A3. Agroecology

Food Is Medicine, a new book by Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, offers a blueprint to transform food and farming systems in a way that heals people, the economy, and the planet.

“Being a healthy American adult is an anomaly,” says Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and Director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University. He notes that 94 percent of people in the U.S. over the age of 18 are “not where they should be” in terms of cardiovascular and metabolic health. 

The food system is “the top cause of death and disability in the country,” Mozaffarian tells Food Tank. “This is the top cause of preventable healthcare spending. This is the top cause of devastation to our oceans, soil, water, and climate. And if you put it all together, this is actually the top issue facing humanity.” 

His new book addresses these challenges, acknowledging their complexity. It also outlines the solutions available, revealing how the growing Food is Medicine movement can help communities produce and consume food in a way that supports public health and the environment. 

“We have the science and the evidence on what needs to change,” Mozaffarian tells Food Tank. “And we really can fix our food system in a very short amount of time.”

Mozaffarian also wants readers to understand a shift in diet shouldn’t be viewed in terms of sacrifice. For too long, he says, nutrition has been framed “in terms of deprivation and a fight against food.” He hopes the book will help people see things differently. “For me, healthy eating is about embracing and celebrating the good, more minimally processed, healthy, delicious foods.” 

Food Is Medicine is for healthcare providers, policymakers, and business leaders. “But at the end of the day,” Mozaffarian says, “this is for the general public to understand the levers we need to shift and move so that 10 years from now, we’re not having the same conversation.” 

Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian on Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg to hear more about Food Is Medicine: Healing Our Bodies, Nourishing Our Minds, and Transforming Our Food System, tips for eating healthy, and why the solutions we need come down to systems change rather than individual behavior change alone. 

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Photo courtesy of David Trinks, Unsplash

The post ‘Food Is Medicine’ Shows Fixing the Food System Is a Public Health Priority appeared first on Food Tank.

Six demands to policy and decision-makers to strengthen policies in support of family farmers, by the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM).

There are nearly 900 million food producers at the heart of food systems. More than 90 percent of the world’s roughly 608 million farms are family-run, and generate around 80 percent of global food value; smallholdings under two hectares alone account for roughly a third of the food produced worldwide. Yet many of these smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, Indigenous Peoples’, women and youth face massive challenges that threaten their livelihoods and agency. 

Commitments to family farmers are not lacking. Since 2011, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has adopted a series of policy recommendations that recognise their central role:

• How to Increase Food Security and Smallholder-Sensitive Investments in Agriculture (2011)
• Investing in Smallholder Agriculture for Food Security and Nutrition (2013)
• Connecting Smallholders to Markets (2016)
• Promoting Youth Engagement and Employment in Agriculture and Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition(2022)

The CSIPM developed these key messages in consultation with smallholder farmers, peasants, pastoralists, fisherfolk and Indigenous Peoples across a balance of regions. They reflect the experiences, lessons and struggles of those living with the gap between policy and practice. 

The CSIPM calls on policy-makers to act on the following six priorities:

• Rights-holders must take part in decision-making. 
• Policy coherence is political, not technical 
• Youth must shape prorgrammes meant for them 
• Agrarian reform and an end to the criminialisation of peasants and Indigenous Peoples
• Redirect public finance to smallhoderls, territorial markets and fair prices
• A gender lens in every policy

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The post Words Won’t Feed Us: Six Priorities of the People Who Already Do appeared first on CSIPM.

PRESS RELEASE

Agroecology and regenerative communities: a day of exchange between young people, farmers, schools, and institutions in Bracciano

On Saturday, October 24th, from 9:30 AM to 7:00 PM, at the Chiostro degli Agostiniani in Bracciano (RM), Navdanya International is promoting a meeting dedicated to the resilience of territories, biodiversity, and community participation. The event, titled “Agroecology and Regenerative Communities – Networks of resilience between young people, schools, farmers, and institutions,” will bring together agroecology experts, institutional representatives, associations, youth organizations, and agricultural realities to discuss the challenges of ecological transition, combining local experiences with international perspectives.

How can communities be built that are capable of facing environmental, climate, and social crises? What role can agroecology, biodiversity protection, ecological education, and citizen participation play in the regeneration of territories? And how can experiences of ecological and social regeneration be transformed into collective processes capable of influencing public policies and the choices that affect the future of territories? Answers to these questions already exist and have long since become good practices that are now waiting to be translated into concrete policies.

In an international context marked by the worsening climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and the growing vulnerability of food systems, agroecology represents not only a set of sustainable agricultural practices, but also a perspective of ecological, cultural, and social transformation. It is an approach that recognizes biological and cultural diversity, community autonomy, and the sharing of knowledge as the fundamental conditions for building more resilient food systems and territories.

From local experiences to national and international policies

The meeting stems from the experiences developed by Navdanya International through the Terrae Vivae programme, the ecological education pathways and School-Work Training initiatives, the project “RiGenerAzione Ecologica – Cittadinanza e Partecipazione,” co-financed by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, and Officine Municipali, carried out in collaboration with the Municipality of Bracciano and co-financed by the European Union under the PR Lazio ESF 2021–2027. These are experiences that connect schools, new generations, agricultural producers, and institutions, experimenting with forms of learning, cooperation, and active participation in the life of local territories.

The initiative, which enjoys the patronage of the Bracciano-Martignano Regional Natural Park, aims to go beyond the presentation of individual projects, opening a space for exchange on the conditions needed to strengthen territorial networks and connect local experiences with national strategies and international processes for sustainability and food security, as confirmed by the director of Navdanya International, Ruchi Shroff: “The good practices that come from the territories are in fact laboratories from which proposals emerge for the democratization and sustainability of food systems, even at the international level.”

Young people, biodiversity, and participation: the day’s programme

The morning, from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM, will be dedicated to “Young People and Territories,” a space for exchange among youth organizations on the role of new generations in regeneration processes, within the framework of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development.

In the afternoon, from 2:30 PM to 6:00 PM, the programme will get underway with two public conversations dedicated to the resilience of territories and the collective construction of change.

Particular attention will be given to agricultural biodiversity and seed sovereignty, with a talk by Salvatore Ceccarelli, an internationally renowned agricultural geneticist, who will explore the relationship between genetic diversity, climate change adaptation, and farmer autonomy.

Among those taking part in the discussion will be Caterina Batello, president of the Italian Association of Agroecology, Mara Cossu and Tiziana Occhino of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, Silvia Canali of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Silvia Francescon of the Italian Buddhist Union, the Mayor of Bracciano Marco Crocicchi, representatives of local farms (Fattoria biologica Le Bricchiette, Fattoria Faraoni, Azienda Agricola La Argentina), representatives from schools (Istituto Agrario Salvo D’Acquisto, the Art Lyceum of IIS Luca Paciolo), youth organizations (the Network of Youth Associations from the mapping of the project “RiGenerAzione Ecologica: Cittadinanza e Partecipazione“), and civil society (GASP – Gruppo di Assistenza e Solidarietà Popolare).

Also taking part will be Magdalena Ackermann, representing civil society at the UN Committee on World Food Security, and Ruchi Shroff of Navdanya International.

A dedicated session, “Territori in relazione: Bracciano–Tubas,” will be devoted to international cooperation in agroecology and the prospects for community resilience, connecting the territory of Bracciano with the Palestinian territory of Tubas.

A meeting open to the public

Throughout the day, the Chiostro degli Agostiniani will host exhibitions of educational projects created by schools, the art exhibition “Ars non dat Panem” by the Art Lyceum of IIS Luca Paciolo, the photo contest organized by Terrae Vivae Youth, local producers, seed exchange initiatives, agroecological games, and creative workshops for children and adults. In the convent’s cloister, stands will be set up by producers, associations, and the CRAS Wildlife Recovery Center of the Lago di Vico Reserve.

The initiative aims to promote knowledge and participation as concrete tools for transformation, fostering new alliances among those who cultivate the land, those who educate, those who study, those who govern, and those who work every day to protect the commons.

An opportunity to bring together practices, knowledge, and policies, in the conviction that the regeneration of territories cannot be entrusted solely to technical solutions, but requires democratic processes, cooperation, and communities capable of deciding their own future together.

Information and participation

Event: Agroecology and Regenerative Communities – Networks of resilience between young people, schools, farmers, and institutions

Date: Saturday, October 24, 2026
Time: 9:30 AM–7:00 PM
Location: Chiostro degli Agostiniani, Via Umberto I, 5 – Bracciano (RM)

Programme and registration form:
https://navdanyainternational.org/it/save-the-date-agroecologia-e-comunita-rigenerative/

Contact: info@navdanyainternational.org

Navdanya International
https://navdanyainternational.org/

 

SAVE THE DATE | 1–4 DECEMBER 2026 | ABUJA, NIGERIA Two Major Continental Gatherings. One Shared Vision for Africa’s Food Future.

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) is pleased to announce the Africa Agroecology Entrepreneurship and Food Systems Week, taking place from 1 to 4 December 2026 in Abuja, Nigeria, under the theme “Taste Africa and Grow Africa: Through Agroecological Foods, Enterprises and Food Sovereignty.” Bringing together agroecological entrepreneurs, farmers, civil society organisations, policymakers, researchers, financiers, market actors and development partners from across Africa, this four-day continental gathering will advance a shared vision for thriving African food enterprises, stronger territorial markets, healthy African diets and food systems rooted in African knowledge, culture and sovereignty.

The Week will feature two major continental events:

On 1–2 December, the 3rd African Agroecological Entrepreneurship (AEE) Convening, under the theme “Breaking Barriers to Scale: Unlocking Opportunities for Agroecological Entrepreneurship and Territorial Markets in Africa,” will focus on overcoming barriers to finance, market access, investment and supportive policies, while creating practical opportunities for African agroecological enterprises to grow.

On 3–4 December, the 6th Biennial Food Systems Conference, under the theme “The Battle for the African Diet: Ultra-Processed Foods and the Future of Food Sovereignty,” will examine how industrial food systems and changing retail markets are reshaping African diets, threatening indigenous food cultures and farmer livelihoods, and what it will take to protect Africa’s food diversity, strengthen community control and reclaim the future of African food.

Four days. Two major gatherings. One powerful African movement for food sovereignty. Together, these events will connect economic opportunity with cultural pride, amplify African solutions and strengthen collective action for food systems that serve African people and communities.

Stay tuned for further announcements, programme details, and information on how to join selected sessions virtually. We look forward to bringing together AFSA members, partners, allies and food systems advocates across Africa and beyond to help shape the future of African food.

#SaveTheDate #Agroecology #FoodSovereignty #AfricanFoodSystems #TasteAfricaGrowAfrica #AFSA

RAFI is currently hiring a Land Access Program Manager to lead in managing and facilitating RAFI’s land access project, serving as the main point of communication.

The post Job Opening: Land Access Program Manager appeared first on RAFI.

Can we change the future of food and health by changing the words we use? Consider what happens when we shift our ambition from surviving to thriving. From conserving ecosystems to regenerating them. From extending lifespan to fostering healthspan. Words shape our mindsets, the stories we tell, and how we act. A single word can expand an entire ambition.

As we reflect on World Food Day and reports emerging from this year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and Climate Week NYC, we are witnessing an expansion of one of humanity’s greatest collective ambitions: from feeding the world to nourishing it. For generations, feeding the world has inspired food initiatives and international cooperation that have helped sustain billions of lives. With hundreds of millions still experiencing hunger and food insecurity, ensuring everyone has enough to eat remains urgent, while our ambition must evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities of today, tomorrow, and the future we are creating.

Feeding the world has long been intertwined with the challenge of a growing population. That trajectory is changing. The U.N. projects that the global population will peak later this century. Alongside these demographic transitions, rising diet-related disease, biodiversity loss, conflict, and climate risks are reshaping what we must deliver.

The call for a broader ambition has grown over the past two decades, gaining momentum with the rise of food systems approaches. In 2016, Lawrence Haddad and colleagues called for a global research agenda to shift from feeding the world to nourishing it.In 2021, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres identified Nourish All People as a priority for transforming food systems. More recently, calls for international cooperation have reinforced the urgency of healthy diets and sustainable food systems. This year’s World Food Day theme, “Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow,” recognizes the power of science, traditional knowledge, ingenuity, and cooperation to transform food systems. What makes this moment extraordinary is that advances in science are expanding what we can imagine, discover, and achieve for humanity.

Nourishing the world expands our focus beyond how much food we produce to consider its quality, the health and dignity of those who produce and eat it, and the ecosystems that sustain it. When recently asked at the SDG Media Zone at UNGA81 what I had learned from communities around the world, my answer reflected what many have understood for generations: food is nourishment. What does it mean to make nourishment the measure of our ambition?

A critical measure for advancing nourishment is food quality. Food quality goes beyond calories and nutrients to encompass the molecular composition of food and the conditions in which it is grown, produced, processed, and prepared. Together, these shape its nutrient density, molecular diversity, biological activity, safety, flavor, and other sensory qualities. By connecting agriculture, the environment, and human health, food quality offers a way to measure and improve what our food systems deliver. Nourishment is greater than any single measure. It also depends on whether food is accessible, desirable, culturally meaningful, and produced in ways that sustain people, livelihoods, and ecosystems.

Nourishing the world is not an incremental ambition. We cannot feed people first and nourish them later. We already produce enough calories globally. Our ambition must be to develop creative solutions to ensure nourishing food reaches everyone. Consider the ingenuity of Mumbai’s dabbawalas, who have delivered millions of home-cooked meals across the city for generations, a remarkable but declining tradition.

Nourishment must be cultivated from the beginning, through the incredible edible biodiversity we conserve and cultivate, the crops and livestock we breed, the health of our soils and waters, and how food is grown, processed, and distributed. It must also shape the incentives, policies, and institutions that determine whose knowledge is valued, whose livelihoods are supported, and who can access nourishing food. This includes our ability to transform raw ingredients into nutritious, delicious, and culturally meaningful meals. Nourishment begets nourishment, creating a virtuous cycle across people, communities, and ecosystems. Rooted in dignity, this transformation will look different in every place.

In a Nature Food comment, my colleagues and I drew inspiration from mangroves, whose resilience depends on diverse, interconnected root systems. Food systems likewise depend on interconnected agricultural systems, economies, governance, diets, and knowledge. To change what our food systems deliver, we must transform their foundational roots: what they are designed to achieve, what they reward, and how success is measured. When we prioritize yields and nutrients, we risk overlooking the many dimensions of nourishment. What we measure shapes what we manage, and what we incentivize shapes what we produce.

Imagine agricultural landscapes where biodiversity flourishes alongside productive farms. Where agricultural success is measured not only by yield per hectare, but also by food quality and its potential to nourish people. Where farmers are rewarded for nourishing people and regenerating ecosystems. Where diverse food economies thrive, food waste declines, and innovations emerge. Where healthier diets help reduce the trillions of dollars in health and economic costs associated with poor diets, and healthier people realize their full potential. Where nourishing food is desirable, accessible, and rooted in culture and choice.

This vision must extend to every community across the planet. Nourishment is a universal ambition, and its expression must reflect the diversity of people and places. Realizing it requires cooperation across agriculture, environment, economic development, health, and education. This ambition must continue to evolve, drawing on the world’s diversity of knowledge, cultures, and capabilities. The world of 2050 will not be the world of 2100.

This World Food Day, I am honored to join global partners through The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) in advancing the ambition to nourish the world. Our contribution to this global call is to enable a growing global ecosystem to generate, integrate, and translate standardized molecular evidence on food and health that can accelerate food systems innovation to nourish people and the planet. Together, we are expanding the extraordinary frontier of food and health discovery.

Through PTFI, we are generating evidence across a remarkable spectrum of food systems innovations, from ancient crops grown using regenerative agricultural practices to entirely new classes of food products. We are collectively advancing our understanding of what this evidence means for human health. AI-enabled molecular modeling is helping generate hypotheses about how food molecules interact with human biology. We are connecting molecular evidence with existing epidemiological studies to investigate relationships between food quality and health, while conducting experimental and clinical research to test biological significance. However, we have only begun to scratch the surface of what remains to be discovered.

The path ahead calls for greater collective effort and investment to scale this work and translate emerging evidence into new approaches for characterizing and scoring food quality, as well as evidence-based recommendations and thresholds that can strengthen national and international food and health guidelines. Equally exciting is the opportunity to create entirely new markets and inspire a new generation of innovation. Imagine the possibilities unlocked by molecular evidence on food and health: creating new nourishing products, reimagining food procurement, and transforming how we understand, value, design, manage, and reward food systems.

Along this journey, we must recognize and value traditional knowledge while upholding Indigenous Data Sovereignty, equitable data access, and principles of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), ensuring that innovation does not come at the expense of the communities whose knowledge and resources make it possible.

Building on The Rockefeller Foundation’s pioneering investment in PTFI, alongside investments from other philanthropic partners, we have an extraordinary opportunity to meet the moment by mobilizing new and creative forms of capital to accelerate discovery and innovation for the future we want food to make possible.

Just as words expand our ambitions, new ambitions may call for words we have yet to imagine.

From surviving to thriving. From conserving ecosystems to regenerating them. From extending lifespan to fostering healthspan. From feeding the world to nourishing it.

This essay is part of Food Tank’s Flourish Series: Food and Health from Molecules to Systems, authored by Selena Ahmed, exploring how food connects us to the living world while asking what it means to flourish. For more in the series, click here.

The post Op-Ed | Nourishing the World: Expanding Humanity’s Ambition for Food, Health, and the Planet appeared first on Food Tank.

RAFI is pleased to announce its 2026 farmer grantees. This year, the program awarded $310,103 to 39 farmers across eight states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since 2020, RAFI has distributed $1,722,282 to 280 farmers.

The post RAFI Announces Farmer Grant Recipients appeared first on RAFI.

A version of this piece was featured in Food Tank’s newsletter, released weekly on Thursdays. To make sure it lands straight in your inbox and to be among the first to receive it, subscribe now by clicking here.

Greetings from Des Moines, Iowa. I’m here for the World Food Prize and Borlaug Dialogues, an annual gathering of people working to address hunger and improve food and agriculture systems.

And I have a confession—I love attending the World Food Prize.

I’ve been coming since the early 2010s. For a long time, part of what made it interesting was that there weren’t many people like me here—advocates for sustainable agriculture who wanted to talk about agroecology, biodiversity, how agriculture can be part of the solution to the climate crisis, and the power of farmers.

The Dialogues bring together scientists, academics, policymakers, and plenty of representatives of Big Ag. This year’s announced speakers include leaders from ADM, John Deere, and Corteva. I used to joke that I was one of the few people who could attend the World Food Prize one week and the Organic Trade Association’s annual meeting the next. And, to the Foundation’s credit, I’ve been invited to moderate side events and emcee a plenary session.

I also have some interesting memories.

One year, I was grabbing a drink at the hotel bar when two men invited me to join them. One was a scientist at a major agrochemical company and the other led a farmers and ranchers organization.

Why not sit and have a drink, I thought.

After some very quick pleasantries, they said I was using my Twitter account to criticize their organizations. For the record, I hadn’t. When I explained that, their response was, essentially, “Well, people like you do.” And I thought to myself, what do you mean, people like me?

I tried to explain that their assessment of me—and my work—was incorrect. The conversation went in circles, and I eventually hightailed it out of there.

By the way, I’m now friendly with both of them. I even made it onto one’s Christmas card list.

That experience stayed with me because it showed me how quickly we—all of us—can decide we already understand someone else based on preconceived notions. Sustainable agriculture advocate? We know what he thinks. Corporate scientist? We know what she believes. But we often don’t.

We need more good food and agriculture advocates at events like the Borlaug Dialogues. We need food is medicine leaders, climate activists, public health advocates, young farmer organizations, Indigenous food leaders, and farmworker advocates. Their experiences can really help shape the conversations that happen there. And to be fair, more and more of these folks are coming to the Borlaug Dialogues.

And all of us—Big Ag executives and agroecology advocates included—need to spend time in rooms where people disagree with us. We need to listen long enough to understand why we are on different ends of a very broad spectrum of what it will take to nourish both people and planet.

The issues we’re working on are complicated. If we want real food and agriculture transformation, we’re going to have to get uncomfortable.

Maybe not being accosted at the hotel bar uncomfortable. But uncomfortable enough to recognize that our comfort zones aren’t getting us very far.

Which brings me back to the Prize itself.

Often described as the Nobel Prize for food and agriculture, it grew out of Norman Borlaug’s vision for recognizing people who improve the world’s food supply. Borlaug, a plant pathologist widely known as the father of the Green Revolution, helped transform wheat production and later directed the wheat program at CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.

I see how the Foundation is evolving. Under the leadership of former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and Foundation CEO Tom Vilsack and President Mashal Husain, there are opportunities to broaden both the conversation and our understanding of who leads change. This year’s program includes actors Martin Sheen and Nick Offerman, as well as Nobel Peace Prize laureate and education advocate Malala Yousafzai.

People whose work I admire, including Cary Fowler, Lawrence Haddad, and Mariangela Hungria, are also recipients of the World Food Prize. Their leadership is one of the reasons I think the World Food Prize and Borlaug Dialogues are important and why I keep coming back.

But I want the conversation to keep evolving, too. We need to ask more difficult questions about what food and agricultural progress looks like, whose knowledge informs it, who benefits, who has power, and who doesn’t.

For me, a Green Evolution—a term I stole from Bram Govaerts, the current Director General of CIMMYT—would mean putting farmers’ livelihoods, healthy soils, biodiversity, and nutritious diets at the center of how we measure success. And that requires looking around the room.

How many smallholder farmers, farmworkers, and grassroots organizers have the resources to travel to Des Moines, stay in a hotel, and take several days away from their work? Being invited to speak and being able to participate are different things. Even a waived registration fee doesn’t make it easy for someone to leave their farm.

And the World Food Prize Foundation has had support from agribusiness including ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, Syngenta, and the John Deere Foundation over the years. I don’t necessarily think that is bad as long as that support doesn’t influence which conversations happen, who is in the room, and who gets to be heard.

The history of the Prize also has me scratching my head sometimes. In addition to the folks I mentioned, in 2013, it honored Robert Fraley, then Monsanto’s chief technology officer, and Mary-Dell Chilton of Syngenta, alongside Marc Van Montagu, a molecular biologist, for their contributions to modern plant biotechnology. Monsanto itself didn’t win the Prize. But scientists working at major agribusiness companies did.

That history makes it reasonable to ask what kinds of innovation receive the greatest recognition. A breakthrough in a laboratory can change lives. So can organizing farmers, protecting seed diversity, restoring degraded land, or helping women gain control over their incomes.

This year’s laureate, Dutch food safety scientist Huub Lelieveld, is doing important work. The Foundation is recognizing his efforts to prevent foodborne illness and build international cooperation around food safety. Safe food is fundamental to food security, and that contribution deserves respect.

But I hope the Prize will direct more attention and resources toward leaders whose work is too often overlooked, particularly in the Global South.

The funding and international aid context makes that urgent. According to preliminary OECD figures, official development assistance from its Development Assistance Committee members and associates fell by 23.1 percent in real terms in 2025—the largest annual decline on record. That is a broad aid figure, but it highlights the funding pressures facing work on food security, agricultural development, and global health.

A 2025 study published in The Lancet projected that continued cuts to funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children younger than five.

The hunger consequences are equally alarming. In October 2025, the World Food Program warned that funding cuts from the United States and other donors could push 13.7 million people receiving its assistance from crisis into emergency levels of hunger, one step below famine on the five-level food insecurity scale.

And this year, I think the Prize missed a particularly powerful opportunity.

The United Nations designated 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer. It is an opportunity to recognize women’s contributions to food and agriculture systems and confront the barriers they face in accessing resources and opportunities.

The Dialogues are recognizing that moment with a panel called “What If Her Harvest Changes Everything?” The panel brings together April Hemmes of the United States, Jana Gäbert of Germany, Nelius Kariuki of Kenya, and Josselyn Veronica Vega Rojas of Ecuador. Their work spans farming, livestock and grassland management, vineyards, and agroecological producer organizing. I’m glad these women will be on the stage.

But the panel also raises a question for me. During the International Year of the Woman Farmer, why couldn’t one of these women—or another woman farmer with a demonstrated record of improving people’s lives—be the person we gather to honor with the World Food Prize?

I don’t know whether any of these panelists were nominated or considered. My question is about how widely we look for leadership, who we’re looking at, and what we recognize as valuable.

I think about Esther Penunia, secretary general of the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development, who advocates for family farmers and stronger farmer organizations across Asia. Or Elizabeth Nsimadala, a Ugandan farmer and president of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, whose work helps farmers organize and advocate for themselves. Or Mariam Sow in Senegal, whose work with ENDA Pronat has helped advance agroecology and farmers’ knowledge.

These are the kinds of leaders I want us to look toward when we talk about transforming food systems. And the International Year of the Woman Farmer gives us an especially good reason to examine whether that work receives the recognition it deserves.

What would it mean for the world’s most prominent food and agriculture prize to put that kind of leadership at the center of its celebration?

That’s a conversation I want to have in Des Moines.

I’ll keep coming back to the World Food Prize because I believe conversations across differences matter. I’ve seen relationships change. I’m proud that over the years I have changed my own mind. And yes, sometimes a frustrating conversation at a hotel bar eventually leads to a Christmas card.

But I also want us to ask more of the institutions that bring us together.

Who gets invited? Who can afford to come? Whose knowledge counts? Who gets recognized? Who has the power?

I’m looking forward to listening this week. And I look forward to asking and being asked some uncomfortable questions.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash

The post On the Ground with Dani Nierenberg: Rethinking Who Gets a Seat at the Table—and Who Wins the World Food Prize appeared first on Food Tank.

The work of Dunn United Ministerial Association (DUMA) can be seen throughout the community, because they are the community. DUMA is comprised of 28 affiliated local churches of different denominations, and over the years, they have proved that combining their resources and acts of service allows them to support Dunn in bigger, more holistic ways. 

The post DUMA, Serving United with Dignity appeared first on RAFI.

Yerevan, Armenia, 19 October 2026 – A six-member delegation representing the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) has arrived in Yerevan, Armenia, to participate in the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17), taking place from 19 to 30 October 2026. The delegation joins global negotiations with a clear message: Africa’s biodiversity cannot be protected without recognising the rights, knowledge and contributions of the farmers, Indigenous Peoples and local communities who have conserved it for generations.

Held under the theme “Taking Action for Nature,” COP17 marks a critical moment for countries to assess progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and translate global commitments into meaningful action. For AFSA, this means ensuring that biodiversity policies recognise farmer-managed seed systems, safeguard Africa’s genetic resources, protect traditional knowledge and promote agroecology as a practical pathway to healthy ecosystems, resilient food systems and food sovereignty.

Across Africa, millions of smallholder farmers continue to conserve, select, exchange and improve seeds that sustain agricultural biodiversity, food cultures and livelihoods. Yet these vital contributions are often overlooked in global biodiversity policies and benefit-sharing arrangements. Building on its longstanding Seed is Life campaign and advocacy for farmer-managed seed systems, AFSA will engage governments, civil society organisations and international partners to demand stronger recognition of farmers’ rights to save, use, exchange and govern their seeds.

A central focus of AFSA’s engagement will be the growing debate over Digital Sequence Information (DSI) on genetic resources and the fair sharing of benefits arising from its use. As scientific and commercial applications of genetic information expand, AFSA is calling for safeguards that prevent the appropriation of Africa’s biological wealth and ensure that communities who conserve biodiversity receive direct, equitable and verifiable benefits. In particular, AFSA will advocate for the Cali Fund to become a genuine instrument of justice, with transparent governance, meaningful community participation and resources that directly support farmer-managed seed systems, biodiversity conservation and local livelihoods.

AFSA maintains that biodiversity justice must begin with the people who keep biodiversity alive. The success of global biodiversity agreements must therefore be measured by their ability to protect community rights, strengthen local seed systems and ensure that the benefits of conservation and scientific innovation reach those whose knowledge and practices sustain the world’s biological diversity.

AFSA Side Event on Digital Sequence Information

As part of its engagement, AFSA will host a side event titled “Digital Sequence Information (DSI): Understanding the Debate and Defining an African Civil Society Position” on 24 October 2026, from 14:00 to 15:00 (Armenia time), at the Main Stage, Green Zone, Yerevan. The discussion will bring together African civil society organisations, biodiversity advocates and partners to examine the implications of DSI for Africa’s genetic resources, community rights and food sovereignty.

The event will draw on the expertise of biodiversity and seed sovereignty advocates, including Daud Ngosengwa Manongi of the Tanzania Alliance for Biodiversity (TABIO), Lucien Omer Wendyahoda Silga of FIAN Burkina Faso, and Nithin Ramakrishnan, Senior Researcher at Third World Network. The event will be moderated by Mariann Bassey, Deputy Executive Director Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) and former Chair of AFSA.

Participants will explore common principles for equitable benefit-sharing and develop priorities for a stronger, coordinated African civil society voice in global biodiversity governance.

AFSA invites its members, partners, African government delegations, civil society movements, researchers and biodiversity advocates attending COP17 to join the side event and contribute to this important conversation. Throughout the conference, AFSA will continue working with allies to ensure that Africa’s farmers, communities, women and young people are heard in decisions shaping the future of biodiversity.

Africa’s biodiversity is its living heritage. Protecting it means protecting the people, knowledge and seed systems that sustain it.

Media Contacts

Ndèye Awa GUEYE, CROPS4HD Project Officer, AFSA
awa.gueye@afsafrica.org

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a Food is Medicine movement is growing as community leaders connect food, nutrition, and health.

An estimated 15 percent of households in the city experience food insecurity, according to Feeding America. And the Philadelphia Department of Public Health reports that unhealthy food stores outnumber healthy options by ten to one.

Across the city, organizations are tackling these challenges, providing medically tailored meals, operating choice-based food pantries, and helping families afford nutritious groceries. Together, their work demonstrates how community-led solutions can address hunger while supporting health and well-being.

On October 27, the Food First Health Summit Philadelphia will bring together policymakers, health experts, farmers, food system innovators, and advocates to discuss these solutions and the future of Food is Medicine. Hosted by Food Tank, FareRX, AmeriHealth Caritas, and Temple University, the event will feature conversations and interactive breakout sessions exploring how Philadelphia and communities across the country can expand access to healthy food. Join us in person by registering here or tune in online by clicking here.

Ahead of the Summit, Food Tank is highlighting 13 organizations working to advance food and nutrition security across Philadelphia.

1. Bebashi — Transition To Hope

Since 1985 Bebashi — Transition To Hope has served as a full-service healthcare organization serving low-income individuals to improve their wellbeing. The organization runs the Food First Pantry, offering produce, meats, and nonperishable foods. Modeled after a grocery store, the pantry centers client-choice, allowing people to select the foods they need and want.

2. Caring for Friends

Caring for Friends is tackling both hunger and loneliness in the Philadelphia region. They provide food and friendship to seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, by delivering a week’s worth of meals and visiting with clients. In their Caring Kitchen, they prepare sandwiches, soups, and snack bags for people facing homelessness.

3. FarmerJawn

This 128-acre farm wants to build a model of regenerative food production that’s built by and for underserved communities. Through storefronts, they provide access to fresh food grown without harmful chemicals. Their CornerJawn model of corner stores is designed to make healthy foods more accessible. “I want to make sure that nobody feels like nutrient density is above them,” Christa Barfield, FarmerJawn’s Founder, tells Food Tank. They also offer on-farm and in-school educational programming to help students and adults understand how and where their food comes from.

4. Feast of Justice

For two decades, Feast of Justice has been committed to ensuring that the Northeast Philadelphia community has access to nutritious food and other household goods. The volunteer-run food pantry operates two locations where families and individuals can pick up fresh produce, dairy, meat, baked and dry goods, and home essentials. Last year, they served close to 11,000 neighbors.

5. Food Connect

Food Connect works alongside local partners to deliver nutritious and culturally relevant foods in five regions across the United States, including the Greater Philadelphia area. Through a partnership with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, they offer home delivery for a Food as Medicine program to support patient health. They also work with Sharing Excess (also highlighted below), providing the transportation and delivery logistics that move surplus produce from the nonprofit’s warehouse to schools across the city.

6. MANNA

MANNA believes that healing starts with food. By providing medically tailored meals and nutrition education, they empower people facing serious illness to improve their health and quality of life. Thanks to their work, MANNA’s clients see reduced hospital visits, shorter stays, and an increased likelihood that they will be released to their homes instead of a long-term care facility. The organization is also part of the Food is Medicine Coalition, a national network advancing the Food is Medicine Movement.

7. Philabundance

Feeding America member Philabundance is combining short- and long-term solutions to curb hunger today and ultimately end it for good. They serve nine counties across Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey and work with over 300 community partners to distribute food to those in need. They also run initiatives to reduce food waste, increase access to nutritious meals, and support workforce development.

8. Philadelphia Food as Medicine Coalition

The Philadelphia Food as Medicine Coalition is a new coalition working at the intersection of food and health in Philadelphia. A growing network of advocates, food businesses, practitioners, they welcome community leaders to join them and help scale Food is Medicine solutions. The Food First Health Summit on October 27 represents the Coalition’s first convening, where the people and organizations taking part will help shape what it becomes.

9. Share Food Program

In 1986, Share Food Program started as a food co-op, offering low-cost items to the Philadelphia community. Today, they are one of the leading hunger relief organizations in the region and one of the largest independent food banks in the nation. Their Senior Food Box Program delivers a monthly box of groceries to qualifying seniors. The Philly Food Rescue project focuses on food recovery and donations. And at Nice Roots Farms, they grow fresh produce that they distribute to the community, pantry partners, and mutual aid networks.

10. Sharing Excess

When Evan Ehlers was a student at Drexel University in 2016, he began using his extra meal swipes to buy and give away meals in Philadelphia. The decision helped him realize that hunger wasn’t a problem of supply, but one of access. Two years later, he started Sharing Excess to overcome the barriers that keep perfectly good food from reaching people who need it most. Since the organization’s founding, they have rescued and redistributed more than 317 million pounds of food.

11. St. Christopher’s Foundation for Children Philadelphia

St. Christopher’s Foundation for Children was founded to support the health and well-being of young people served by the St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. Their Farm to Families program helps families access low-cost, high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables. They also run My Family Kitchen, an eight-week program where elementary- and middle-school-aged children learn how to prepare simple, healthy, and affordable meals.

12. The Food Trust

The Food Trust takes a holistic approach to nutrition security to ensure everyone can access healthy, delicious food. The organization runs several programs to including the Healthy Corner Store Initiative, where they help small, independently owned grocery stores increase their offerings of fresh produce and other healthy items. And their Nutrition Incentives program helps to stretch eaters’ dollars to make nutritious foods more accessible and affordable.

13. The People’s Kitchen Philadelphia

Launched at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, The People’s Kitchen is a collaborative of chefs, students, and community members fighting for food sovereignty in Philadelphia. They help build a people-centered, inclusive model and relationship to food as they tackle systemic issues of poverty and hunger in the city. Today, they combine free nutritious meals, gardening, and food education to empower and transform communities.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Tomas Martinez, Unsplash

The post 13 Organizations Building Health and Community in Philadelphia appeared first on Food Tank.

A new report from WWF highlights how we still have time to protect global biodiversity. While the decline in biodiversity worldwide shows no sign of slowing, according to a new WWF report, the organization believes that nature recovery is still within reach.

“Nature underpins our economies…It’s our life support system,” says Kirsten Schuijt, Director General of WWF International. But it “continues to be degraded at an alarming scale.”

The new Living Planet Report, which covers more than 35,000 populations and 5,700 species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians, shows that not all regions are affected evenly.

Biodiversity decline is highest in Latin America and the Caribbean, followed by the African continent. But Andrew Terry, the Chief Conservation Officer for the Zoological Society of London, is careful to note that the results don’t mean regions like North America and Europe haven’t seen significant population decline. Rather, the biggest drop-off took place before 1970, when scientists established a baseline to measure against.

WWF points to food and agriculture systems as the largest cause of habitat loss and degradation. They’re also a major contributor to the climate crisis and the overexploitation of species. Together, these make the sector the leading driver of biodiversity decline.

“Habitat loss driven by agriculture is a threat to over 80 percent of all threatened terrestrial bird and mammal species,” Rebecca Shaw, Lead Author of the report and WWF’s Chief Scientist, tells Food Tank. “Overfishing is the leading cause of biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems and water extraction for agriculture.” She also adds that polluted runoff is responsible for 50 percent of all freshwater biodiversity loss.

But WWF still finds reason to remain hopeful. “Nature can rebound especially when we work together,” Schuijt says.

The report highlights the green sea turtle—they became the first marine turtle to ever be downgraded on a conservation list. After 50 years of collaborative efforts spanning 80 countries, it has been recategorized, moving from an Endangered species to one of Least Concern.

Atlantic and Pacific bluefin tuna are another example. Decades of overfishing brought populations to the brink of collapse. But concerted efforts to protect and replenish stocks mean that neither is considered threatened today.

“Targeted conservation action works, and it works really well, but it can’t overcome the threats to nature alone,” says Shaw. She argues that lessons from these projects can be taken and applied to address the root causes of biodiversity loss and drive systems change.

To reach a positive tipping point in food and agriculture systems, WWF argues that change is needed in three major areas. They call for the wide-scale adoption of nature-positive farming practices, a shift to healthy and sustainable diets, and a reduction in food loss and waste.

These changes “could have a dramatic impact on decreasing biodiversity loss,” Shaw tells Food Tank. “At the same time, it would also have extraordinary human health and economic benefits. The potential is huge.”

The transition to renewable energy sources must also continue to accelerate, the report states. Meanwhile funding must flow away from systems that harm ecosystems and toward those that regenerate them.

To make this transformation possible, WWF believes it is essential to uplift bright spots that prove efforts pay off.

“Hope is not an abstract thing. It’s based in science,” Schuijt says. And as long as people believe change is possible, she is adamant people will be willing to act —an attitude that is particularly important for the next generation. “Young people need to feel they can still contribute to a better future.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Shelley Pauls, Unsplash

The post WWF Shows Turning the Tide on Biodiversity Loss Is Still Possible appeared first on Food Tank.

A new rule recently released by the Trump Administration would give political appointees new powers to cancel funding agreements at will for a huge number of federal programs, including some USDA funding that goes directly to farmers.

The post Proposed Rule Threatens Farmer Funding and Undermines USDA Programs appeared first on RAFI.

When Albert Betoudji’s family—who are from Chad—visited him in Utah, he took them to his farm. They were surprised to see maize, squash, okra, and other familiar Central African crops growing so far from home.

“My mom was very, very happy,” says Betoudji. “They showed me [how to farm] at a young age, and I continue doing the same thing here in the United States.”

Growing up in Chad, Betoudji’s grandparents taught him to plant seeds and harvest crops when he was just five years old. He would later return home during school breaks to farm with his parents, learning to pay attention to and time planting around the seasons’ climates.

But in 1979, civil war forced Betoudji to leave Chad, and he traveled to West Africa in search of safety. He eventually settled in Burkina Faso, where he earned his high school diploma, studied management accounting at the University of Ouagadougou, and started teaching accounting. And in 1999, he emigrated to the United States.

For several years, Betoudji helped other refugee families settle into life in their new communities—everything from navigating public transportation systems to using American kitchens and toilets. Then in 2005, he began growing food again, starting simply with corn, tomatoes, and peppers in his backyard.

Betoudji soon became one of the first farmers in a Salt Lake County, Utah, community farming effort that would eventually become the International Rescue Committee’s New Roots program, which supports refugee and immigrant farmers as they build sustainable livelihoods through agriculture.

Betoudji was able to expand to growing crops he remembered from home, including okra and roselle, a type of hibiscus native to Africa that cannot fruit in Utah’s cooler climate, but he grows it for its edible leaves.

Eventually, with help from the New Roots staff, he began selling produce to stores and restaurants and at farmers’ markets. There, Betpoudji says, he and fellow refugee and immigrant farmers sell food while sharing the stories behind it—where they come from, how they arrived in the United States, and how to eat the crops they grow.

The income from farming can be limited, Betoudji says, but the work is meaningful: “Working at the farm makes me happy, because it is a physical activity; you use all your body.” This includes not only the arms and legs but the mind, Betoudji says, which “helped me with my mental and physical health.”

The farm also connects Betoudji to a community of people who, like him, have arrived in Utah from different places and backgrounds: “I came to Utah as a refugee, and I met other refugee families with different backgrounds, different cultures, but we farm together.”

For him, these relationships are at the heart of New Roots: The name reflects the experience of people who have left one place and built lives in another, bringing their knowledge, traditions, and foodways with them.

“We come from different backgrounds, but we farm together in the same place, and we grow food for family and for community,” says Betoudji.

Watch Betoudji’s story below and find others from our farmer storytelling events on Food Tank’s YouTube channel.

This article is part of Food Tank’s ongoing Farmer Friday series, produced in partnership with Niman Ranch, a champion for independent U.S. family farmers. The series highlights the stories of farmers working toward a more sustainable, equitable food system. Niman Ranch partners with over 500 small-scale U.S. family farmers and is committed to preserving rural agricultural communities and their way of life.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post For Refugees in Utah, Farming Is a Connection to Home appeared first on Food Tank.

Three storms at once

Today is World Food Day. This year it finds African farmers caught between three storms at once: a super El Niño, a war in Europe and a war in the Gulf.

None of these storms began in Africa. Africa did not heat the Pacific Ocean. It did not start the war in Ukraine or the war around the Strait of Hormuz. Yet it is African farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and families who will pay the highest price, in empty granaries, dead livestock and children going to bed hungry.

That is what I want to say plainly today. These crises are not creating Africa’s vulnerability. They are exposing it. And that vulnerability was not an accident. It was built.

A super El Niño that hits Africa hardest

The El Niño now under way is one of the strongest on record. The World Food Programme warns it could push at least 49 million more people into acute hunger by the end of 2027. Around 24 million of them are in Africa: more than 18 million in East and Southern Africa, and nearly 6 million in West and Central Africa.

The damage is already visible. The June to September rains failed across Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda’s Karamoja. South Sudan and Karamoja are on track for their driest year on record. Now the Horn of Africa faces the opposite danger: heavy rains and floods along Somalia’s rivers, where famine is a real risk.

In Southern Africa, forecasters expect late, poor rains and long dry spells over the season that is starting now. Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Angola, Madagascar and Lesotho are of greatest concern. The worst hunger will come not now but in the lean months of 2027 and early 2028, when the food from a failed harvest runs out.

For a farmer who depends on rain, one failed season can mean selling the last goat, pulling a child out of school or eating seed meant for next year. A family can take years to recover.

Wars far away, hunger at home

The war between Russia and Ukraine has entered a new phase on the Black Sea. Both sides are now striking each other’s grain ports. Russian wheat exports fell by more than half in August. The FAO Food Price Index reached its highest level since November 2022. African and Middle Eastern countries, among the biggest buyers of Black Sea wheat, are low on stocks and will have to buy at higher prices.

The war in the Gulf has hit even closer to the farm. Since 28 February, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been largely blocked. About a third of the world’s seaborne fertiliser normally passes through it. Urea more than doubled in price, from about US$400 to over US$850 a tonne in April.

World prices have since eased, but African farmers have not felt the relief. In July, urea still cost about US$975 a tonne in Malawi and US$933 in Tanzania, more than double the world price. Weak currencies, freight costs and port delays keep it high.

Fuel tells the same story. Ethiopia lost more than 180,000 tonnes of fuel deliveries, halving its daily diesel supply. In Kenya, record fuel price rises pushed transport fares up by about a quarter. Zimbabwe’s fuel import costs rose 40% in under a month.

Every one of these numbers reaches the farm. Diesel moves the harvest to market. Fertiliser that a farmer cannot afford means a smaller harvest next season. And the bread, rice and cooking oil that city families buy cost more each week.

Same storm, different shelter

The same shocks are hitting the whole world. What differs is who has shelter.

When fertiliser prices jumped, India raised its fertiliser subsidy by 11%, to 415 billion rupees for the summer season alone. The European Union proposed €540 million in emergency relief for its farmers, which member states can top up to about €1.5 billion. France added its own fertiliser aid. These governments had the money, the institutions and the political room to act within weeks.

Most African governments did not. Many entered this year already squeezed by debt. In nearly four in five sub-Saharan African countries, governments now pay more in interest than they spend on health or education, according to the World Bank. A treasury that sends its money to creditors cannot shield its farmers. Countries such as Ghana, Malawi and Sudan could not even pay cash for fertiliser imports.

So the shock that a rich country absorbs as a budget line falls on an African family as hunger. That is not a difference in weather. It is a difference in power.

A vulnerability that was built

Africa is not weak by nature. Its vulnerability was built over generations, and it is still being built today.

• Colonialism reshaped African farming for export. The best land, roads, railways and research went to cotton, coffee, cocoa and groundnuts for European factories. Food for Africans came second. Many of those patterns remain.
• Structural adjustment dismantled our defences. From the 1980s, loan conditions pushed governments to close grain reserves and marketing boards, cut extension services and open markets to subsidised imports. We lost the buffers that once carried us through bad years.
• We were taught to import our food. Sub-Saharan Africa’s food import bill was projected to reach about US$65 billion in 2025. Every rise in world prices and every weak currency now lands directly on our tables.
• We were taught to import our soil fertility. A farming model built on purchased fertiliser and hybrid seed ties the fertility of African soils to gas fields and shipping lanes thousands of kilometres away. The Strait of Hormuz has shown what that means.
• Debt keeps the cycle going. Money that should build irrigation, storage and rural roads goes to pay interest. Climate finance, when it comes, too often arrives as loans, adding new debt to repair damage Africa did not cause.
• The rules are written elsewhere. Trade rules, seed laws, intellectual property regimes and credit ratings are largely set by and for the powerful. They narrow the policy space African governments need to protect their own farmers.

These are not separate problems. They are one system, and it was designed to keep Africa supplying raw materials and buying finished goods. El Niño and the wars did not create this system. They have simply shown us, once again, how it works.

What must change

This year’s World Food Day theme is “Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow.” The innovation Africa needs most is not another imported package. It is the courage to rebuild food systems that Africans control.

1. Act now on El Niño. Governments and agencies must move before the lean season, not after it. Pre-position food, protect livestock and seed, and get cash to families early.
2. Rebuild public food reserves. National and regional grain reserves, run in the public interest, are a basic defence that structural adjustment took away.
3. Invest in agroecology and healthy soils. Compost, manure, legumes, trees and diverse crops build fertility that no blockade can cut off. Public money now spent on imported fertiliser should shift steadily towards them.
4. Protect farmers’ seed. Farmer-managed seed systems hold the drought-tolerant varieties we need. Laws that criminalise saving and exchanging seed must change.
5. Feed Africa from African farms. Support territorial markets, local processing and public procurement, including school meals, that buy from our own producers.
6. Cancel unjust debt and pay climate finance as grants. No country should have to choose between paying creditors and feeding its people. Adaptation finance must reach farmer organisations directly.
7. Give Africa its policy space. Trade and investment rules must allow African governments to protect their farmers and their food.

Africa can feed itself

Africa has the land, the water, the seed, the knowledge and the farmers to feed itself. Our small-scale producers already grow most of the food Africans eat, often with little or no public support.

What we lack is not ability. It is control over our own food systems, and freedom from the debts, rules and dependencies that keep us exposed to every storm.

On this World Food Day, I call on African governments, the African Union and our international partners to stop treating each crisis as a surprise. The next El Niño, the next war and the next price shock will come. Let them find Africa ready, fed by its own farmers and standing on its own soil.

Million Belay (PhD)
General Coordinator, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)
16 October 2026

Three words can change the world!

“Food is medicine” is a complete sentence. It’s an unequivocally true statement. And it’s a movement that can achieve so much more than many of us even realize.

In a couple weeks, our Food First Health Summit in Philadelphia is exploring the wide range of collaboration, legislation, and creative innovation that prioritizes our dietary well-being and illuminates the ways food systems nourish our bodies and our societies at large.

I hope you’ll join us at 2:00PM ET on Tuesday, October 27 (CLICK HERE or livestream at FoodTank.com)—in partnership with FareRx and the College of Public Health at Temple University at WHYY-NPR Studios’ Dorrance H. Hamilton Public Media Commons—for discussions with food systems leaders, policymakers, community organizers, health practitioners, and more to launch long-term solutions.

“Philly’s food as medicine leaders are coming together, and the country should be paying attention,” says Mike Cangi, Founder and CEO of FareRx. “We’re using that momentum to launch the Philadelphia Food Is Medicine Coalition, giving this work a bigger platform and creating more ways to work together. This is Philadelphia’s chance to show what a city can accomplish when it puts food and health first.”

The Food Is Medicine movement sits at the crossroads of nutrition security, local agriculture, and healthcare. Some initiatives focus on social well-being through food access and education; others are rooted in clinical care with programs including produce prescriptions and medically tailored meals.

And it works: When we eat with our well-being in mind, our health improves. The healthcare cost savings from medically tailored meals alone to be around US$23.7 billion, according to research from the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University.

Here’s a peek at the amazing lineup of speakers, alphabetically by last name, who are joining us in Philadelphia: Val Arkoosh, Pennsylvania Department of Human Services; Mike Cangi, FareRx; Sue Daugherty, MANNA; Rep. Madeleine Dean, U.S. House of Representatives; Lauren Eberly, University of Pennsylvania and Indian Health Service, Navajo Nation; Evan Ehlers, Sharing Excess; Beatrice Forman, The Philadelphia Inquirer; Freeway, Philadelphia-Based Rapper and Food for Health Advocate; Steven Jennings, Ahold Delhaize USA; Loree D. Jones Brown, Philabundance; Julia Koprak, The Food Trust; Jenn Ladd, The Philadelphia Inquirer; Karen Lin, Temple University; Briana Mills-Walker, FarmerJawn; Kae Lani Palmisano, Philadelphia Magazine; Chris Rabb, Pennsylvania House of Representatives; Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, U.S. House of Representatives; Rep. Lloyd Smucker, U.S. House of Representatives; Maiken Scott, WHYY; Julia Weatherly, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service; and more to be announced soon!

We’re so proud to help showcase the ways Philadelphia is leading the charge toward a better food system. Food rescue organization Sharing Excess is proof that committed young people can make meaningful change. With medically tailored meals and other interventions, MANNA and FareRX are showing how Food is Medicine is a sustainable, transformative model. And inspiring organizations like Philabundance and The Food Trust are building food security and food access through upcycling, cooking education, and other creative approaches.

“Philadelphia is home to an incredibly rich and diverse food culture. The largest possible umbrella is needed to include all of the companies, community groups, and individuals dedicated to providing the healthiest of foods to the citizens of the city and region,” says David B. Sarwer, Ph.D., Senior Associate Dean and Professor at the College of Public Health at Temple University. “The time is right to bring all of the players together to move the Food is Medicine agenda forward in Philadelphia to improve the health and well-being of our citizens.”

HERE is the link one more time to grab your FREE ticket before seating fills up for good! And for Food Tankers who don’t live in or near Philadelphia, plan to visit FoodTank.com at 2:00PM ET on Tuesday, October 27 to join our livestream.

(Want to learn more about Food is Medicine? Check out our “Food Tank Explains” column about it, and tune in to recent episodes of our Food Talk podcast HERE. You can also be part of even more discussions about it at our 2nd Annual Food and Agriculture Policy Summit Week in Washington, D.C., later this year!)

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Mariana Medvedeva, Unsplash

The post You’re Invited: What Can We Achieve When We Put Food First For Health? appeared first on Food Tank.

On World Food Day, African chefs unite to reclaim the continent’s culinary heritage, champion agroecology and put African food at the centre of Africa’s future.

On World Food Day 2026, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) calls on African citizens, governments, chefs, farmers, young people and food system actors to reclaim Africa’s rich food heritage and place healthy, culturally appropriate and ecologically produced food at the heart of the continent’s future. Under its Pan-African campaign, My Food Is African, AFSA is advancing a powerful message: Africa’s food is a source of identity, dignity, health and sovereignty, and its future must be shaped by the people who grow, prepare and consume it.

Across Africa, traditional food systems that have sustained communities for generations are increasingly threatened by industrial agriculture, the expansion of ultra-processed foods and changing dietary habits that undermine indigenous knowledge and local food cultures. Traditional African foods, despite their extraordinary diversity and cultural significance, are too often portrayed as inferior, outdated or incompatible with modern lifestyles. Meanwhile, the smallholder farmers, women, seed custodians and traditional food producers who sustain Africa’s food systems remain insufficiently recognised and supported.

For AFSA, reversing this trend requires a fundamental shift in how African societies understand and value food. My Food Is African is a call to reclaim our food, our health, our culture and our power. It challenges the notion that progress must come at the expense of African food traditions and asserts that the continent’s food future lies in embracing its rich culinary diversity, strengthening agroecological production and restoring the connection between people, land and food.

African Chefs Take the Lead in Reclaiming Our Food

This year’s World Food Day carries particular significance as African chefs across the continent come together to translate this vision into action. From 12 to 16 October 2026, the My Food Is African Chefs Network is leading the first continental MyFIA Chefs Week, celebrating indigenous ingredients, traditional recipes, African food knowledge and the farmers and communities who keep these traditions alive.

The initiative builds on the historic First African Chefs’ Gathering and Policy Convening on African Food Systems, organised by AFSA in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in July 2025. Bringing together participants from 23 African countries, the gathering adopted the Declaration of African Chefs, affirming a collective commitment to elevate African cuisine, defend indigenous food systems and strengthen the role of chefs in advancing food sovereignty.

That commitment is now taking shape through a growing continental movement of chefs who recognise that their responsibility extends beyond preparing and serving food. African chefs are educators, cultural ambassadors, storytellers and advocates who can reconnect consumers with the origins of their food, celebrate forgotten ingredients, preserve ancestral recipes and promote food grown through agroecological practices.

Throughout Chefs Week, participating chefs are sharing stories from their kitchens, farms and local markets, highlighting the relationship between indigenous seeds, healthy soils, traditional food preparation and African culinary identity. The week culminates in an online gathering on 16 October, bringing together chefs, farmers, seed custodians, journalists and other food system actors to celebrate their collective efforts, discuss the future of African cuisine and consider the adoption of the MyFIA Chefs Network Charter.

The significance of this initiative goes beyond culinary celebration. It represents a growing recognition that the transformation of Africa’s food systems must also take place in our kitchens, restaurants, schools and everyday food choices. By bringing traditional African foods into contemporary culinary spaces, chefs can help challenge perceptions that equate imported and industrially processed foods with modernity, while demonstrating that African culinary heritage offers opportunities for creativity, innovation, livelihoods and entrepreneurship.

Healthy Food Begins with Healthy Soil

At the heart of the My Food Is African campaign is a principle that AFSA considers fundamental to Africa’s food future: what we eat cannot be separated from how our food is produced.

African food is deeply connected to the land, the seeds and the ecological knowledge that have sustained generations of farming communities. Its value cannot be measured by taste and cultural significance alone. It must also be understood through the health of the soil, the diversity of crops, the integrity of production systems and the well-being of the people who produce it.

AFSA therefore calls for a transition towards agroecological food systems that restore soil fertility, protect biodiversity, safeguard farmer-managed seed systems and strengthen resilience to climate change.

The campaign also draws attention to the growing public health concerns associated with unhealthy dietary transitions and the increasing consumption of ultra-processed foods. Reviving diverse African diets, including indigenous grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits and traditionally prepared foods, is an important part of promoting healthier food environments and protecting the continent’s nutritional heritage.

Healthy soil, healthy seeds, healthy food and healthy people are inseparable. Protecting African food therefore means protecting the ecological and cultural systems that make it possible.

Innovate Today, Nourish Tomorrow: Africa’s Knowledge Must Shape the Future

As the international community commemorates World Food Day under the 2026 theme, “Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow,” AFSA emphasises that meaningful innovation must recognise and build upon the knowledge, practices and resources that African communities have developed over generations. The global theme highlights the importance of combining forward-looking solutions with traditional knowledge and inclusive approaches to ensure nutritious food for all while protecting the planet.

For Africa, innovation must begin by recognising the enormous potential already present in its food systems. Indigenous crops, farmer-managed seeds, traditional food preservation methods, agroecological farming practices and culinary knowledge offer opportunities to improve nutrition, strengthen local economies and respond to environmental challenges. These resources must be protected, developed and passed on to future generations.

AFSA believes that African chefs, particularly young culinary professionals and women food entrepreneurs, have an important role in this transformation. By combining traditional ingredients with contemporary culinary creativity, strengthening relationships with local farmers and bringing African cuisine into new markets, they can help create livelihoods while preserving the integrity and identity of African food.

But innovation must also extend beyond the kitchen. It requires supportive public policies, investment in agroecological enterprises, stronger territorial markets, greater recognition of women’s contributions and education systems that teach African children the value of their own food heritage.

A Call to Reclaim Africa’s Food Future

On this World Food Day, AFSA calls upon African governments and institutions to recognise food sovereignty as a foundation of sustainable development. This requires policies that protect farmer-managed seed systems, support smallholder food producers, promote agroecology and integrate indigenous African foods into national nutrition strategies, school curricula and public food procurement programmes.

AFSA also calls upon chefs, restaurants, culinary institutions and food entrepreneurs to become active champions of African food sovereignty by celebrating indigenous ingredients, sourcing from local agroecological producers, preserving traditional recipes and introducing younger generations to the extraordinary diversity of African cuisine.

To African citizens, particularly young people, the message is equally clear. Our food heritage deserves to be celebrated, protected and carried forward. Every traditional recipe preserved, every indigenous seed protected, every local farmer supported and every African meal prepared with pride contributes to a larger movement for healthier people, thriving communities and a more sovereign Africa.

My Food Is African is a declaration of identity, a commitment to ecological responsibility and a call for collective action. It reminds us that our food connects us to our ancestors, sustains our communities and carries the possibilities of our future. Reclaiming African food means reclaiming the knowledge, resources and choices that determine how Africa feeds itself.

As African chefs unite this World Food Day, AFSA reaffirms its commitment to building a continental movement that celebrates African culinary heritage, strengthens the relationship between farmers and consumers, and advances food systems rooted in justice, health, biodiversity and dignity.

Our food. Our heritage. Our health. Our future.

My Food Is African.

Grow with Nature. Eat with Pride. Live with Dignity.

Campaign: #MyFoodIsAfrican | #JeMangeAfricain | #WorldFoodDay2026

The Washington D.C.-based organization FRESHFARM is working to strengthen food access, support local farmers, and improve food education in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

The nonprofit runs the third-largest farmers market network in the country as well as a food hub, “which is really all about providing farmers, especially small and mid-sized farmers, an opportunity to get into the wholesale market,” Cat Oakar, FRESHFARM’s Executive Director tells Food Tank. This allows nonprofits the ability to purchase fresh, local produce, “which they’re often shut out of.”

To connect more eaters with healthy food, the organization also operates two extensive food access programs, Produce Plus and FreshMatch, which offer qualifying shoppers additional dollars to spend at farmers markets. 

Oakar believes these programs are essential, arguing that there should be more investment and support to help families buy and prepare fresh produce. But, she is seeing the opposite, with federal cuts affecting initiatives like Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed). 

The loss of funding is particularly confusing to Oakar when the Trump-Vance Administration is doing so well to bring the link between food and health into national conversations, says Oakar, who previously served as Special Assistant to the President for Public Health and Disparities under the Biden-Harris Administration. “They’re succeeding “in a way that, frankly, we…couldn’t do.” But she believes the actions of the federal government represent a contradiction. 

“If we really want to make people healthy, investing in the food system, investing in local farmers, investing in programs that have been cut is the way to make a healthier society,” she tells Food Tank. “It’s the way to make a more resilient, stronger food system.”

The idea of building a healthier society is one that FRESHFARM takes seriously. Farmers markets aren’t just connecting people to fresh produce, Oakar explains. They are also “essential community infrastructure” that serve as economic engines and gathering places. “Our farmers markets are something that are so powerful and such a beautiful and necessary part of strong, resilient communities.”

Listen to the full conversation with Cat Oakar on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” to hear about Oakar’s transition from the White House to FRESHFARM, the challenges facing local farmers, and how the organization is getting students excited about food systems. 

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Shelley Pauls, Unsplash

The post Building Stronger Communities Through Farmers Markets appeared first on Food Tank.

It’s early morning outside Perryville, Arkansas. A scissor-tailed flycatcher is perched on the fence, cattle are grazing in the bottoms, and Sam Noble begins her day in the chicken brooder at the Heifer Center for Regenerative Agriculture.

There is nothing unusual about a woman starting her day this way. Women have always farmed. They have raised livestock, managed farms, saved seed, sold food and cared for the land. What has changed is that we are finally getting better at seeing them.

That visibility matters.

Sam is Heifer USA’s Poultry Coordinator, and she is part of a growing number of women farmers and ranchers across the United States. Since 2002, the percentage of women producers has increased steadily. According to the USDA, women represent over 36 percent of all U.S. producers.

Some of that increase is about how we count. In 2012, the USDA changed the way it collected census information, allowing farms to identify more than one primary operator. That simple change made women’s contributions more visible in the official numbers.

But the numbers are catching up to something many of us working in agriculture have known for a long time: women are already doing the work… and have been doing so for a long time.

Being counted is one thing. Being recognized is another. Even today, Sam and the other women livestock managers at Heifer USA encounter the assumptions that come with being women farmers. Sam’s response isn’t to try to prove that she can farm like a man.

“To me, being a woman farmer doesn’t mean proving that I can farm like a man. It means I get to define what a good farmer looks like.”

Agriculture doesn’t need women to change who they are. The world needs to make room for different ways of knowing, different approaches to managing land and livestock, and different concepts of what a successful farm looks like.

The critical role rural women play in agriculture is evident across the Americas, and it is important to hear their voices. We recently spoke with women farmers in parts of Ecuador, Honduras, and Mexico.

Their stories are different because their circumstances are different. But the common threads and challenges are there. Access to land and markets, the effects of a changing climate, the importance of family and community. These women are making their way even if the systems around them don’t make it easy.

In the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, Mexico, land is never just land. Yumara Salas Ramírez is helping raise the visibility of women coffee producers. Chiapas produces 41 percent of Mexico’s coffee, but women hold only about a quarter of the land rights. Women also face challenges that range from sexism and violence to the effects of a changing climate.

At the Sierra Azul Cooperative, Yumara is the first woman to serve as the cooperative’s secretary and handles incoming green coffee. But she also works with women producers to market coffee under their own brand.

Yumara remains connected to the land and to the knowledge passed down through her family: “Every time we work with coffee, we reflect what we were taught and keep a family tradition alive.”

On the Galápagos Islands, part of Ecuador, over half of the food consumed is shipped in from the mainland. For an ecosystem as fragile as the Galápagos, that dependence creates its own problems, including the introduction of invasive plants and pests.

María Espinoza is using agroecological methods to raise livestock and grow crops for local markets on land cleared of invasive blackberry bushes. She and other farmers have increased the percentage of locally sourced food available at their market from 10 percent to 40 percent since 2019. It is an example of how local food production can play multiple roles: providing income and strengthening food sovereignty.

María doesn’t pretend the work is easy: “The most difficult part? There isn’t one. With dedication, you just have to overcome the difficult challenges.”

The challenges these women face vary, but one issue affects them all: a changing climate. Women farmers are particularly vulnerable to climate impacts. They often have fewer resources available during droughts, extreme weather or other disruptions.

Milexy Rodriguez, a farmer in El Nance, Honduras, lost 15 of her cattle during a drought in 2024. It was a call to action to build a more resilient livelihood. With support from a community savings group, she drilled a well and diversified her production, growing chili peppers and keeping bees.

Milexy’s experience is a reminder that resilience isn’t some abstract concept. It may be a well, or another crop, but sometimes resilience is challenging assumptions about who belongs in agriculture.

“Many people thought that a woman couldn’t manage a cattle farm. However, with consistent work, I’ve proven that it is possible.”

Working at the Heifer Center for Regenerative Agriculture, I get to see women like Sam doing this work every day. I see it in the way our entire livestock team cares for the animals, makes land-use decisions, and tries new things.

And I see something else, too.

The women I know in agriculture aren’t waiting for someone to tell them they belong. They are already doing the work. That is what struck me as I learned more about these women across the Americas. All of our farms and lives vary, but the underlying questions are familiar.

How do we care for the land and still make a living?

How do we pass knowledge on to the next generation?

How do we build communities and food systems that can withstand difficult times?

For too long, women have had to answer these questions while also proving that they belong at the table. The most important change is that we are noticing what has been happening all along. Women have been farming, ranching, building markets, raising families and caring for the land for generations.

The numbers are finally catching up with that reality. And that is a good thing. If we are serious about building resilient farms and food systems, we need the knowledge, experience and leadership of everyone.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Lys Arango / Heifer International

The post Op-Ed | Women Farmers Are Shaping the Future of Food and Agriculture Systems appeared first on Food Tank.

The third quarter of 2026 showed AFSA operating across the full landscape of Africa’s food systems transformation. From parliamentary chambers and continental policy processes to farmer fields, media spaces, youth platforms and international forums, the work moved steadily between ideas and action. The Pan African Parliament’s decision to advance a continental Model Law on African Food Policy created an important opening for greater coherence in how Africa governs food, agriculture, health, trade and the environment. At the same time, AFSA strengthened advocacy for farmer managed seed systems, challenged provisions in the proposed East African Community Seed and Plant Varieties Bill, and continued pressing for laws that recognise farmers not as beneficiaries of seed systems, but as their custodians and rights holders.

The quarter also placed difficult questions about finance and agricultural development firmly on the table. At the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali, through the release of The Green Revolution Has Failed Africa, and in AFSA’s support for the Food, Land & Money report, a consistent question emerged: who controls the resources shaping Africa’s agricultural future, and whose interests do those investments ultimately serve? These interventions were matched by practical alternatives. In Yaoundé, 198 participants from the six Congo Basin countries adopted a regional action agenda for agroecology, biodiversity and climate justice. In Kenya, farmers, scientists and development partners advanced plans for an African agenda on locally produced biofertilisers. In Tanzania, researchers, farmer organisations and policymakers examined how evidence can better influence policy, while a new urban agroecology learning series began connecting practical experiences from African cities.

Climate action was another defining thread. In Ethiopia, AFSA connected negotiators and civil society directly with agroecology in practice before convening more than 130 participants from 33 countries to shape a common African civil society position towards COP31 and COP32. In Harare, AFSA entered the technical spaces where the next decade of CAADP implementation will be measured and financed, defending the place of agroecology in national and regional investment plans. At the same time, 24 journalists from 15 countries were equipped to investigate the science, seed politics and financial flows behind African food systems, while young agroecology entrepreneurs used International Youth Day to demonstrate that ecological farming can also generate livelihoods, innovation and opportunity. The Battle for African Agriculture podcast carried these conversations further, connecting science, policy, women’s experiences, environmental leadership and African knowledge with wider public debate.

This was also a quarter of profound loss. The passing of Sena Alouka, founding Chair of AFSA’s Climate and Agroecology Working Group, touched the entire movement. His life embodied many of the values reflected throughout this edition: belief in young people, courage in confronting harmful systems, faith in African knowledge and the conviction that organised communities can change their future. His absence is deeply felt, but the work carried across these pages is also part of the legacy he leaves behind. The third quarter therefore closes with both achievement and responsibility: important doors have opened, stronger alliances have been built and clearer alternatives have been articulated. The task now is to carry that momentum forward and ensure that Africa’s food systems are shaped increasingly by the people who grow, protect, prepare and depend on its food.

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