'Global food prices have roughly doubled in three years.' The price increases and their impact on hunger were discussed at the World Food Summit in Rome in early June. 'The current crisis means that another 100 million hungry may join the 854 million who already lack sufficient daily nourishment. An immediate response should include policies that discourage grain hoarding, that reapportion the way food aid is delivered and that ensure that subsidies for food purchases are carefully targeted to r more...

With the advent of supermarkets in urban centres in many developing countries, the question of their impact on access to food and food security for the urban poor has arisen. This paper examines the consequences, and also looks at the effect supermarkets can have rural agriculture and food security.

Supermarkets can provide better quality products to better-off consumers in developing countries, and thus contribute positively to their food security. With some food commodities, supermarkets ar more...

This report summarises the results of a study of the food security outlook for Southern Africa, highlighting the major threats to food security in the period October 2007 to March 2008. It incorporates the findings from six country outlooks, and aims to provide a basis for regional and global resource allocation and contingency planning, as well as in-country planning.

The following early warning priorities are highlighted:

* in Zimbabwe, food security has deteriorated in most of the c more...

This publication offers resources for trainers on Reporting Food Security Information and is based on distance learning courses being offered by the EC-FAO Programme. It is a course aimed at mid-level managers, technical staff, field personnel; and planners, policy formulators and programme managers.

The aim of the report is to provide guidance in designing, writing and increasing the impact of food security reports in different contexts and is comprised of four essons:

* Understanding more...

This paper reflects on where the people termed a “community of practice” stand in the food security enterprise. That is, those people who have a common interest or problem, who collaborate to share ideas, find solutions and build innovations. The paper looks at the way that food security issues have been dealt with in terms of analysis and response, from both a technical and political perspective, making three key points, which it relates to the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) tool.

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Outreach Contributions 2007/2008: (Activities listed as most recent from Sept 30, 2008 back to Oct 1, 2007)

WWW site for the European Food Security Network (Resal), the body which aims to achieve a better fit between European Commission action on food aid and food security and beneficiary countries' development policy. RESAL covers 19 countries which benefit from EU food aid and food security programmes:Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Bolivia, Peru, Ethiopia, Yemen, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Mauritania, Niger, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan, Georgia & Kyrgyzstan.

ROME, 3 June 2008 (IRIN) - At least seven countries - almost all in Africa - are rated as highly vulnerable to rising food costs, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Gambia, Liberia, Mauritania, Niger, Zimbabwe, and Jordan and Moldova - which have all chalked up high levels of debt - could be forced to spend as much as two percent of their gross domestic product on importing food. Most of these countries are already struggling with chronic hunger, so soaring food cost more...

Eldis, the British portal on development issues. provides this regularly updated dossier on food security.

After more than three decades of relatively stable nominal food prices on the world markets during the years 1974-2005 and a gradual decline in their real price by an astounding 75%, largely as an effect of the decline in the world price of grains, a combination of several factors since 2005 brought a sharp increase in food and feed prices at accelerating rates that reached crisis proportion in mid-2007.
Several factors have contributed to the rise in the price of grains and other food product more...