By 2050, the world’s population is expected to reach 9.8 billion. With limited land, and intensive farming already causing irreversible environmental damage, how can we feed the world without exhausting its natural resources? All over Vietnam it’s transplanting season. In every direction farmers with their famous conical hats are pushing
IGCAT Experts Jacinta Dalton, Roberta Garibaldi and Jutamas Wisansing were among the 475 delegates from 52 countries in attendance for the 4th UNWTO Forum on Gastronomy Tourism in Bangkok. The conference, which ran from May 30 to June 1, was attended by dozens of Thai restaurateurs, chefs, food and beverage executives
The world’s most widely used insecticides will be banned from all fields within six months, to protect both wild and honeybees that are vital to crop pollination. The European Union will ban the world’s most widely used insecticides from all fields due to the serious danger they pose to bees.
Today, Mexicans come fourth in the world for the amount of highly processed food they eat per person, at 212 kilos per year. According to Kantar WorldPanel, Mexican families or households spent 30 percent of their expenses on junk food in 2014, with the lower and middle classes spending the highest proportion. This sort
Italian chef Massimo Bottura opened his sixth Refettorio community kitchen in Paris last week. The concept? To provide a sumptuous feast to the most vulnerable of Paris while also battling food waste. Don’t talk to Bottura about charity. For the only chef in Italy to earn three Michelin stars, his
At the ITB travel trade show in Berlin overtourism is hotly debated. Majorca, Venice and Berlin — they all suffer from the excesses of tourism, even though tourists are an important economic factor. At the start of a New Year plans are often made and wishes noted, including the so-called bucket-list,
For decades, the travel and tourism sector has been trying to make sustainable and responsible practices more mainstream; It shouldn’t be called sustainable tourism as a niche, but rather just tourism. I’m staring at the murky, jaundiced toilet bowl. I reach for the flush but stop and pull my hand
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) is to carry out an audit of organic food in the EU in response to growing retail sales within the sector that leaves the industry open to fraudulent organic claims. The audit is an update to the ECA’s last inspection in 2012, during which
A new study sheds light on the magnitude of microplastic pollution in our oceans. The study, published in open-access journal Frontiers in Marine Science, found microplastics in the stomachs of nearly three out of every four mesopelagic fish caught in the Northwest Atlantic — one of the highest levels globally.
The new UNESCO Global Report 2018 entitled Re|Shaping Cultural Policies is an invaluable tool for examining the progress to date of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The convention was established in 2005 and is now ratified by 146 Parties, and aims to support sustainable cultural governance, exchange and
About 2.5 billion people around the globe, including 370 million indigenous people, depend on land and natural resources that are held, used, and managed collectively. This means that one third of the world’s population is vulnerable to dispossession by more powerful actors. As stated by the “Land Rights Now” campaign,
The aim of the EU-China Tourism Year (ECTY) is to increase the number of Chinese visitors to Europe, whilst encouraging sustainable tourism and stimulating investment opportunities for Europe and China through a number of cooperative marketing campaigns. These campaigns will be funded through public-private partnerships, business summits, and around 5000
The Africa Food Prize has announced the commencement of the search for the 2018 Africa Food Prize Winner. This is a distinguished award that recognises outstanding individuals or institutions that are leading the effort to change the reality of farming in Africa from a struggle to survive to a business
Over half the world’s people now lives in cities, an extraordinary statistic given that in 1900, just over a century ago, only 10% of the population was urban. And the trend is continuing in the same direction: Predictions estimate that 75% of us will be city-dwellers by 2050. The roots of
From 1 January, Leeuwarden (The Netherlands) and Valletta (Malta) will hold the title of European Capital of Culture for one year. The opening celebrations for Valletta will take place from 14 to 20 January across the city, inspired by the traditional Maltese festa (village feast). Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Tibor Navracsics, will attend
Theresa May will commit the UK to eliminating all avoidable plastic waste by 2042 as she launches the Government’s environmental plan for the next 25-years. Under the pledge waste such as the carrier bags, food packaging and disposable plastic straws that litter the country and pollute the seas would be abolished. But
