‘You sneak in and hope you make it back’: the Sudanese volunteers risking it all to bring care to millions
Members of Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms network tell Guardian they didn’t mind missing out on the Nobel peace prize because ‘we only want to help’
Doing good gets you killed in Sudan. It was why Amira did not tell her mother when she joined a volunteer group that felt like the only thing stopping her country sliding deeper into dystopia.
Each morningshe secretly crossed the shifting frontline of Sudan’s North Kordofan state. Amira was entering territory held by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), paramilitaries who have committed countless war crimes, including genocide, during the country’s cataclysmic war.
Continue reading...Wednesday briefing: What your Christmas cranberries reveal about the climate crisis
In today’s newsletter: Extreme weather and fragile supply chains are pushing up food costs – and raising fears of instability
Good morning. Have you done your Christmas food shop yet? If so, you probably felt the sting before you reached the checkout. From turkeys to trees, much of what makes Christmas feel like, well, Christmas, now comes with a noticeably higher price tag.
The prices of ingredients for a traditional Christmas meal and festive treats have risen sharply this year, piling pressure on Britons still deep in the grip of a tough cost of living crisis. It comes as polling repeatedly shows that the economy and day-to-day living costs remain at the top of the public’s most pressing concerns.
Continue reading...Barracuda, grouper, tuna – and seaweed: Madagascar’s fishers forced to find new ways to survive
Seaweed has become a key cash crop as climate change and industrial trawling test the resilient culture of the semi-nomadic Vezo people
Along Madagascar’s south-west coast, the Vezo people, who have fished the Mozambique Channel for countless generations, are defined by a way of life sustained by the sea. Yet climate change and industrial exploitation are pushing this ocean-based culture to its limits.
Coastal villages around Toliara, a city in southern Madagascar, host tens of thousands of the semi-nomadic Vezo people, who make a living from small-scale fishing on the ocean. For centuries, they have launched pirogues, small boats carved from single tree trunks, every day into the turquoise shallows to catch tuna, barracuda and grouper.
A boat near lines of seaweed, which has become a main source of income for Ambatomilo village as warmer seas, bleached reefs and erratic weather accelerate the decline of local fish populations
Continue reading...‘Borrowed time’: crop pests and food losses supercharged by climate crisis
Heating means pests breeding and spreading faster, warn scientists, with simplified current food system already vulnerable
The destruction of food supplies by crop pests is being supercharged by the climate crisis, with losses expected to surge, an analysis has concluded.
Researchers said the world was lucky to have so far avoided a major shock and was living on borrowed time, with action needed to diversify crops and boost natural predators of pests.
Continue reading...FEWS NET Seasonal Forecast Review for December 2025
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633La Niña is present. Severe drought conditions worsen in Eastern Africa, while abnormal dryness persists in parts of Africa, most of Central Asia, southeastern Honduras, and eastern Colombia.
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16Ada Derana first at 9.00 (Ada Derana)
Ada Derana first at 9.00 (Ada Derana)
Ada Derana (YouTube, Sri Lanka) featured IFPRI work in this news report on the national Building Resilient Inclusive Growth and Holistic Transformation (BRIGHT) survery in Sri Lanka.
The post Ada Derana first at 9.00 (Ada Derana) appeared first on IFPRI.
‘Soil is more important than oil’: inside the perennial grain revolution
Scientists in Kansas believe Kernza could cut emissions, restore degraded soils and reshape the future of agriculture
On the concrete floor of a greenhouse in rural Kansas stands a neat grid of 100 plastic plant pots, each holding a straggly crown of strappy, grass-like leaves. These plants are perennials – they keep growing, year after year. That single characteristic separates them from soya beans, wheat, maize, rice and every other major grain crop, all of which are annuals: plants that live and die within a single growing season.
“These plants are the winners, the ones that get to pass their genes on [to future generations],” says Lee DeHaan of the Land Institute, an agricultural non-profit based in Salina, Kansas. If DeHaan’s breeding programme maintains its current progress, the descendant of these young perennial crop plants could one day usher in a wholesale revolution in agriculture.
Continue reading...La Niña is present. Severe drought conditions emerged in southern Somalia and eastern Kenya. Drought persists in Eastern Africa and eastern Central Asia; Flood risks continue in several areas of Central America and Northern South America.
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16FEWS NET Seasonal Forecast Review for November 2025
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633FEWS NET Seasonal Forecast Review for October 2025
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633‘Even the animals seem confused’: a retreating Kashmir glacier is creating an entire new world in its wake
Kolahoi is one of many glaciers whose decline is disrupting whole ecosystems – water, wildlife and human life that it has supported for centuries
From the slopes above Pahalgam, the Kolahoi glacier is visible as a thinning, rumpled ribbon of ice stretching across the western Himalayas. Once a vast white artery feeding rivers, fields and forests, it is now retreating steadily, leaving bare rock, crevassed ice and newly exposed alpine meadows.
The glacier’s meltwater has sustained paddy fields, apple orchards, saffron fields and grazing pastures for centuries. Now, as its ice diminishes, the entire web of life it supported is shifting.
Continue reading...Food Assistance Outlook Brief, December 2025
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9Sellers not relying on middlemen anymore for fish sales: Study (The Daily Star)
Sellers not relying on middlemen anymore for fish sales: Study (The Daily Star)
IFPRI research presented at the BIDS Annual Conference on Development 2025, highlighting new evidence on aquaculture value chains, agricultural mechanization, and social protection.
The post Sellers not relying on middlemen anymore for fish sales: Study (The Daily Star) appeared first on IFPRI.
La Niña is present. Drought conditions persist in Eastern Africa and have emerged in eastern Central Asia; Flood risks in central and southern Africa, Central America and Northern South America.
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16December 2025 Weather and Agriculture Outlook
Join us for our monthly Weather and Agriculture Outlook where we discuss the current state of earth systems and provide updates on regional seasonal monitoring efforts.
Weather and Agriculture Outlook, Global, East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and Asia, Ukraine FEWS NET Events events@fews.net Virtual – register for meeting link Register Now Show Previous Events OnNovember 2025 Price Watch
- International markets showed mixed trends in October, with maize prices rising 4.1 percent on record export demand, while rice prices remained 35 percent below last year's levels on continued high supply. Wheat prices declined slightly on record global production and stocks. Crude oil fell to $65/bbl amid accelerating oversupply. Fertilizer prices were mixed, with urea down 4.4 percent and ammonia up 8.9 percent.
- In West Africa, the main harvest improved market supplies and favored low seasonal cereal prices from September to October. Conflict-affected zones in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and eastern Chad continued to face high prices due to conflict and market disruptions. In Nigeria, easing inflation, stabilizing exchange rates, improved harvest availability, import waivers, and stock releases drove staple prices well below last year's and the average. In Cameroon, food prices remained significantly above the five-year average, with recent increases in urban centers following political unrest. Prices in the Sahel are expected to remain seasonally low before gradually rising in January.
- In East Africa, staple food prices were mixed in October. Prices were stable in Ethiopia and Rwanda, declining due to harvests in Tanzania, Kenya, and South Sudan, and increasing seasonally in Burundi and Somalia as the lean season intensified. Prices increased in conflict-affected areas in Sudan, particularly under siege conditions in South Kordofan and North Darfur. Prices remained volatile in localized areas of Sudan and South Sudan, where conflict and flooding disrupted markets. Livestock prices were stable or marginally increased due to reduced market supply caused by seasonal migrations and below-normal herd sizes following recent droughts.
- In Southern Africa, maize prices increased slightly in October as markets began monitoring the new season and carryover stocks. Old-season maize stocks remain high in South Africa, Zambia, and Tanzania, keeping prices 20-30 percent below last year in these surplus-producing countries. However, Malawi's limited maize availability kept prices 53 percent above last year despite an atypical October decline. The Dar es Salaam port closure amid Tanzania's election unrest temporarily disrupted trade flows to Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Low fuel prices are supporting the agricultural sector during the critical planting season, while strong copper and gold prices are benefiting resource-exporting economies. La Niña conditions are expected through February 2026, bringing above-average rainfall.
- In Central America, staple grain supply improved seasonally following the primera harvest. White maize prices declined on average in El Salvador and Honduras, but remained 30 percent above the average. Black and red bean supply remained below average due to production deficits. Prices declined seasonally, supported by improvements in local supply from the primera harvest, but lingered above average due to recurrent production losses and declining crop areas. In Haiti, insecurity continued to affect market operations in urban areas, and Hurricane Melissa disrupted markets.
- In the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, staple food prices were mixed in October. In Afghanistan, prices remained broadly stable, supported by currency appreciation and steady imports. In Yemen, prices were stable in both IRG- and SBA-controlled areas. In Gaza, prices fell sharply in October but remained far above pre-crisis levels. In the West Bank, prices stayed largely stable, but movement restrictions and settler violence continue to hinder market access.
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15Australian diet set to worsen as national food policy is drawn up by profit-driven industry, experts warn
Exclusive: Many industries on new council are ‘associated with significant health harms’, one academic says
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Cheap and unhealthy foods are set to become further entrenched in the Australian diet, according to health experts, who warn the federal government is developing a national food policy with heavy influence from profit-driven food and agriculture industries.
Dr Matt Fisher from the University of Adelaide’s Stretton Institute’s health equity department said the policy could “compromise crucial public health considerations”.
Continue reading...FEWS NET Weather and Agriculture Outlook, November 2025
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638La Niña persists. Dryness in Eastern Africa and Central America; Flood risks in Southern Africa, Hispaniola, and Northern South America; Cold anomalies in Eastern Central Asia.
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