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The report finds that certified farmland for bananas, cocoa, coffee, cotton, oil palm, soybeans, sugarcane, tea, and forestry products is expanding and that this trend is expected to continue, especially if producing countries and emerging markets, particularly in Asia, support sustainability trends. The report highlights the role of consumer preferences for healthier and more…

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the warning bells about our broken food system. As farmers and consumers grapple with disruptions in the global food supply chain, we are witnessing an exacerbation of threats to the natural environment. Since start of the pandemic, increases in deforestation and forest degradation, illegal wildlife exploitation, plastic pollution, and urban waste have been…

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 2020 (IPS) - The European Commission this week pledged $27.8 million in humanitarian support to the Sahel region as floods and the coronavirus pandemic exacerbate the stability in a region deeply in conflict. While the figure is less than 2 percent of the $2.4 billion that the United Nations has appealed for, Amnesty International researcher Ousmane Diallo told IPS…

Women from around the world are being given a more prominent role in the fight against climate change, thanks to the efforts of the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Globally, countries are being encouraged to update their plans to curb climate change and restrict the increase in temperatures to at least two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a process which is being supported by UNDP…

Earlier this month, a storm front swept across the Great Plains of the United States, plowing up a wall of dust that could be seen from space, stretching from eastern Colorado into Nebraska and Kansas. It was a scene straight from the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when farmers regularly saw soil stripped from their fields and whipped up into choking blizzards of dust. Better get used to it…

I grew up in a small rural neighbourhood, from a little below average income household. It was the choice of my parents not allow the environmental circumstance, decide their socioeconomic fate. They drew that courage, built resilience, and fashioned a sustainable livelihood pattern for the family. Over 70 per cent of the family's earnings came from…