Food and Environment

  by Yadav Sharma Bajagai 1     Introduction Warming of climate system of the earth is a unanimously accepted reality [ 1 ] and probably one of the most prominent challenges for scientists, development workers, policy makers and other relevant stakeholders regarding development and sustainability in international and national arena during past several years. Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPPC) has described climate change as any anthropogenic or naturally occurring alteration in the climate over time [ 1 ] . The World Bank has published ‘world development report 2010’ with the title “development and climate change” as an example to depict the importance of this issue. Global warming is attributable to increase in atmospheric concentration of green house gases (mainly CO 2, CH 4 and NO 2 ) as a result of human activities since the industrial revolution [ 1 , 2 ] . Concentration of total green house gases in the atmosphere has been increased by more th

The World Bank has recently published its regular publication " The World Development Report 2013 ". This year the report has been published with the theme "JOB". The report has highlighted the importance of job in development process. Some interesting numerical facts highlighted by the report are as below. ·     1.6 billion people working for a wage or a salary 1.5 billion people working in farming and self-employment 77% labor force participation by women in Vietnam 28% labor force participation by women in Pakistan 39% of manufacturing jobs are in micro-enterprises in Chile 97% of manufacturing jobs are in micro-enterprises in Ethiopia Double employment growth in a firm in Mexico over 35 years 10 times employment growth in a firm in the United States over 35 years 115 million children working in hazardous conditions 21 million victims of forced labor 600 million jobs needed over 15 years to keep current employment rates 90 million people

'Economic Intelligence Unit' of 'the Economist' has recently published " Global Food Security Index 2012 ". According to the report, Nepal scored 35.2 (highest score 89.5 – USA) out of 100 (where 100 is most favorable) and placed in 79 th rank out of 105 countries ranked.  Nepal is in 4 th rank (after Uganda, Kenya and Myanmar) among low income (US$ 1005 per capita or less) countries where countries are grouped by the World Bank income group classifications. Nepal is in the second last position in South- Asia (first being Bangladesh). Kongo is in the last place scoring 18.4.  Global Food Security Index uses the following definition of food security to calculate the index. “When people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs for a healthy and active life”.