The Wall Street Journal reports the Ethiopian appeal for massive amounts of foreign aid, as a severe drought in the country puts the East African nation on the border of a potentially drastic humanitarian crisis concerning low levels of food and water. Paul Lomas, Oxfam International’s regional director for East Africa, states that this is the worst drought striking the country in ten years.

Compounding the current situation are the still relatively high prices of food from a prior increase last year, in addition to insufficient amounts of investment in agriculture and a lack of crisis preparation for the impending crisis.

Mitiku Kassa, Minister of Disaster risk management and food security in Ethiopia, states the number of Ethiopians needing food aid increased to 6.2 million from 4.9 million earlier this year — out of Ethiopia’s total population of 83 million.

Mr. Kassa requested a total of $175 million in aid, including more than 160,000 tons of food as well as nonfood assistance such as health and sanitation support and help for agriculture and livestock.

The threat of famine in Ethiopia looms large because most Ethiopians depend on the land for their food and livelihood and the government is expecting another weak harvest due to the lack of rain.

The prolonged crises in the region have stretched the budgets of aid agencies already.  Oxfam has already issued an emergency appeal for $15 million to help with the situation in East Africa.  The World Food Program also has said it is short on funding this year.

The Financial Times reports that according to a UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in agriculture jumped to $3bn (€2bn, £1.8bn) annually in the 2005-2007 period, up from $600m during the 1990s. Though at first glance the numerical increase appears quite significant,  on the overall scale FDI flows in agriculture are very limited.

UNCTAD’s World Investment Report is the first detailed analysis of FDI flows behind the farmland grab trend, in which participating countries like Saudi Arabia and South Korea invest in overseas plots. The investors plan to export the bulk of the crops back to feed their domestic populations.  Investments in agriculture are being spurred by rising food prices and shortages, which has subsequently resulted in export bans.

Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, notes, “This year’s World Investment Report reveals a real and rising interest . . . for investment in developing countries’ agricultural industries,” and indicates that “‘south-south investment’ in agricultural production is on the rise.”  The Secretary-General believes this trend will continue in the longer-term future.

However,  the agricultural industry is historically amongst the most heavily regulated in many countries.  UNCTAD does note attempts to secure similar food supplies have been unsuccessful in the past,  citing previous experiences in South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s and the Gulf nations in the 70s. Along with respective agricultural policies set by individual governments; investors’ inappropriate policies, inexperience and lack of understanding of the local culture contributed to these failures.

The BBC reports on the Mozambican government’s agricultural program designed to permit inmates of its burgeoning prison population the ability to grow their own food.  The idea of producing and varying the current diet of beans, rice, and porridge to include potatoes,  pumpkins, lettuces, and other vegetables, and allowing inmates to work outdoors, is a welcome opportunity, say many of its participants.

An additional caveat is the local sales of some of the vegetables produced to help pay inmates’ transportation and medical expenses.

Mozambique currently houses a prison population of more than 15,000 inmates.  These inmates live together in overcrowded, under-equipped facilities often providing little to no means of effective sanitation.

Mozambican prisons have been criticized by human rights organizations in the past for insufficient sanitation measures and overcrowding.  In both 2004 and earlier this year,  inmates have died from asphyxiation due to the aforementioned reasons.  The Minister of Justice, Benvinda Levy, states that the nation does not have the resources to feed the large numbers of prisoners.

Broadly speaking,  the government food program has been widely accepted and welcomed.  At the present time, it is being carried out in prisons in the capital of Maputo,  and the neighboring province of Gaza.

Plant scientist Dr. Gebisa Ejeta was awarded the 2009  World Food Prize for his development of drought resistant sorghum seeds, which have helped African farmers increase their crop yield.  The $250,000 prize is awarded each year by the World Food Prize Foundation, which was established by Norman Borlaug, known as the “Father of the Green Revolution.”

Dr. Ejeta hails from Ethiopia, where his work has had a particular impact in easing famine conditions that frequently afflict his home country. Hybrid sorghum seed that he developed in the 1980’s created a yield 150% greater than natural seeds.  Upon creating a sorghum seed resistant to the Striga parasite, yields were quadrupled.

Dr. Ejeta’s work at Purdue University was funded by the United States Agency for Development (USAID) as part of its Sorghum, Millet and Other Grains (SMOG) initiative.

Bill Gates, in his capacity as co-chair and trustee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, congratulated Dr. Ejeta and called for more aid to small farmers saying that to “…grow more crops and get them to market is the world’s single most powerful lever for reducing hunger and poverty.”

October 16th is World Food Day, an opportunity for education and action on food issues, both globally and locally.  Throughout the past year, the Global Food Crisis blog has posted about a variety of issues including the security, availability, safety, trade and organizations that deal with food.  We invite you to mark World Food Day by learning information about global food issues and how you can take action.

UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf made a call to action, stating that, “The world food security governance system is inefficient and not well coordinated to address the present food crisis and the new challenges which we will have to face in the future.” Visit FAO’s World Food Day page to learn how you can get involved.

World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran states that “‘World Food Day’ is ‘No Food Day’ for almost one out of every six people around the world this year.”  WFP also offers “10 Things You Can do on World Food Day.”

Read U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s World Food Day statement and link to the State Department’s Food Security page.

Another important meeting taking place during World Food Week is the World Food Prize symposium taking place in Des Moines, Iowa.  With leaders from business and government agencies, the symposium has been discussing how public-private partnerships can increase sustainable production of food.

Read more about the proceedings of today’s symposium by reading or watching online.

A new edition of the annual The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2009 report was  released jointly today by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).  Subtitled “Economic Crises - Impact and lessons learned,” the report looks at the convergence of the recent global food crisis that hit the world from 2006-2008 and the global economic crisis that began in late 2007 and continues to affect financial markets as well as global food supplies today.

FAO estimates that due to the crisis, over 1.02 billion people were hungry in 2009 around the world.

To examine the “impact” of the crises. the report offers cases studies of Armenia, Bangladesh, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Zambia  in order to show how the global economic crisis (which unlike other crises that affected one country or a region) affected all global markets, particularly impacting developing countries.

In presenting the “lessons learned,” the report recommends short-term solutions such as food safety-net programs to fight hunger and poverty.  Long-term solutions include increased development aid, expertise sharing and new domestic policies to help the most vulnerable countries provide food more consistently and readily for their people.

During the first day of the Food and Agricultural Organization’s (FAO) High Level Expert Panel on “How to Feed the World in 2050″ on Monday, the organization’s Director General Jacques Diouf said that in order to keep up with a population that is expected to increase from 6.7 billion currently to more than 9 billion by 2050, investment in agriculture, particularly in developing countries, will need to increased by more than five times the current investment level.

“The challenge is not only to increase global future production but to increase it where it is mostly needed and by those who need it most,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said. “There should be a special focus on smallholder farmers, women and rural households and their access to land, water and high quality seeds … and other modern inputs.”

The Guardian discusses how Diouf focused his remarks on the need to address “…population growth, strong income growth and urbanisation, with shifts in diet structures towards more nutritious and higher quality food…” as a major challenge.

For the 300 delegates in attendance this week, identifying future food needs are one part of the Forum’s goal, identifying potential solutions to these needs are another.  These policy discussions will set the table for the World Summit on Food Security held for world leaders in November 2009.

Watch Monday’s High Level Expert Forum video coverage.

World Food Day will be celebrated on Friday, October 16 - the final event of World Food Week - recognizing the creation of the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and its mission of “defeating hunger.”  FPA’s Global Food Crisis blog will follow events held to commemorate World Food Week.

Each year, World Food Day revolves around a particular focus of the global food crisis, and this year the theme is “Achieving food security in times of crisis.”  To achieve the aims raised during World Food Week, FAO will hold a High Level Expert Forum on “How to Feed the World in 2050″ on October 12-13 in Rome to identify how to expand food availability by 2050, when global population is expected to rise to 9 billion people.  The UN will also convene a meeting of the Committee on World Food Security later in the week.

Stay tuned to the Global Food Crisis blog for updates on World Food week, news about the global food crisis and special features.

In a front page story that appeared in the Sunday edition of The New York Times, reporter Michael Moss reports on the problems facing the beef industry and food stores in keeping beef products, particularly ground beef, free from harmful contamination, like E. Coli.

The story of Stephanie Smith and the medical problems she has suffered as a result of E. Coli contamination from frozen hamburger meat (including kidney failure and paralysis) serve as the backdrop to the issue of how meat is handled at slaughterhouses, processed into ground beef and made into hamburgers and sold to retailers.  In describing this process, Moss raises questions about the sources of the ground beef, how it is handled to avoid contamination and if proper inspection of the food products is conducted.

Read the article, and check out the sidebar on the “Anatomy of a hamburger.”