Grains and Leaves: Weekly Ag-Related News, Events, and Others

• Check out Farming First's excellent guide to understand global Food Security Initiatives and tell me what you think about their Food Security Statement
• Gordon Conway argues about the importance of continued support for agriculture development in Africa and presents the latest  Montpelier Report Growth with Resilience: Opportunities in African Agriculture
• Read the The Guardian's coverage of the report, and while you are doing that say hi to their wonderful section on Global Development
• The republican party proposes severe cuts to foreign aid, including Obama's flagship Feed the Future Initiative. See Chicago Council's Roger Thurow thoughtful commentary  
• Tired of crude poverty pictures? Tried to figures at FAO's 2012 Statistical Yearbook. The report covers the key factors related to global food and agricultural production and how they interact with broader issues.
• Check out the work of Harvest Plus' innovative and promising work on bio-fortification. They are adding Vitamin A the the otherwise micro nutrient-deficient Cassava and rolling it out in Nigeria. 
• The Rockefeller Foundation and the Institute for the Future will release on April 2 a game dubbed Catalyst for Change -  not sure exactly what this is about seems like a neat idea
• Obama Picks Dr. Kim and heads for a world tour to promote his candidacy. Would Ocampo and Okonjo-Iweala have a chance? Probably not
• IFPRI tell us why we should love them: Reducing Poverty and Hunger through Food Policy Research 
• Soon i'll be blogging about a recent conference i attended on “Debates in Development: The Search for Answers"  and Michael Clemens' views