s disappearing forest

Onésio Nascimento has worked the land his whole life, moving from one Brazilian farming frontier to the next. During the coronavirus pandemic, he sold 20 hectares (50 acres) of land in northwest Mato Grosso state and used the money to buy another 100 hectares further north in the Amazon, in south Roraima.

Today, he grows cassava and bananas on his land, an hour’s drive down a bumpy dirt road, which turns to mud during the rainy season. Flanked by small herds of cattle, the road is used by loggers to extract valuable Amazon hardwoods from nearby pristine forest.

The Wayúu people of La Guajira have always faced water scarcity. But now severe drought has brought disease and a shortage of food

More than 40% of produce in the country is lost or wasted but new research highlights how it could be a key tool in fighting rising food insecurity. One charity is leading the charge

About half a dozen men in hairnets busy themselves with crates of fresh produce outside a food depot in Rio de Janeiro’s northern suburbs. As one reels off a list of products, the others place oddly shaped vegetables into large bags before loading them into a waiting car. The produce will later be cooked and served in soup kitchens, nurseries and other institutions offering free meals to people in need across the city.

The depot is run by Brazil’s biggest network of food banks, Sesc Mesa Brasil. With 95 units all over the country, Mesa – which means table in Portuguese – collects food that would otherwise go to waste from supermarkets, farmers and other suppliers and retailers, sorts it, and then donates it to partner organisations.

Exclusive: UN special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri says denial of food is war crime and constitutes ‘a situation of genocide’

Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians and should be held accountable for war crimes – and genocide, according to the UN’s leading expert on the right to food.

Hunger and severe malnutrition are widespread in the Gaza Strip, where about 2.2 million Palestinians are facing severe shortages resulting from Israel destroying food supplies and severely restricting the flow of food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies. Aid trucks and Palestinians waiting for humanitarian relief have come under Israeli fire.

Agricultural sector hit by post-Brexit turmoil with protests over trade deals, environmental legislation and rising costs

Rishi Sunak will promise farmers the “largest ever” grant scheme tomorrow, as well as the creation of a food security index, after criticism that Brexit trade deals and poor responses to flooding and rising costs have put England’s ability to feed itself at risk.

Against a backdrop of turmoil in the agricultural sector, with farmers in the UK and across the continent causing havoc with tractor protests against environmental regulations and a perceived lack of support, Sunak will respond to farmers’ calls for a commitment from government that the UK’s food self-sufficiency will remain at or exceed the current estimated level, which is about 60%.

Move is bloc’s latest environmental concession to farmers as protests continue across Europe

• Europe live – latest updates

The European Commission is shelving plans to cut pesticide use in agriculture as farmers around Europe continue protests demanding higher prices for their products and an easing of EU environment rules.

The original proposal to halve chemical pesticide use in the EU by the end of the decade – part of the EU’s green transition – “has become a symbol of polarisation,” the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday, as she said she would ask it “to withdraw this proposal”.

Andrew Mitchell warns of ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ triggered by El Niño-driven drought and conflict

The risk of a humanitarian catastrophe in northern Ethiopia is growing, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s Africa minister, said on his return from a two-day trip to the region.

“We have an opportunity to stop a looming humanitarian catastrophe in its tracks. But we must act and act now,” Mitchell said on Monday.

The country is suffering from the impacts of long-term El Niño-driven drought and brutal conflict, including the two-year war in the northern region of Tigray that ended in November 2022.

In crowded Jerash refugee camp, hydroponic horticulture allows residents to grow their own crops efficiently in an arid country – and provides a stateless people with an income

Idris Abu Saleh has got used to being known as the chemist who grows the best onions. Unable to find any work after graduation, now, aged 23, he is supporting his family of eight from his homemade hydroponic greenhouse in a refugee camp in northern Jordan.

“People keep commenting on me being the pharmacist who sells onions,” said Abu Saleh. “But I try not to let that bother me – it’s a job.”

The World Vegetable Centre in Taiwan is breeding varieties that will grow better and faster and could become a major crop in Australia

They are one of the easier legumes to digest and fetch a higher crop price than Australian wheat, yet mung beans are not mainstream in the western world. But, while the vigna radiata has been nourishing populations across India and Asia for millennia, in recent decades enterprising scientists have started investigating the legume’s potential to improve food security and farmers’ incomes.

Since its inception 50 years ago, the World Vegetable Centre (also known as WorldVeg) in Taiwan has collected more than 8,000 “accessions”, or varieties, of mung bean seeds, genebank manager, Dr Maarten van Zonneveld, says. Much like other species, such as humans and dogs, plants – including mung beans – need genetic diversity to create robust offspring. Diversity also enables selective crossing of different varieties to create new lines with desirable traits.

Aid agencies warn multiple conflicts putting unprecedented pressure on lives of people in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza

For a region that is no stranger to geopolitical turmoil, UN agencies believe the Middle East is experiencing an “apocalyptic” collective humanitarian crisis. Even before Hamas’s October attack on Israel convulsed the region, neighbouring Lebanon and Syria were experiencing profound challenges, while Yemen has been vying for the unenviable title of home to the world’s worst humanitarian calamity.

On Friday, the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) admitted that the situation in the Middle East had probably “never been worse” since it began collating records in 1991.

Charities warns of ‘dire’ outcome for the impoverished country, where two-thirds of the population already relies on aid to survive

• Middle East crisis – live updates
• Who are the Houthis and how did strikes on Yemen come about?

Aid agencies have begun suspending vital operations in Yemen after the recent US and UK strikes on Houthi targets, amid warnings that further military intervention risks deepening one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

A coalition of 23 aid organisations operating within the Gulf state issued a joint statement on Tuesday, warning that military escalation will further compromise their ability to deliver critical services while worsening living conditions for millions of people in Yemen.

Conservationists call for end to subsidies that make up 15% to 18% of industry’s income and threaten to ‘empty the ocean of fish’

The government needs to urgently end polluting tax breaks for the UK fishing fleet that threaten to “empty the ocean of fish”, say conservationists, after a first-of-its kind study reveals diesel subsidies to be worth up to £1.8bn a decade.

Without the tax subsidies, largely provided to the most fuel-intensive section of the fleet, many sectors would be unprofitable, according to the analysis by government environmental advisers.