AsiaDHRRA Online

HungerWednesday shares this disturbing news at Asia Sentinel we picked up from Manuel Quezon’s FB updates about the yet another rice crisis looming just up ahead.
“This year, I will not have enough rice to eat for the whole year,” says Kong Chanthorn, a rice farmer in Srayov Kharng Tbong village in Cambodia’s Kompong Thom province. [...]

An interesting newsbit from the Inquirer.net about IFAD’s new programs in the Philippines.
MANILA, Philippines—Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) plans to allocate some $73 million for three proposed projects on coastal resource management, agribusiness and upland developments in the country.
According to project documents, the amount represented Ifad’s share in the cost of the three [...]

We are very pleased to announce the publication of the second edition of the activity monograph of the Regional Conference on the Impact of the Global Economic and Financial Crisis on the Vulnerable Sectors in the Region: Civil Society Voices and ASEAN.

The booklet is available in both digital and printed format. You can download the [...]

Okay, i kid you not, now you can actually construct your house using cow dung bricks! 
FarmFriday brings this cool technology developed by the cool guys and gals of  EcoFaeBrick, an Indonesian organization set up to tackle the problem of excessive waste in farming areas.

A report by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), “Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in Asia and the Pacific”, highlights that food insecurity is still very much alive in the Asia Pacific region, home to the largest number of hungry people. Sustainable agriculture and food security was the theme topic [...]

By Chee Yoke Heong | Third World Network Features
While the current global financial and economic turbulence continues to grab headlines, the food crisis of recent past is still with us. The former should serve as a critical opportunity to address the food problem that would worsen given the multiple challenges to sustainable agriculture and the [...]

Luoyang, China (CNN) — Fifty-year-old farmer Du Jianmin says if it doesn’t rain soon in his corner of northern China, his winter wheat crops — which his village of 120 people relies on for food for the year — will die.
Henan province is suffering one of China’s worst droughts in 50 years. Henan province is [...]

HungerWednesday brings this disturbing forecast of a rice crisis occuring this year because of the worldwide credit crisis.
MANILA, Philippines – A drop in oil and fertilizer costs has halved the price of rice — a staple for almost 700 million of Asia’s poorest — but it could jump again this year as farmers struggle to [...]

Inquirer.Net
MANILA, Philippines — World rice prices are likely to rise sharply for the second straight year in 2009 as the global economic slowdown hits farmers and consumers alike, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) warned Friday.
The worldwide credit crunch will make it hard for farmers to secure cash to purchase essentials such as seeds and [...]

HungerWednesday brings this worrisome development in Cambodia. This is probably happening in other third world countries too.
Grain
Cambodia is a major target of the global landgrabbing surge that began in March this year when the world food crisis was at its peak. High-ranking foreign delegations have regularly been visiting Phnom Penh, looking to strike deals for [...]

Here’s a very informative presentation from CEDAC on the rice crisis in Cambodia. It also presents the need to support small farmers and adoption of “farmers’ innovations such as the Systematic Rice Intensification (SRI) and the MASIPAG rice breeding program” instead of the IRRI’s “second” green revolution nonsense.
This powerpoint presentation was prepared by Winfried Scheewe, [...]

This is an old research undertaken by PhilDHRRA Luzon to develop a monitoring system that will track the performance of each member NGO based on their set commitment to rural poverty reduction. The monitoring system is part of the operational framework on rural poverty reduction that rationalizes the role of each NGO member and the [...]

I came upon this rather bewildering post in Time Magazine while googling for the current rice crisis. This write-up was datelined Monday, Jul. 02, 1973!!! amazing to know that today’s “rice crisis” has happened before.
Rice is life itself in Southeast Asia, and this year there is not enough to go around. Freakishly bad weather last [...]

Couples get old, and so do their children. Soon they will marry, leave the house, and leave their parents in their solitary house. In much the same way, their parents get to appreciate plants, gardening, and everything that is green.
Silveria and Danilo Rivero of Isabela City in Basilan are such parents. They spend their days [...]

Paper Prepared by: Bambang Ismawan (President and Director, Bina Swadaya)
(A case study of a village where the Self Reliance Development Foundation -Bina Swadaya- works in Indonesia)
Sidamulya village is located in the District of Subang, in the Province of West Java, 25 km away from the main city. Its population is 5431 with 547/km2 of population [...]