US: Food Security

A damaged home in Puerto Rico in September, a year after Hurricane Maria hit.  Credit Carlos Barria/Reuters

nytimes.com - by Emily Cochrane - April 1, 2019

The Senate on Monday blocked billions of dollars in disaster aid for states across the country as Republicans and Democrats clashed over President Trump’s opposition to sending more food and infrastructure help to Puerto Rico.

Opposition came from both parties for different reasons . . .

. . . It was unclear late Monday how lawmakers would overcome that impasse and end the delay in disbursing the disaster aid.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLES WITHIN THE LINK BELOW . . .

CLICK HERE - Billions Of Dollars In Disaster Aid Stuck In Congress, As Both Parties Balk At Relief Legislation

Richard Oswald stands in a frozen puddle surrounded by unharvested corn. Wet conditions have made harvesting difficult for Oswald and other farmers.  Photograph: Amy Kontras for the Guardian

The changes have become more radical’: farmers are spending more time and money trying to grow crops in new climates

theguardian.com - by Chris McGreal - December 12, 2018

. . . Climate change is likely to make it harder to grow crops, and to make those that do grow more vulnerable to diseases and pests because of rising humidity. The report said heat and diminishing air quality will take its toll on livestock. Farmers will collectively have to spend billions of dollars to adapt. The effects are already seen from prolonged drought in Kansas and torrential rains in Iowa.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Eric Honselman opens a shed which holds 75,000 bushels of corn he was forced to store after his regular bins were filled to capacity with corn and soybeans on the family farm in Casey, Illinois, U.S., October 25, 2018. REUTERS/Mark Weinraub

reuters.com - Mark Weinraub, P.J. Huffstutter - November 21, 2018

 . . . Across the United States, grain farmers are plowing under crops, leaving them to rot or piling them on the ground, in hopes of better prices next year, according to interviews with more than two dozen farmers, academic researchers and farm lenders. It’s one of the results, they say, of a U.S. trade war with China that has sharply hurt export demand and swamped storage facilities with excess grain . . .

 . . . U.S. farmers planted 89.1 million acres of soybeans this year, the second most ever, expecting China’s rising demand to give them better returns than other bulk crops.

But Beijing slapped a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans in retaliation for duties imposed by Washington on Chinese exports. That effectively shut down U.S. soybean exports to China, worth around $12 billion last year. China typically takes around 60 percent of U.S. supplies.

A dead Bodó fish in front of stranded floating houses on the bed of Negro River, a major tributary of the Amazon River, during a drought in 2015. Photograph: Raphael Alves/AFP/Getty Images

CLICK HERE - ipbes - Biodiversity and Nature’s Contributions Continue Dangerous Decline, Scientists Warn

Unsustainable exploitation of the natural world threatens food and water security of billions of people, major UN-backed biodiversity study reveals

theguardian.com - by Jonathan Watts - March 23, 2018

Human destruction of nature is rapidly eroding the world’s capacity to provide food, water and security to billions of people, according to the most comprehensive biodiversity study in more than a decade.

Such is the rate of decline that the risks posed by biodiversity loss should be considered on the same scale as those of climate change, noted the authors of the UN-backed report, which was released in Medellin, Colombia on Friday.