Devex Dish: Agricultural destruction exacerbates Gaza’s hunger crisis

One year into the war, hunger in Gaza remains at crisis levels: 96% of the population, or around 2 million people, face high levels of acute food insecurity, including nearly half a million in “catastrophic conditions,” according to a network of experts on food insecurity.

This is only exacerbated by the destruction Gaza’s agricultural sector has suffered. Since last October, two-thirds of Gazan cropland has been damaged, almost 95% of cattle are dead, and around half of agricultural wells and greenhouses have been damaged, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

At the onset of the conflict, NGOs that distributed food often sourced some of the produce from local farms.

“We did that until things finished in Gaza. In the last four to five months the destruction has been devastating. Now, nothing is left,” Naser Qadous, Palestine agricultural programs manager at the NGO Anera, tells Devex’s new climate and food reporter Ayenat Mersie. And for those few Gazan farms that managed to survive the past year unscathed, production is still nearly impossible.

“Agricultural inputs in the local market are practically nonexistent,” says Joaquín Cadario, an agroecology and food systems expert at Action Against Hunger. “There is almost no fertilizer, no seeds. There were already difficulties with inputs prior to the crisis, and now entry points into Gaza are overwhelmed and prioritized for humanitarian aid.”

On top of that, the United Nations estimates that it will take about 14 years to clear Gaza of all unexploded ordnance while the chemicals in bombs are also expected to have a long-term negative impact on the region’s soils.

Read: ‘Nothing is left’ — The collapse of Gaza’s agricultural sector

See also: What is the state of aid in Gaza? Key figures after a year of conflict

Hey, Dish readers! It’s shaping up to be a busy fall. Ayenat along with Devex’s food systems editor Tania Karas will be in Washington, D.C., for our flagship event, Devex World, on Oct. 24, along with the World Bank annual meetings. Tania will also be in Des Moines, Iowa, the following week for the Borlaug Dialogue and World Food Prize. Want to meet us? Drop us a line at dish@devex.com.

Still no deal

The latest extension of the United States’ farm bill — a massive piece of legislation that governs U.S. food and agricultural programs — expired last week, leaving the $1.5 trillion package in limbo until after the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.

It’s the same piece of legislation that governs Food for Peace, the country’s flagship hunger program. But luckily for USAID — and the world — the U.S. Congress authorized a continuation of Food for Peace until Dec. 20 of this year, a USAID spokesperson tells Devex.

“We’re good for this period,” the spokesperson says. “But the question is, will a farm bill come?”

It’s a question that many have been asking for months. Last November, lawmakers failed to agree on a new farm bill — which is supposed to be passed every five years — and extended the previous iteration for another year. Lawmakers from both the U.S. House and Senate put forward their own versions of the bill in the spring, but the two chambers have yet to reconcile a final piece of legislation.

The farm bill’s key programs will actually run out of funding at the end of the year. But come Dec. 20, USAID will be facing a tipping point once again. Without another reauthorization, the agency will be blocked from signing new awards with Food for Peace money. And it could get even worse. One of the two farm bills already put forward by Congress would actually strip some 2.3 million people from receiving U.S. food aid.

“This constant threat of the expiration and partial extensions really causes a lot of uncertainty for our programs,” Julia Stafford, a food and nutrition security policy advocate at CARE, tells Devex reporter Elissa Miolene. “These programs have really never been more critical to address immediate needs, and to enable people to climb out of poverty.”

Background: US House advances farm bill that could strip food aid from 2.3 million

Deforestation drama

Smallholder farmers across the global south may be breathing a sigh of relief after the European Union’s proposal to delay a law designed to tackle the global deforestation crisis. But environmental groups are outraged by the move, particularly in light of new evidence that deforestation actually increased in 2023 despite global pledges to halt the practice by 2030.

The goal of the EU Deforestation Regulation was to stop members from importing goods that caused forest loss. As you can imagine, that ended up applying to products ranging from cattle to cocoa to coffee and left farmers across low-income countries suddenly scrambling to comply.

Even if their goods were not produced on deforested land, they would have to participate in a complex and expensive mapping exercise to prove it. Otherwise, they faced significant penalties or risked being blocked from selling their goods entirely. Cocoa suppliers, in particular, were quite vocal in their opposition, arguing that key elements of the legislation were unclear. That made it difficult to ensure they were in compliance.

The law was set to go into force by the end of the year. In announcing the delay, the European Commission has downplayed it as simply a new “phasing-in period to ensure proper and effective implementation.”

That’s not good enough for environmentalists, particularly in light of the 2024 Forest Declaration Assessment, which found that 6.37 million hectares of forest were permanently lost in 2023. That’s 45% more than the goal of 4.38 million hectares, which was in line with the 2030 targets.

Devex reporter Rob Merrick tells me that the Climate Observatory, a network of NGOs in Brazil, has accused the EU of “throwing away three years of work” with its “shameful about-face” even as “Brazil is being consumed by fires.”

Read: Report paints grim picture of global deforestation, with eyes on COP 16

Related: Why Mia Mottley is lashing out at EU’s bid to protect the world’s forests (Pro)

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Cracking the codex

How can we reduce the biggest environmental impacts of food production while simultaneously meeting the burgeoning demand for food from a growing population?

A Codex Planetarius might not be the first term that springs to mind. But the World Wildlife Fund thinks it might be a vital solution.

The idea is modeled on the Codex Alimentarius, or Food Code — an international code mapping out minimum mandatory health safety standards for food production. The Codex Planetarius “would establish environmental standards to reduce the key environmental impacts of producing globally traded food,” Jason Clay, a senior vice president with WWF in the U.S., writes in a Devex opinion piece.

The Codex Planetarius would lay out minimum standards around issues like soil erosion, greenhouse gas emissions, and water pollution in an effort to reduce the environmental impact of food production. To pay for less efficient producers to take the necessary steps to meet these standards, Clay proposes a 1% environmental fee be added to the price of food exports.

Opinion: How a Codex Planetarius can account for the true cost of food

See also: $205B per year could slash agri-food systems emissions by nearly half

Chew on this

The Global Landscapes Forum in Kenya pushed for a greater integration of social protection and climate finance, while also highlighting innovative programs that can help restore degraded land. [Devex]

With so much rice left over from last year’s harvest that some of it is now rotting, Indian farmers want the government to rethink its export policy. [Bloomberg]

Marketing has been key to driving up meat consumption in the United States, Sarah Lake, a global food systems expert argues. Now she wants to harness those same forces to incentivize plant-based diets. [TED]

Ayenat Mersie and Elissa Miolene contributed to this week’s edition of Devex Dish.