Blog for People, Food and Nature

Food production and biological conservation may often appear to be at odds, but both share poignant similarities. Farming today faces its own diversity crisis—mirroring precipitous declines in biological diversity, fewer and fewer crops account for an ever-growing proportion of our diet. Thanks to this growing unders…

The United Nations’ groundbreaking Millennium Development Goals (MDG) were signed by all 189 member states at the turn of the century in 2000 with eight goals aimed at reducing global poverty and its related consequences by the year 2015. In addition to income and hunger, the goals are tied to health, education, gend…

Tenure security and food security in Tanzania At this week’s 41st meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization Committee on World Food Security, land tenure is sure to be an important topic. Villagers in Southern Tanzania also have this topic on their mind, as their communities are eyed with interest by the Sout…

Investment in large farms goes against historical trends In 2008, I co-directed the World Development Report on Agriculture for Development, which strongly argued for a development strategy based on small and medium sized family farms—smallholders for short. Since then, I have been following the surge in investor in…

Flood control measures do more harm than good for local fishers Bangladesh is a watershed-based country with dynamic ecosystems—including floodplains and wetlands—that are experiencing biodiversity losses and degradation. Since the 1970s, the government of Bangladesh has encouraged the draining of wetlands and est…

Tension between human population growth and natural resources is not sustainable Sustainability in the long term requires explicitly dealing with the conflict between a growing human population and natural resources. I have encountered this throughout my 34-year career in cold water fish research, natural resource man…