The Committee for World Food Security may be gathered in Rome to celebrate World Food Day (October 16th), but as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter says, “there is little to rejoice about.”
Photo Credit: Bernard Pollack
Almost a billion people are still hungry worldwide. The current agricultural development approach focuses on increasing production with the help of technology and chemical inputs, a strategy De Schutter declared “a recipe for disaster” that will not prepare small holder farmers to cope with climate change.
De Schutter recommends more investment in low-carbon agriculture – low technology, sustainable techniques that will assist rural farmers working in harsh environmental conditions. He points to examples of innovations already working on the ground in Africa, such as land rehabilitation through agroforestry in Tanzania. De Schutter says, “A fundamental shift is urgently required if we want to celebrate World Food Day next year.”
Danielle Nierenberg, an expert on livestock and sustainability, currently serves as Project Director of State of World 2011 for the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank. Her knowledge of factory farming and its global spread and sustainable agriculture has been cited widely in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and
other publications.
Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She is currently traveling across Africa looking at innovations that are working to alleviate hunger and poverty and blogging everyday at Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. She has a regular column with the Mail & Guardian, the Kansas City Star, and the Huffington Post and her writing was been featured in newspapers across Africa including the Cape Town Argus, the Zambia Daily Mail, Coast Week (Kenya), and other African publications. She holds an M.S. in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in environmental policy from Monmouth College.
