Vanessa's blog

by Vanessa Meadu

In Vietnam, everywhere you look there is food. Before dawn, people haul away huge bags of produce, meat, fish and flowers to later sell on the city streets. On every sidewalk of every town, people are chopping, washing, cooking food. And from morning to night, folks are eating at makeshift pavement restaurants, or grabbing refreshment from a steaming or sizzling mobile stall, perched on the backs of their motorbikes.

This country takes food and agriculture very seriously, and has made incredible progress in the last few decades, going from importing most of its food to becoming a major food exporter, and a leading global rice producer and exporter. In recent years neglected crops like cassava have become major income generators in Vietnam, contributing to poverty alleviation. 

Much of this growth is due to government and international investment in Vietnam's small-scale farmers. But climate change is a hazard to this progress. At worst, it threatens millions of people who depend on agriculture, from farmers in the Mekong Delta to consumers in the Philippines and beyond who depend on cheap rice for nutrition. Read more »

By Joost Vervoort

What does the future hold for food security in East Africa? How do uncertain future socio-economic developments, such as changes in the degree of regional collaboration or changes in policies oriented to rural development, change East Africa’s capacity for climate adaptation and mitigation? 

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has explored how different political and socio-economic futures for East Africa may affect food security and environmental change in the region, and how this may affect the region’s vulnerability to future climate change. These futures have been captured in four scenarios, developed and used by stakeholders from governments, civil society, the private sector, academia and the media in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Burundi.

WATCH: How scenarios are developed with regional partners

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by Vanessa Meadu and Cecilia Schubert

Knowledge is power when it comes fighting hunger, food insecurity and climate injustice. This is one of the core premises at the Hunger, Nutrition, Climate Justice conference which kicks off today in Dublin, Ireland. As one of the conference co-organisers, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) wants to showcase how scientific and indigenous knowledge are being mobilised for positive change.

In Senegal, CCAFS and partners including the Senegalese National Meteorological Agency, the Agriculture Extension Service, and many farmers groups, have developed an innovative and exciting approach to reduce the risks that farmers face as the climate becomes more and more variable: put climate information into farmers hands. Farmers have been involved in every step of the way, helping meteorologists and other specialists package and communicate the information in a way that is truly useful.

LEARN MORE

Download the Case Study

Blog story: Putting climate forecasts into farmers' hands, 25 July 2011

Blog story: Following up on last year’s climate forecast workshop – what happened next?  27 February 2012

Working paper: Delivery models for climate information in East and West Africa

Working paper: Investigating climate information services through a gendered lens

The CCAFS team is reporting live from the Hunger, Nutrition, Climate Justice conference in Dublin from 15-16 April 2013. Watch live webcasts at www.eu2013.ie and follow updates on the CCAFS blog. Engage with us on twitter @cgiarclimate using #HNCJ.