For millions of people living in mountainous areas, hunger and the threat of hunger are nothing new. Harsh climates and the difficult, often inaccessible terrain, combined with political and social marginality make mountain peoples vulnerable to food shortages.

As of 2015, one in three mountain people in developing countries was facing hunger and malnutrition.

The 2015 study Mapping the vulnerability of mountain peoples to food insecurity presents a geographic and demographic picture of the world’s mountain areas and assesses the vulnerability to food insecurity of mountain dwellers in developing countries, based on a specially designed model. The final section presents an alternative and complementary approach to assessing hunger by analyzing household surveys.

The results show that the living conditions of mountain dwellers have continued to deteriorate between 2002 and 2015. Global progress and living standard improvements did not appear to have made their way up the mountains and many mountain communities lagged behind the full eradication of poverty and hunger.

This 66-page publication gives voice to the plight of mountain people and sends a message to policy-makers on the importance of including mountain development in their agendas as well as specific measures and investments that could break the cycle of poverty and hunger of mountain communities and slows outmigration from mountain areas.

Updated information available: see the 2020 publication Vulnerability of mountain peoples to food insecurity: updated data and analysis of drivers

Mountains at the World Conservation Congress

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This year the World Conservation Congress, hosted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), will feature a number of events that address mountains on 1-10 September in Hawaii, USA. The discussions will revolve around the theme of “Planet at the crossroads”, signifying that “the ecosystems...

Agro-ecology training in mountains of Morocco

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Migrations & Développement started a project to train a network of farmers in southern Morocco in the ways of agro-ecology. To resolve two of the challenges that farmers in rural areas of the Moroccan Mountains are facing, namely poverty and the harsh living conditions, and environmental degradation due to...

Newsletter about mountains in Argentina

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The National Mountain Committee of Argentina has issued the 12th edition of its newsletter, which outlines progress made on the Telefood project. Two aspects of the project came to an end in April and in July 2016, respectively. The first was aimed at making students’ diets more healthy at the...

Call for case studies on mountain culture

peak to peak

Issue 95 – Month 8 – Year 2016

The August issue of Peak to Peak calls for case studies on mountain culture for International Mountain Day (IMD) communication materials. The newsletter continues with stories about a mountain apricot community in the Kyrgyz Republic, a call...

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Alysh Dan: a mountain apricot community

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The Farmer Cooperative ‘Alysh Dan’ was established in 2008 and is currently comprised of 1 200 members, including 63 households of bio-farmers. The cooperative produces organic products for domestic and export markets. Alysh Dan is located in the mountain village Kara-Bak, in the Batken region in southern Kyrgyzstan....

Examining food justice in the Rocky Mountains

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This summer the University of Denver - Western Colorado Master Social Work (DU MSW) is focusing on sustainable food systems in the Western Slope and Central Rocky Mountain Region in rural Colorado, United States. The concept of food justice is being explored through a community dialogue and panel...