How Bangladesh s Flood-Prone North Is Using Corn to Lift Itself Out of Poverty
Corn needs less water and brings in more money than other staple crops in northern Bangladesh.
By Mosabber Hossain
LALMONIRHAT DISTRICT, Bangladesh, May 3 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) The people of Shaniazan union, in northern Bangladesh, still remember when a river burst its banks in the early 1990s and engulfed their homes, leaving the land too sandy to grow traditional rice and tobacco crops.
Back then, they desperately struggled to feed their families.
Today, the collection of villages in Lalmonirhat district has a bustling marketplace, well-built homes with TVs inside and solar panels on the roofs, and thriving fields of a crop that pulled the community out of poverty: corn.
Brazil s Poorest Faced With Choice to Starve to Death or Die of COVID
Vulnerable communities face food insecurity amid a surge in coronavirus cases in Brazil.
By Fabio Teixeira
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) Coronavirus is spreading and deaths are mounting but what most worries the leaders of Brazil s isolated and vulnerable communities is how on earth to feed people now government has pulled their main emergency aid.
Ivone Rocha is co-founder of Semeando Amor, a nonprofit that distributes basic staples to some of the very poorest people in Rio das Pedras, one of Rio de Janeiro s many favelas.