As stated in the DGS, the transmission of the disease can be prevented by simple actions:
- Meat and especially the ground beef should be cooked at heart. Avoid the steak tartare, therefore, not cooked according to the technique of “return”;
- Raw milk and cheese made from raw milk should not be consumed by children under 3 years. Prefer cooked pressed cheeses (Emmental, Comté, etc..) Processed cheese spread and those made from pasteurized milk;
- Vegetables, fruits and herbs, especially those that will be eaten raw should be washed thoroughly;
- Keep your raw foods separate from cooked or ready to eat;
- The remains of food and dishes must be sufficiently heated and consumed quickly;
- Carefully clean the kitchen, especially when they have been in contact with raw meat. Do the same with your work;
- Wash your hands routinely before preparing food and sitting down to eat, and out of the toilet;
- If you suffer from gastroenteritis, avoid public swimming and prepare meals made by someone else;
- Children should not drink untreated water (well water, streams, etc.).. They should also avoid swallowing when they bathe in a lake, river or pond;
- Avoid finally exposing very young children (under 5) to cows, calves, sheep, goats, deer … and their environment.

Last year I became acquainted with Ample Harvest, a grassroots organization working to end hunger in America by connecting home gardeners with food pantries that take donations of home grown produce. We started sharing immediately. In fact, the reason I found Ample Harvest is because I was trying to figure out how to get our garden extras into the hands of people who really needed it.

Since then, we’ve started the Wood Streets Gardens blog and a Facebook page to get the word out. Our mission is to encourage people to grow, eat and share from their gardens. Food security starts at home. I realize that not everyone has the time, space or ability to grow a vegetable garden. But everyone can help fight hunger.

We are launching a fundraising effort online to enable us to grow more food for our community. We earn money with every unique page view of our content on RedGage. This is a way you can help us spread the word while we are growing more food. All it takes is a few clicks and you will be providing healthy food for children, families, the homeless, disabled and at risk seniors. It really is that simple. If you want to do more, you can ask your friends and contacts to support our efforts.

Our content on RedGage is under my personal member name, JulieMcM. You can look us up there, click through our links and share them on Facebook, Twitter, other social networking sites and by email. Please take a few moments to help us fight hunger. The more people who support us, the more food we can grow and share. Your support will help us get the word out, and get other people growing, eating and sharing.

Thank you for helping. A little bit does make a huge difference.

Click here to check out our Vegetable Garden collection on RedGage. Each unique page view helps us grow food to share.

Photo by Julie McMurchie

By Joseph Parish

Let’s think for a moment just how fragile our food supply logistics really is. We have our local grocery stores which usually receive their stock from a master chain distributor. Generally the grocery store does not stock more then a week’s supply of food at any one time. Usually that amount is reduced to 72 hours worth of food being on the shelves at any moment. They frequently will re-stock their shelves as the supplies arrive meaning they have no spare cases in the back waiting to be put on the shelves.

Now let’s add a monkey wrench to this scenario. If for some reason the delivery trucks are prevented from arriving due to a disaster the grocery store shelves are likely to remain bare. In effect what will happen is there will be a shortage of food for your community. No milk or bread will get to the grocery store and thus none will make it to your home.

Consider what happens in the store when word is out that a hurricane is approaching your area. First everyone rushes out to the store to purchase foods which they rightfully should have had previously in their pantries. At the close of business that night the grocery store shelves will more then likely be totally bare. These are the results from people who wait until the last minute to grab necessary basic food supplies.

Without a means of shipping food to a location the community is crippled. When this ability is stopped all sorts of problems occur and a chain reaction is encountered. The farmer is unable to ship their produce to the food processor while the final product can no longer get transported to the consumer.

To transport food and supplies we need trucks and trains. In addition even assuming we have trucks to transport our goods we then are at the mercy of the fuel industry. If we can not get oil from the mid-east we can not manufacture fuel. Without fuel our trucks will sit.

In view of all these various factors which can affect us getting our food supply in an emergency it seems to be a logical conclusion that the best thing we can do in preparation is to stock up on a year’s supply of food.

Another viewpoint to consider is that the farmer who grows the crops during a disaster will be thinking more about providing for his family and close friends rather than for strangers such as you and I, therefore once again we are brought to the reality that we should be storing up on food ourselves for an upcoming disaster. If the farmer has no food to spare then we can not and should not rely upon the government to be there to pull our life out of the crisis. Folks it simply is not going to happen so the best we can do is to think about saving up our own supply of food. If you get started now you can store enough to help your family in a disaster. Why wait?

Copyright @2010 Joseph Parish

www.survival-training.info

Premiering at the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE) in Copenhagen at the end of November, the Water and Food Award offers an innovative approach to humanitarian work and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). The Award puts water and food security at the heart of sustainable development, towards peace and prosperity. The 10,000 Euro prize went to the Australian Permaculture Research Institute (PRI), for its ‘Greening the Desert‘ initiative in Jordan.

The Award was conceived to increase awareness and engage people more in the world food and water situation. Rather than talking numbers and playing on feelings of guilt, the Award celebrates and spreads positive initiatives. As founder Tina Lindgreen said in her opening speech, “we all need water and food and we all need peace – this is part of who we are – our standpoint is that it is possible”.

The Award offers a clear message for corporations too; with water and food security comes peace and then comes prosperity. With prosperity, markets grow. Says Tina Lindgreen: “by offering corporations direct access to all our applicants they can make the human right to food and water the basis of their CSR work”. 

According to the Award’s Research manager, Stephen Hinton, one sixth of the world population – over one billion – are undernourished and lack access to good quality drinking water.

With some 6,8 billion people on the Earth, living on 14,8 billion hectare that gives us 2,1 hectares per person. Showing a picture of an oval 400-meter running track, Stephen Hinton pointed out that we have more or less just the inner part per person that is inhabitable, and of that, barely 20% is arable.

The main challenges with sustainable food and water provision include retaining productive soil and producing food whilst reducing dependence on dwindling fossil fuel supplies, recycling nutrients like phosphorous, and making sure the financial system provides money for people to buy food. Stephen Hinton also mentioned the need to capture people’s hearts: people tend to be impervious to facts and figures, especially when they appear to have little significance for everyday lives and businesses.

The message of the Water and Food Award certainly captured the heart of US–based multimedia production group A Call to Peace (AC2P). Founder Eduardo Del Signore flew over to support the event, which featured his own Afro-Uruguayan inspired acoustic guitar solos, moving performances from the University choir led by Danish singer Astrid Nora, and local songwriter Sarah.

Says Eduardo: “the music enhances the positive feeling of a human response from the heart to human needs that the Award is trying to convey”.

The Award association uses five criteria for the sustainable initiatives they are looking for.

Innovativeness: Citing Einstein’s famous quote, Research manager Stephen Hinton pointed out that you cannot solve problems caused by our approach to food and water provision using the very same approach: “We are looking for new thinking.” 

Sustainability: Says Stephen Hinton: “We are going to be eight million on this Earth pretty soon. We need to provide food for ourselves in a way that will also feed future generations. But sustainability is also about resilience – we need to set up our food and water provision to be able to feed us even if challenged by floods, droughts, economic turmoil and fuel shortages”.

Community involvement: Many humanitarian initiatives, among them Award nominee ‘the Hunger Project’, are tapping into the power of the community to create food and water security. “Resilient communities offer hope we can stand up to future challenges”, says Stephen Hinton.

Impact: The Award aims to  “catch people doing things right”. Initiatives that are working send out a powerful message of hope.

Replicable: The Award is looking for ways to reproduce the successes of the nominees’ initiatives in other places.

Presenting the nominees, Dr Alfredo Opubor from the selection committee said, “Each initiative, one after the other, gives us reason to hope”.

Sadhana Forest, an initiative using reforestation on barren land in India and Haiti, gives us, among other things, hope that we can reach the heart of volunteers and engage them to turn barren land back to being fertile.

Solvatten, a solar powered water purification device, shows us that it is possible to use just the power of the sun to produce pure water from badly contaminated sources.

The Hunger project shows us that we can engage the community, so that they can come together around a common vision to solve water, food and sanitation challenges.

Ecotact Ltd , installing toilets in slum areas in Kenya, shows us that it is possible to recycle human waste to a valuable resource and change attitudes to sanitation. This recycling of waste and the resulting reduction in disease leads to increased prosperity.

The winning initiative, The Permaculture Research Institute, took on one of driest places on earth: Al-Jawasreh Village, Jordan. Deforestation and desertification had taken its toll; villagers were suffering from food shortages. To make things worse, the soil there is extremely salty.

Selection committee member Dr Alfredo Opubor explained the significance of PRI’s achievement: “Using advanced design techniques based on natural solutions, reshaping the earth in channels, planting trees to create rain harvesting microclimates, the team literally turned the desert green. They give us hope that applying the knowledge we have, using relatively simple techniques, we can feed everyone.”

Corporations and CSR

Corporations are increasingly ‘getting’ the link between food security and sustainable development. Speaking as one of the main Sponsors, Ernst Von Frank CEO from the  Danish headquarters said, “the business case for supporting the Water and Food Award is natural for an agricultural company like Bayer: as food security comes to an area, and prosperity grows, so does the potential market”.

Although the Award has had a humble beginning, the innovation workshops just before the evening session showed it has certainly succeeded in demonstrating that it is possible to create food and water security, even under difficult social, environmental or financial situations. Moreover, it is possible to put people from widely different areas to work together towards bringing a sustainable, peaceful future where everyone goes to bed on a satisfied stomach.

It is rather surprising to know that a country that aims for a superpower status in the next 40 years is still discussing and enforcing food security now, even after 63 years of independence.

India is a country with a population of over 1.17 billion and counting. Providing food for the 1.17 billion residents of India is no joke. The story of India’s food security throughout the history of India is long and interesting. The scenario has not changed, but evolved.

In 1947, when the British left India, India was in a really bad position. It was an agriculture-based economy, it had very little money left in the treasury, very few were literate, poverty was as high as 60%, there were hardly any industries, unemployment was high and there was hardly any infrastructure.

India had to rely on wheat imports from the USA to sustain its population. The USA exported surplus wheat to India. India made a great market for USA because USA had a lot of surplus wheat which wasn’t selling fast and India was in dire need of food. The problem with the imports was that India kept importing food with the very little money it had. India couldn’t even keep stocks of food. There would be food for about 2 weeks and then nothing else in the pipeline. So if the ships wouldn’t come from the USA on time, then many Indians would be starving. As the population grew, the people started leading what is known as a “Ship-to-Mouth” existence. The government was very slow in making something happen.

One might wonder that if India is an agricultural based economy, then why would there be a shortage of food. The problem was that when the British ruled over India till August 15th 1947, the British focused on growing cash crops and crops that were beneficial to them financially. The grave food shortages for the Indian people were not the concern of the British. Whatever happened, the British never stayed hungry. Food came all the way from England if needed.

The British, during their rule of India till August 15th 1947, used colonies to provide their factories in England with raw material. Since textile was the biggest industry in England, a steady source of cotton was needed. The British grew cash crops like cotton, indigo, jute and other fibers in order to supply their factories back in England. The British would acquire huge areas of fertile land and grow cash crops. Extremely huge plantations were used to cultivate these crops.

The British did not care about the food situation of the country. The British always had enough food for themselves. During the British rule, some of the greatest famines struck India. In fact, famines were very common in many parts of India. The dry areas were the ones which suffered the most.

The British gave incentives to those farmers who grew cash crops. Most Indian farmers were poor and they had to shift to cultivating cash crops in order to survive. As a result, many Indian farmers too, turned to cultivate cash crops. It came to a situation where very few cultivated food crops. The British were least bothered because they did not want to disrupt their supply of raw material and because they simply did not care about the food shortages for the Indians.

Independent India inherited the country in this absolutely pathetic situation. Before anything could be done, the people had to be fed.

India had to address the immediate problem of extreme food shortage. India decided to import wheat from the USA. India encouraged more and more farmers to shift to food crops from cash crops. But obviously, the change would be slow. India did not have the capability at that time to drastically improve production.

This situation continued till the 1960’s. Of course, there was a little improvement on the home front, but not good enough. Then came the Green Revolution of the 60’s. This programme aimed at attaining self-sufficiency in terms of food. India was fed up of spending precious money in importing huge quantities of food.

The green revolution was aimed at empowering the farmers and production shot up. The Green revolution aimed at modernizing agriculture by using modern techniques and tools to maximize the output of food. The Green revolution is one of the greatest triumphs of India. Within a decade, India completely stopped any wheat shipments from abroad. India no longer was dependent on food aid from abroad. Even if there were food shortages in parts of the country, it never resulted in a famine.

When you look at the food situation in India today, you see that not only there is no shortage of food, but there is also a very comfortable surplus. There is enough surplus to ensure food security in times of an emergency and also enough surplus which can be used for export.

India is now in a position to export food grain to other countries and also provide food aid to many countries. It has not only shaken off any form of dependence on other countries for food, but also provided food to other countries. All this within 60 years of independence.

But India does face a fresh problem.

The food security of India is handled by a governmental agency known as the Food Corporation of India (FCI). Farmers sell their produce to the FCI and the FCI stores it and distributes it all over the country.

The problem is that there is a lot of food stored in the FCI warehouses and they aren’t being distributed fast enough. FCI complains that a lot of food gets spoilt because they weren’t consumed fast enough. This means that a lot of food gets wasted before it reaches the plates of the common man.

It is a fact that even though India produces enough food, there are still millions of people in India who don’t have access to food. People still die of malnutrition and starvation. India is clearly not in a position to waste any food. In reality, India is still food insecure.

The problem lies in the distribution of food, not its production. India produces enough to feed its people. But the availability to the people is where the problem lies.

The network of distribution of food must be widened. New schemes need to be introduced where the poor will have easy access to the food at cheap rates or even free of cost. The food should be utilized well.
The government of India has taken many steps to try and counter the problem. These steps include the program of mid-day meals in schools. They use food as an incentive for children from poor backgrounds to come and study. There is the food-for-work program where labour is exchanged for food grains. This appeals to the poorer sections of society where their basic requirement is food.

There is the need for more vigilance in the distribution system. India’s system has a lot of flaws. There has been many reports of black marketeering of food and that has risen because of the lax vigilance of the distribution system.

Instead of insisting on improving the production, what the government needs to do is improve the distribution of the food grain. Inevitably, the production of food grain is going to improve. What makes the task of distribution more daunting is the fact that India has the responsibility of feeding 1.2 billion people.

India cannot afford wasting any food when millions of Indians are starving and dying of malnourishment.

Image via Wikipedia

There are two issues:-food security and fish production through aquaculture. In real terms food security means food is available at all times, all person has access to it, it is nutritionally adequate in terms of quality, quantity and variety. When all these conditions are present, a population is considered to be food secure.

          Aquaculture includes farming of fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic plants. Aquaculture plays an important role in the economy of a country. Aquaculture helps in employment opportunity, foreign exchange, biological control of parasites, resources utilization, increasing fish productivity per capita consumption. Fisheries form an important part of livelihood. Fish as food is of excellent nutritive value and it makes a very significant contribution to the diet of many fish consuming persons in both the developed and developing countries. Fish contain lot of minerals, vitamins, proteins which are easily digestible and tasty. Omega-3 fat is found in oil-rich fish and some plants oils. Oil-rich fish include salmon, trout, mackerel, sardines and herring.  Fresh, frozen or canned fish can be eaten after proper cooking.

            Total aquaculture production in India is 6.869 million tones. Contribution of aquaculture in India at GDP level is 5% and in agriculture is 1.5%. India ranks 3rd in the global fish production. Haryana ranks 2nd in the country in per ha fish production. Indian aquatic resources are marine, fresh and brackish water. The 29,000 km of riverine resources comprises of 14 major rivers and 44 medium rivers. Ganga, Brahamputra, Indus, East coast and West coast river system are main riverine resources in India. Important cold water fish species are snow trout, mahseer, exotic trouts. Total reservoir area in India is 3.15 million ha. Tamil Nadu has highest area of small reservoirs. India’s seafood industry is one of the biggest foreign exchange earners. Crab exports currently bring in more than US$ 1 million. Carps contribute more than 80% of the total aquaculture production of the country.  Indian major carps and exotic carps come under carp culture. Some integrated fish farming like agri-fish system and livestock-fish system are also in operation.

                  For  increasing fish production in India, some future strategies needed for this purpose include:-  i) to set up adequate seed hatcheries and farms, ii) eradication of disease, pest and predator, iii) diversification of aquaculture, iv) pond fertilization using organic and inorganic fertilizers, and v) diversification in heath management practices.

21st Century first decade and India

Two trends – one good  and the other bad, one shining and the other suffering- defined India’s first decade. The shining one was prosperity, the suffering one was poverty and deprivation. The difference between rich and poor has has increased. The marginalized sections were more marginalized whereas the list of Arabpati’s in India got doubled within an year duration. The govt of India performed poorly in providing health, education and basic facilities like drinking water. On the other hand , the decade has also been one of great transformations. India has emerged as one of the fastest growing countries. The per capita income has risen from Rs. 1300 per month in 1997-2000 to Rs 2300  per month today(Feb’2010). An average Indian’s purchasing power is 60% higher today compared to the last decade . But the cost paid for this is very high.

                  The suffering side has paid for this shining side . The distribution of fruits of this growth is unequal. Few getting a lot and majority getting deprived. There is overwhelming persistence of poverty. Thirty seven % of people ,one in three Indians, were poor in 2004-2005 according to Suresh tendulkar,Head of Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. The conventional estimate puts the poverty head count at over 27 % or 300 million people . About 42.5 % children are under weight and 70% are anaemic; 20 % children are born with low birth weight. Our greatest challenge is to give a decent human life to the starving millions.

Corruption, crime, child labour and environmental destruction constitute the other challenges which are to be tackled. Price hike is an immediate challenge to be met with but how?

1.The Government must release cereal stocks through the PDS by increasing the rice and wheat quotas for the States. The Food Security legislation should be tabled without any further delay.

2.The Government must supply sugar, pulses and edible oils through PDS outlets at cheap rates.

3.Futures trading in all food articles must be immediately banned.

4.The Government, in coordination with the State Governments, must launch a countrywide crackdown against hoarding and black-marketing. All private traders of food articles must disclose their stocks and release surplus stocks.

5.Diesel and petrol prices must be brought down by cutting indirect taxes.

R.S.Dahiya

On a smaller scale, in some countries, plots of land (garden size) are allocated to residents of cities so that they can grow their own vegetables.

In some cities food is grown in the streets. In Havana in Cuba urban agriculture has been encouraged with people using vacant land in the city so that there is better food security. Urban farmers were then able to market their produce directly to the consumers. 

 In Mozambique people can apply for land to farm on without buying the land. Couldn’t other countries do the same?

Another idea to alleviate poverty is to allow people to grow industrial hemp, especially where there is little vegetation at present. Hemp can reduce soil erosion, can be used for clothes, and making cooking oil and for many other purposes. It needs virtually no attention and if a great mass of hemp was grown it would reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and reduce global warming. Of course if the hemp is burnt it adds carbon dioxide to the air, but more hemp could be grown to take the carbon dioxide out again.

Another idea is to make it easier to work from home and so reduce rental costs, reduce transport costs and save time getting to and from work.

Another is to have factories surrounded by houses in which people live and provide services to the factory – perhaps a workshop in the basement of a house could machine parts for the factory and so on.

Imgae via Wikipedia

The reality of the problem of post harvest losses in the nations of the world suggests that it is undermining our efforts towards food sufficiency. Over the years successive governments mostly in the developing nations have introduced programmes aimed at building our capacity for food production. Among these are Green Revolution, National Accelerated Food Project, Agricultural Development Projects (ADPS), as well as publicly financed institutions such as the River Basin Authorities, Directorate of Foods and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI).

The impact of all these measures taken by the nations’ governments is that the agricultural yield growth has somewhat improved, although not to the level of expectation. In the case of Nigeria, between 1980 and 2000, the nation’s GDP with respect to agricultural produce rose from 1.3 to 5.2 (CBN, 2000). This implied that the country was theoretically moving towards a state of food sufficiency. However, the facts on ground believe this presumption.

Today, 40 years and more after Independence, Nigeria is currently rated among the 20 poorest nations of the world. This is ironical considering the enormous material and human endowments of the nation which include vast agricultural lands coupled with all year round relatively good weather, huge oil, gas and mineral resources and large, talented and versatile population at about 120 million.

Thus, all things being equal, Nigeria should have no business being poor. But the global indices for measuring or assessing poverty include, among others, the status of malnutrition, which borders on food availability and food self-sufficiency. (Other indices are the rate of literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal morbidity and mortality. Even the incidence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS is closely related to the general poverty situation prevalent in the society).

Global surveys show that nearly one billion people mostly in developing countries are chronically undernourished, lacking in sufficient food to lead a healthy active life. The seriousness of this grave world food situation was reaffirmed in 1996 at the World Food Summit, which recognized the right of all peoples to be free from hunger, emphasizing that human welfare, including his well-being, should be at the center of all socio-economic development endeavours of nations of the world.

Thus, the question now is, why do we have a high incidence of malnutrition? Is it that we are not producing enough food or the right type of food, or, is it that food we produce is unaffordable? If we are producing enough and the right type of food and the food is not unaffordable, then what happens to the excess? The answer is simply that it is wasted. If we can control such wastes, food might become more available and possibly more affordable.

(L), UNSG Ban the moon, the Italian Senate pressure. Renato World Summit food security, Rome, November 16, 2009 the opening ceremony Schifani
(L), UNSG Ban the moon, the Italian Senate pressure. Renato World Summit food security, Rome, November 16, 2009 the opening ceremony Schifani
United Nations World Food Summit in Rome has opened the conference that a deal on climate change is important to fight global hunger. About 60 heads of state or government in the three-day meeting of Food and Agriculture Organization are participating.

United Nations Secretary General Ban a global view of the moon one billion dollars, about to address the plight of hungry people in Rome World Food Security Summit, opened by calling.

Mr. Ban has said that food crisis is heavy human cost. Millions of families have been pushed into poverty and hunger. In the past year, food insecurity has affected about 30 countries.

United Nations Secretary-General said that no food security without climate security can be.

He said, “Food crisis is a wake up call for tomorrow. 9.1 billion people by 2050, two more than our home planet, one billion more than today can be” said. He said, “At a time when global population is growing, our global climate is changing. 70 per cent by 2050 we will need to grow more food, yet the weather is becoming more volatile and unpredictable” said.

Mr Ban said that a comprehensive climate change agreement in Copenhagen next month at a summit is needed. He said such an agreement a legally binding climate change treaty should provide a solid basis.

Clear picture of the number of FAO Director General Jacques Diouf gave included.

, Jacques Diouf, FAO Director General, Rome, 16 November 2009, the World Summit on Food Security in a speech delivered
, Jacques Diouf, FAO Director General, Rome, 16 November 2009, the World Summit on Food Security in a speech delivered
He said, “one billion people are hungry,. Six people in the world, 105 million 2008 than in, each group of five children die every 30 seconds is a number in each of these men for this sad beyond the meaning of “said.

Despite concerns expressed by the leaders addressed the summit, there is a sense of doubt, true that the only G-8 leaders were present: Italian Prime Minister added.

Latin America and Africa’s leaders were out in large numbers. One of them is that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said hunger on our planet the most devastating weapon of mass destruction. He said not to kill soldiers, but innocent children.

For the first time, Pope Benedict personally one FAO World Food Summit, addressed the delegates. He warned against the greed of speculators in the grain market was. He also criticized aid forms that they seriously damage agriculture.

First day of the summit approved its final declaration. Countries substantially increase aid to agriculture in developing countries have promised, then world hunger could be more independent. But the 44 million dollars for agricultural assistance, FAO will be allowed for one year will be required in coming decades says.

A formal announcement from the number of hungry by 2015 pledge to halve, a goal that was established in 2000 were involved.