Desert locusts jump up from the ground and fly away as a cameraman walks past, in Nasuulu Conservancy, northern Kenya, on 1 February 2020, As locusts by the billions descend on parts of Kenya in the worst outbreak in 70 years, small planes are flying low over affected areas to spray pesticides in what experts call the only effective control. Photo: Ben Curtis / AP Photo

East Africa’s huge locust outbreak spreads to Central Africa – Congo sees locusts for first time in 75 years

By Rodney Muhumuza 25 February 2020 KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – A small group of desert locusts has entered Congo, marking the first time the voracious insects have been seen in the Central African country since 1944, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency said Tuesday as U.N. agencies warned of a “major hunger threat” in East […]

A swarm of locusts descends on Enziu, Kenya, on 24 January 2020. Video: Agencia EFE / TIME

Hundreds of billions of locusts, fueled by conflict and climate change, are swarming East Africa – 400-fold increase in their numbers by June 2020 projected

By Madeleine Stone 14 February 2020 (National Geographic) – East Africa is in the midst of a crisis that sounds like something out of the Book of Exodus: A plague of locusts is spreading across the region, threatening the food supply of tens of millions. City-sized swarms of the dreaded pests are wreaking havoc as […]

Desert Locust swarm in Kenya. Photo: FAO

Rare cyclones spawn massive locust swarms in East Africa

By Dharna Noor 3 February 2020 (Gizmodo) – East Africa is currently plagued with locust swarms of biblical proportions, but these swarms aren’t the act of an angry god. According to UN scientists, they may be a result of the human-caused climate crisis. Hundreds of millions of these spooky creatures are flying across East Africa. […]

Beth Ford, CEO of Land O’Lakes, spoke on Thursday, 9 January 2020, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ 2020 Regional Economic Conditions Conference. Photo: Land O’Lakes

“We will lose rural America” warns Land O’Lakes CEO at annual Fed summit – “The towns are rolling up on us. That is the truth.”

By Joy Wiltermuth 11 January 2020 (MarketWatch) – Rural America needs help. That was the key message from Beth Ford, president and CEO of Land O’Lakes, Inc., while speaking Thursday at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ annual economic outlook conference for the Ninth District. “Farmers want trade. They want a robust marketplace and they […]

WFP Global Hotspots 2020: Countries most at risk of sliding further into crisis. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has identified 15 critical and complex emergencies at risk of descending further into crisis without a rapid response and greater investment. While WFP continues to provide extensive assistance to high-profile emergencies such as Yemen and Syria, Global Hotspots 2020 highlights the fastest deteriorating emergencies requiring the world’s urgent attention. Graphic: WFP

World Food Programme forecasts global hunger hotspots as a new decade dawns

ROME, 1 January 2020 (WFP) – Escalating hunger needs in sub-Saharan Africa dominate a World Food Programme (WFP) analysis of global hunger hotspots in the first half of 2020 with millions of people requiring life-saving food assistance in Zimbabwe, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central Sahel region in the coming months. […]

Map of Zimbabwe showing the Acute Food Insecurity Phase for June 2019 to September 2019 and October 2019 to January 2020. Graphic: FEWS NET

“It’s a nightmare”: Zimbabwe struggles with hyperinflation – Extreme poverty surges to 34 percent as 1 million more added to poor bracket – “People should brace for worse”

By Alois Vinga 18 October 2019 (New Zimbabwe) – Extreme poverty in Zimbabwe has risen to 34 percent, with 1 million more citizens now added to the existing 4.7 million, World Bank (WB) said in a recent Poverty and Equity brief. The global lender said there has been a significant growth in the country’s poverty […]

Global variability in nature’s contributions to people, for water quality regulation, coastal risk reduction, and crop pollination. Graphic: Chaplin-Kramer, et al., 2019 / Science

Billions face food, water shortages over next 30 years as nature fails – Study paints “a deeply worrying picture of the societal burdens of losing nature”

By Stephen Leahy 10 October 2019 (National Geographic) – As many as five billion people, particularly in Africa and South Asia, are likely to face shortages of food and clean water in the coming decades as nature declines. Hundreds of millions more could be vulnerable to increased risks of severe coastal storms, according to the first-ever model […]

Migration and food availability in Guatemala, 2016-2018. Data: U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Graphic: NBC News

Trump admin ignored its own evidence of climate change’s impact on migration from Central America

By Jacob Soboroff and Julia Ainsley 20 September 2019 GUATEMALA CITY (NBC News) – Research compiled one year ago by Customs and Border Protection pointed to an overwhelming factor driving record-setting migration to the U.S. from Guatemala: Crop shortages were leaving rural Guatemalans, especially in the country’s western highlands, in extreme poverty and starving. An […]

Number of undernourished people and prevalence of undernourishment globally, 2005-2018. The number of undernourished people in the world has been on the rise since 2015 and is back to levels seen in 2010–2011. Graphic: FAO

Over 820 million people suffer from hunger, with number increasing for third straight year – Overweight and obesity rising in almost all countries

15 July 2019 (UN News) – After nearly a decade of progress, the number of people who suffer from hunger has slowly increased over the past three years, with about one in every nine people globally suffering from hunger today, the United Nations said in a new report released on Monday. This fact underscores “the […]

Workers carry the last bucketful of water from a small pond in the dried-out Puzhal reservoir on the outskirts of the Indian city of Chennai. Photo: Arun Sankar/ AFP / Getty Images

UN expert: World faces “climate apartheid” risk, 120 more million in poverty – “Even if current targets are met, tens of millions will be impoverished, leading to widespread displacement and hunger”

25 June 2019 (UN News) – Climate change “threatens to undo the last 50 years” of development, global health and poverty reduction, a United Nations expert said on Tuesday, citing the risk of a new era of “climate apartheid” where the rich buy their way out of rising heat and hunger. “Even if current targets […]

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