Poverty policy and regulation
Food security
The Precarious State of the Mekong
The author Tucker Elliot wrote in “The Rainy Season” about the volatile nature of the Mekong: “No matter the border, the Mekong has been an indiscriminate giver and taker of life in Southeast Asia for thousands of years. It’s a paradox like civilization’s other great rivers – ...
Nicholas Muller
The cost of Laos’ quest to be Southeast Asia’s ‘battery’, and the World Heritage town at risk
With electricity exports to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia and even Singapore, Laos has arguably realised its ambition to be the battery of Southeast Asia. The bulk of these exports are from hydropower. Nearly 80 dams dot the landlocked country, and more along the Mekong River are in ...
Lee Li Wan
Sustainability and security concerns feed Southeast Asia’s rice conundrum
The balance of food sustainability and national security of Southeast Asia hangs on a tiny white grain. Rice is the daily staple of 3.5 billion people globally, providing about one-fifth of their calorie needs. It is the main food crop in Asia, which includes the world’s ...
PAUL TENG
Chasing climate-ready glutinous rice for food security in Thailand and Laos
Origin of glutinous rice There are three groups of glutinous rice-based on grain sizes, small (japonica), medium (upland), and long slender (indica) grains. The origin of glutinous rice has become a hot topic for discussion by evolutionists who speculate that glutinous rice has two roots. Glutinous ...
Apichart Vanavichit
Back to the land: Thai forest draws young, green farmers
Like many locals, Matthana Abhaimoon left rural Thailand to study in the city. Unlike most, she chose to come back – and fight for her right to farm in the forest as her forefathers had done. After a 20-year campaign, residents of Mae Tha won a ...
Rina Chandran
Myanmar’s hidden hunger
Khin, a 59-year-old rice farmer, faced a distressing choice at the height of Myanmar’s monsoon season three months ago: sell a cow, a prized asset for agricultural households, or go hungry. She sold the animal for half its value. The proceeds went to buy food for ...
Thin Lei Win
Proper nutrition feeds into safer pregnancies and healthy children
Every day families welcome new life into the world. New parents and caregivers want to ensure each child gets the best start but the most basic of needs, proper nutrition, is not equitably accessible. This has devastating effects. Nearly half of all deaths in children under ...
STÉPHANE VIDRY AND BOON YEE YEONG
Improving Food Security Through Capacity Building
Millions of people suffer from food insecurity around the globe. With the help of Earth-observing satellites, the NASA-USAID SERVIR project is hoping to reduce that number. Food security – the consistent availability and affordability of food – is a basic human need, yet it remains elusive ...
Esprit Smith, NASA’s Earth Science News Team
Vientiane releases millions of fish to ensure food security
Vientiane plans to release an additional two million fish back into the river to meet the government’s goal of releasing 58 million fish this year to ensure food security. This was informed by the Director of Vientiane Agriculture and Forestry Department, Dr Lasay Nouanthasing, on July ...
Times Reporters
Sci-tech application to be promoted to ensure food security
Prioritising resources for the research, application, and transfer of science and technology to diversify food products to ensure nutritional balance and food safety in people’s diet is one of the long-term targets set in the Government’s resolution on ensuring national food security until 2030. The resolution, issued on ...
VNA
