Sri Lanka rice farmer Niluka Dilrukshi with his wife, Milinda, and their two children. They saw their rice crop deplete by 60 percent in the last harvest due to the government chemical pesticide ban. Photo: Hannah Ellis-Petersen / The Guardian

Sri Lanka reels from rash fertiliser ban – “If things go on like this, in the future it will be hard to find a farmer left in Sri Lanka”

By Hannah Ellis-Petersen 20 April 2022 RAJANGANAYA, Sri Lanka (The Guardian) – Driving through the verdant landscape of Rajanganaya, a rural district in north Sri Lanka where the hibiscus flowers pop out of rich green foliage and the mango trees are already weighed down by early fruit, it is hard to imagine this is a […]

Aerial view of a landslide caused by tropical storm Megi, which hit the village of Kantagnos in Baybay town, Leyte province, Philippines, on 13 April 2022. Photo: Bobbie Alota / AFP / Getty Images

Storm Megi death toll rises as hundreds of thousands displaced in Philippines, nearly 2 million residents affected 

By Akanksha Sharma 14 April 2022 (CNN) – The death toll in the Philippines from tropical storm Megi has risen to 76 while hundreds of thousands of others remain displaced, authorities in the country said Wednesday. Many of the deaths came in landslides and floods caused when the storm made landfall on Sunday, battering the eastern […]

Concurrent shocks affecting the food security of households in the Horn of Africa in 2022. Graphic: FAO

New data show how drought in the Horn of Africa is driving up acute hunger – “The scale of the devastation in terms of hunger and lost livelihoods will be appalling”

ROME, 12 April 2022 (FAO) – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) today warned that dire new hunger data out of Somalia sheds additional light on extended drought’s crippling impacts on the Horn of Africa region and underscores the criticality of large-scale agricultural aid to keep rural families self-reliant, fed, and […]

Lake Mead end of month elevations, projections from the February and March 2022 24-month study inflow scenarios. Water year 2022 got off to a promising start in the Colorado River Basin with a wetter-than-normal October, but it was followed by the second-driest November on record and resulted in a loss of 1.5 million acre-feet of inflow for Lake Powell compared to the previous month’s projections. December projections showed the reservoir dropping below the target elevation of 3,525 feet as early as February 2022. As defined in the Drought Response Operations Agreement, the target elevation provides a sufficient buffer to allow for response actions to prevent Lake Powell from dropping below the minimum power pool elevation of 3,490 feet, the lowest elevation that Glen Canyon Dam can generate hydropower. Graphic: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

Empty canals, dead cotton fields: Arizona farmers are getting slammed by 2022 water cuts in the U.S. West – “We’re not making one dime off this farm right now”

By Emma Newburger 3 April 2022 CASA GRANDE, Arizona (CNBC) – On the drought-stricken land where Pinal County farmers have irrigated crops for thousands of years, Nancy Caywood stopped her pickup truck along an empty canal and pointed to a field of dead alfalfa. “It’s heart wrenching,” said Caywood, a third-generation farmer who manages 247 […]

Afghan children play in the mud at an unofficial camp for internally displaced people in Herat, Afghanistan, May 2021. Photo: Charlie Faulkner

Devastated by worst drought in decades and economic turmoil, many in Afghanistan near starvation – “It is the speed, scale and source of the crisis that is so extreme”

By Holly Rosenkrantz 3 April 2022 (USA TODAY) – Afghanistan has faced grave hunger crises before. Two decades ago, people in the country were so hungry they resorted to eating wild grass. But the situation in the country now is unprecedented. Exacerbated by an unusually cold winter and the worst drought in decades, the economic […]

FAO Food Price Index, January 1961 - February 2022. In February 2022, the FAO Food Price Index (FFPI), averaged 140.7 points, up 5.3 points (3.9 percent) from January and as much as 24.1 points (20.7 percent) above its level a year ago. This represents a new all-time high, exceeding the previous top of February 2011 by 3.1 points. The February rise was led by large increases in vegetable oil and dairy price sub-indices. Cereals and meat prices were also up, while the sugar price sub-index fell for the third consecutive month. Graphic: FAO

FAO Food Price Index rose to new all-time high in February 2022

4 March 2022 (FAO) – The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 140.7 points in February 2022, up 5.3 points (3.9 percent) from January and as much as 24.1 points (20.7 percent) above its level a year ago. This represents a new all-time high, exceeding the previous top of February 2011 by 3.1 points. The […]

Cattle gather next to a column of fire in Santo Tome, Corrientes province, Argentina, on Sunday, 20 February 2022. Fires continue to ravage the Corrientes province that has burnt more than a half-million hectares. Photo: Rodrigo Abd / AP Photo

Wildfires ravage northern Argentina – “It never happened to us, we never lived something like this”

By Victor Caivano 21 February 2022 CORRIENTES, Argentina (AP) – Wildfires that have been ravaging northern Argentina for several weeks advanced relentlessly Sunday, although the light rains that began over the weekend gave some hope to firefighters. Corrientes province is the most affected area, where officials said at least eight separate fires continued to burn […]

Aerial view of flattened homes after Typhoon Rai hit Surigao City, southern Philippines on 16 December 2021. Photo: Jilson Tiu / AP

Super Typhoon Rai leaves trail of destruction in Philippines – Desperation grows for 400,000 people – “Red Cross emergency teams are reporting complete carnage in the coastal areas. Homes, hospitals, school, and community buildings have been ripped to shreds.”

By Matt Hills 23 December 2021 (The Guardian) – Typhoon Rai has devastated the Philippines, killing at least 375 people, and causing damage in excess of $500m (£375m). The system developed on 13 December, tracked westwards across the Philippines on the 16th and 17th, before crossing the South China Sea on the 18th. Rai reached […]

People walk along a dry arm of the Paraná River near Rosario, Argentina in 2021. Photo: Juan Mabromata / AFP / Getty Images

Dying crops, spiking energy bills, showers once a week: in South America, global warming brings new normal of water scarcity – “What we’re seeing today is as if the future has already arrived”

By Diego Laje, Anthony Faiola, and Ana Vanessa Herrero 24 September 2021 BUENOS AIRES (The Washington Post) – Sergio Koci’s sunflower farm in the lowlands of northern Argentina has survived decades of political upheaval, runaway inflation and the coronavirus outbreak. But as a series of historic droughts deadens vast expanses of South America, he fears […]

Farmer Fernando Enriquez Sr. looks at one of the stunted, blistered red sweet onions in Walla Walla, Washington on 28 July 2021, after the unprecedented heatwave of June 2021 destroyed his crops. Photo: Greg Lehman / Walla Walla Union Bulletin

Record 2021 heatwave cooked Walla Walla sweet onions to mush – “It’s unprecedented. It’s just never that hot at the beginning of June.”

By Emry Dinman 3 August 2021 (The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin) – In June 2021, as the sun baked the ground, harvest began at Enriquez Farms, a midsized operation in Walla Walla specializing in the region’s famous sweet onions. Up to that point, the alliums had thrived in the warm weather, and Fernando Enriquez Sr., the […]

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