Lisen's blog

By Caity Peterson

You're hungry for pizza. Walking around the neighborhood, you find two pizzerias not far from each other. They're both selling pretty much the same thing - crust with cheese and tomatoes on top - and at the same price. But one offers you a free delicious ice-cold 2-liter soda to go with your hawaiian. That makes your choice easy, no?

Believe it or not, something similar is happening in Uganda. Only we're not talking about pizza, and the choice is a bit more complicated.

The comestibles in question here are two of the country's most important agricultural commodities. One, coffee, makes up 20-30% of Uganda's foreign exchange earnings and creates a cash boom for smallholders once or twice a year. The other, banana, is the country's principle staple crop, providing a small, steady food harvest all year long. In fact, Uganda was the 2^nd largest banana producer in the world in 2008, and the 11^th largest coffee producer.

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By Denise Martínez Breto

No other accounts on the reality of growing crops, harvesting and selling food could ever be as genuine as those coming from the farmers themselves. In a two-hour dedicated Learning event on food losses and waste during the Agriculture and Rural Development Day farmers from Uganda, FAO members and private sector organizations zoomed in on food thrown out or squandered in both developed and developing countries.

One-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption is either lost or thrown away, together with the natural resources used for its production. Although food losses occur at all stages of the food supply chain the causes and their impact around the world differ. In developing countries, food losses hit small farmers the hardest. Almost 65 percent of these food losses happen at the production, post harvest, and processing stages. In industrialized countries, food waste often occurs at the retail and consumer level due to a “throw-away” mindset.

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By Cecilia Schubert

As world food demand increases, so too does demand for farmland. Agricultural expansion threatens valuable forests and biodiversity, contributing to climate change and destroying precious ecosystems. Seeing as a country’s GDP growth from agriculture generates at least twice as much poverty reduction than any other sector, and 40 percent of the world’s population is engaged in farming, agriculture must be viewed as key for economic growth, food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. Agriculture has huge potential in contributing to the solution, instead of only be seen as part of the problem. Is intensification the silver-bullet solution?

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