World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Regular floods are destroying homes and livelihoods but also food crops, creating a generation of undernourished children.

Thousands of people have been left food insecure after extensive flooding, landslides and flash floods in eastern Bangladesh at the end of June. (..) “There will of course be an impact on food security because seedbeds have been affected, but it is difficult to quantify this currently,” said Michael Dunford, WFP deputy country director. “The next harvest season is not until October. WFP and others will continue to monitor the situation.”

The story of livelihoods destroyed by cyclone and floods in 2009 represents in microcosm the threat from climate change to low-lying Bangladesh. Apart from the threat of cyclones, a more insidious problem for those living in the Sundarbans is increasing water salination, making it hard to grow even salt-resistant rice and maize. (..) Kristalina Georgieva, the EU's head of humanitarian operations, makes the case that it is no longer affordable to wait for crises to hit when it is cheaper – and the right thing to do – is to take pre-emptive action. (..) In Ethiopia, the World Food Programme is increasingly moving into development work, helping farmers to rehabilitate degraded soil.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has received a consignment of wheat from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to support its school feeding programme in Bangladesh. (..) “This will enable WFP to reach the children of the most poverty-prone areas,” said Michael Dunford, WFP acting country director.

For six months of the year, Bangladeshi rice farmer Raj Mia and his wife suffered as the annual monsoon rains flooded their fields, leaving them unable to feed their five children. (..) Raj, like millions, lives on the flood plains of Bangladesh, a region increasingly battered by climate change-produced cyclones and rains which inundate swathes of farmland, perpetuating poverty for millions. But now, Raj has new hope from an unlikely source: prawns

Experts warn rapid depletion of Bangladesh’s underground water table could jeopardize food and water security for millions throughout the country and also endanger the biodiversity of one of the world’s largest mangrove forests within the next two decades.

(..) The World Food Programme (WFP) also said in Dhaka last week that some 30 per cent people of Bangladesh are ultra poor and lack financial capacity to buy foods.

The Untied Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) has planned to gear up activities in Bangladesh to bring more vulnerable people under its aid coverage over the next five years, officials said.

The Japanese government has given the World Food Programme (WFP) US$ 10 million or Tk 75 crore to provide food assistance to the poor communities vulnerable to natural disasters and climate change impacts in Bangladesh, says a press release.

Heavy monsoon rains have caused several major rivers in Bangladesh to burst their banks, displacing thousands and affecting nearly a million people in all, according to the country's Disaster Management Bureau (DMB). (..) The World Food Programme (WFP) has distributed high energy biscuits to some 60,000 displaced in Satkhira. "Food and shelter are the big problems in the immediate future," Michael Dunford, WFP Bangladesh country director, said from Dhaka.