Currently 925 million people are undernourished and 195 million children under five years of age are stunted. At the same time, over 1 billion people are overweight and obese in both the developed and developing world. Diseases previously associated with affluence, such as cancer, diabetes and cardio-vascular disease, are on the rise.

The latest United States Department of Agriculture report on global trade in livestock and poultry has been published. The report provides a snapshot of the current situation among the major players in world beef, pork, broiler meat, and turkey meat trade. 

A new report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and McKinsey & Company looks at how India’s food production and consumption patterns are changing and argues that action is needed to close the yield gap and improve overall supply chain efficiency.

Europe is reforming its biofuels policy due to concerns raised about its impact on global land use change patterns and global food markets. The negative environmental impacts of the biofuels policy have been well demonstrated, but what is less clear are the economic implications.

The authors of this study looked at the impact of measures introduced by Scandinavia’s largest hotel chain to reduce food waste.  Plate sizes were reduced while signs were also posted encouraging customers to help themselves to food more than once (ie. signalling that they didn’t have to overload their plates the first time because they could always come back for more): the effect of these measures in combination was a 20% reduction in food waste.

The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) has released a podcast and power point presentation following a seminar held last week on the theme of "Food as a Commodity, Human Right or Common Good? Implications for Hunger Eradication".

Louise Fresco provides an overview of historical and future food security trends in her speech at the 200th commemorative meeting of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry entitled Food, scarcity and abundance.

A new 90,000-square-foot indoor farm called FarmedHere has recently opened in Chicago and is expected to produce 1 million pounds a year of organic greens like basil, lettuce, mint, and spinach. It is also expected that it will provide hundreds of local jobs. 

This report on how to improve data monitoring for sustainable intensification of agriculture has been released by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) under the auspices of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystem (WLE).