Food Navigator highlights new data Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) recent Food Price Index, which measures the monthly change in international prices of food commodities.

This article from Global Meat News describes projections for beef, pork, poultry and sheep and lamb based on the latest European Commission Short Term Outlook for EU arable crops, dairy and meat markets in 2015 and 2016. Beef production is said to increase by 2% this year due to the expansion of the EU dairy­ and suckler­cow herd.

Compassion in World farming has released the fifth and last part in a series of blogs by Peter Stevenson, Compassion in World Farming’s Chief Policy Advisor.  An extract from his post is included below:

Abstract: In the course of the ongoing discussions and negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda, a consensus emerged that current and future social, environmental and economic challenges are interlinked and must be addressed through an integrated approach. 

The British government has failed to tackle poor nutrition and diet, and should do more to take public health nutrition into consideration in every area of policy, says a report by the UK Coronary Prevention Group, a charity dedicated to preventing heart disease through healthy lifestyles.

In Africa and Latin America, the production of beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, which include higher temperatures and more frequent drought. Climate modeling suggests that, over the next several decades, the area suited for this crop in eastern and central Africa could shrink up to 50% by 2050.

In this article from Scidev, Laurence Haddad (senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and former director at the Institute of Development Studies) discusses the new Global Nutrition Report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

In this report IFPRI describes the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2014 and highlights challenges and opportunities for 2015.

This paper estimates that global use of antimicrobial drugs in animal farming is anticipated to rise by 67% by 2030, due to increasing demand for animal products and a shift towards more large scale intensive systems of production. It argues that a range of measures need to be taken in order to address the negative impacts of this growth.