MSc Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security
COVID -19 Vaccine Inequity – ArcGIS StoryMap
I created a short StoryMap, and talked about the issues with vaccination drives being faced by countries in Africa. You can find it at the link below:
Link here – https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/cb31deb658d94cf4b379301f2fa87679
The Grand Sud region of Madagascar, in the south of the country, is currently experiencing what is increasingly being considered the modern world’s first climate change-induced famine. The worst droughts in 40 years have put more than one million people at risk of malnourishment. These droughts are leading to increased desertification, and when rains do come, locust swarms often arrive soon after to devour any crops that have grown. This has led to a situation where food shortages are threatening a catastrophic humanitarian disaster.
Families are digging for roots and tearing chunks off cacti in a desperate attempt to sustain themselves. Some people have been driven to eating scraps of leather, boiled and salted. Al Jazeera, reporting from the Anosy region of the country, heard from one woman who pleaded for help:
“Look at my child, please help us!”
Continue reading “The world’s first climate change-induced famine in Madagascar”Was this then the summer when Climate Change finally came to make itself at home in the consciousness of Western Europeans? In recent years, we have watched from a distance as extreme weather-related disasters have struck different regions across the planet in turn. Australia, Greece, and the West coast of North America have experienced devastating wildfires, and widespread death and destruction. Storms, severe floods, and landslides affected upwards of 30 million people in the Philippines and Vietnam in 2020 alone. While this year, in Africa, there is growing consensus that Madagascar is suffering through the modern world’s first climate change-induced famine. This new phenomenon compounds the already worsening conditions in much of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Continue reading “Alarms bells in Western Europe – has climate change just introduced itself to the continent?”IFPRI – International Food Policy Research Institute
CCAFS – Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security
CGIAR – Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
For many people, sea level rise is considered the malignant poster child of the worsening climate disaster. The melting polar ice caps pose an overbearing threat to the major coastal cities around the world. Popular culture depictions of vast floods engulfing Manhattan, and interactive maps showing the likely devastation in your own area are dramatic, and easily accessible. Dramatic as they are, these biblical floods are not representative of the likely near-term effects climate-related sea level rise will have on many at-risk people’s livelihoods globally. This blog post looks at the gradual encroachment of sea water into agricultural lands. The accompanying increases in levels of soil salinity can have devastating impacts on the production capabilities of these farmlands, threatening food security in vulnerable regions.
Continue reading “Salinity Intrusion In South Asia – Potential Solutions”It’s a familiar line in the context of city planning and development. ‘Build up, not out’ – transitioning the development of our cities toward a high-rise model will cut commuters’ journey times, reduce emissions, and protect the biodiversity that would otherwise be paved over through the building of sprawling suburban estates. The concept of ‘Vertical Farming’ (VF) may not, however, be quite so well-known. Also termed Vertical Agriculture, the process involves growing crops indoors, in vertically stacked layers, like shelving in a store. The plants are grown in facilities where temperature, light, water, and other elements are controlled, allowing for optimum growth conditions all year round. Generally, produce grown in these indoor farms can be produced at a point in the supply chain, physically much closer to the end destination (supermarkets etc.). This, in turn, can lead to big reductions in the miles travelled, potentially reducing food waste.
Continue reading “Up, not out – Is the future of climate-resilient farming vertical?”The exploitation of our planet’s natural landscapes has continued unabated for decades. Deforestation threatens to wipe out countless species of plant and animal life across the world, with short-term economic gains trumping pragmatic conservation efforts. The clearing of mass swathes of forests to make room for palm oil, rubber, and cashew plantations is a major concern in Cambodia. This blog post will look at the threat this small South-East Asian country – already on its knees after a half century of political turmoil and genocidal horror – faces from illegal logging operations.
Video – Sean Gallagher, an independent environmental photographer documented the scale of the issue beautifully in their short documentary ‘Cambodia Burning’. This can be seen below.
Continue reading “Commodity-driven Deforestation in Cambodia – The sorry decimation of its unique biodiversity”Underpinning the ethos of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to 2030 is the idea of ‘leaving no one behind’1. This is an idea that transcends the 17 SDG goals, melding equitability, and climate justice, with the overall aim being to limit global warming to below 2C without doing so at the expense of vulnerable populations. Achieving climate justice will only be possible by facilitating the empowerment of the most marginalized people. Often, indigenous voices are forgotten amid the mire of modern political ideologies. These are the people who have lived on, and off of, the local landscapes for centuries. They have an intimate knowledge of the environment and understand the importance of natural cycles in maintaining sustainability. We must give greater sonority to their voices if the most catastrophic climate change scenarios are to be avoided, and climate justice delivered.
The following blog post focuses on innovative and impactful uses of mobile technology to help mitigate the devastating impacts of wheat rust on crop yields in Ethiopia. This post owes to the work of Dr. Dave Hodson, and Dr. Diane Saunders and their various global partners, and relies on the references posted at the end of the page for its content. Any replication of their material is complimentary in its intention, and should only serve to highlight my own interest in the work carried out.
Part One: Wheat Rust – An Early Warning System
The world’s cereal and horticultural crops have always been threatened by the fungal disease rust (wheat yellow rust, stem rust, and leaf rust), a pathogen that can wreak havoc on croplands. Estimated global annual wheat losses due to rust are roughly 5.47 million tonnes (1). One country particularly vulnerable to wheat rust is Ethiopia, where the pathogen is considered the ‘key biological constraint to wheat production’ (Meyer et al. 2021). Wheat rusts have move quickly over land, carried vast distances by the wind, meaning epidemics take root quickly with devastating effects. These reduced yields pressurize the agricultural economy of Ethiopia, leading to annual wheat import costs of around $600 million, this in spite of them being the Sub-Saharan Africa region’s largest wheat producer.
Continue reading “Wheat Rust – How innovative technologies can mitigate the threat it poses in Ethiopia”Introduction Last year, we entered a so-called ‘decade of action’ on climate change, with the targeted achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) critical. As part of this, the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, will convene a Food Systems Summit later this year. The body of work hoped to be achieved by this summit will be supported by a spine consisting five key action tracks: 1. Ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all; 2. Shift to sustainable consumption patterns; 3. Boost nature-positive production; 4. Advance equitable livelihoods; 5. Build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks, and stress. This blog post will look at Action Track 1 and delve into a possible solution in detail.
“When they function well, food systems have the power to bring us together as families, communities and nations. – UN Action Tracks”
Continue reading “Tropical Coasts – How Blue Ventures use remote sensing to fortify food security”Introduction Economic growth has traditionally been driven by the consumption of finite resources. The nature of humanity’s interaction with the planet has been take, use, and discard. Since the advent of the industrial revolution in the 19th century these behaviours have led to rapid advancements in the fields of energy, medicine, textiles, and transport to name but a few. In many corners of the world this has in turn led to increased quality of life, longer life expectancy, and relative political stability. These advances have, however, come at a cost. This ‘pursuit of happiness’ has led to a global economy willfully ignorant of the Earth’s resource limitations. The spread of wealth has been inequitable, and is worsening at a continuing rate. The traditionally wealthy regions of Europe, and North America have prospered, while many parts of Africa, the central and southern Americas, Asia and Northern Oceania have been left behind. Compounding this has been the increasing concern surrounding the ill effects of anthropogenic climate change, with these same regions expected to suffer greatly in the coming years and decades due to increased extreme weather events, the forced displacement of people, and challenges to agricultural practices. The developing countries within these regions have rightful ambitions to achieve a quality of life that Western populations have become so accustomed to. As their economies expand, so too does the pressure on the planet’s resources. In order to facilitate their growth, it is the duty of developed nations to adapt their ways of life to accommodate their fellow people. The idea of the Circular Economy has been adopted by an increasing number of nations, and big industry players as a means of facilitating sustainable growth.
Continue reading “You’ll grow into it! Circular solutions to the fast fashion problem.”