The pork industry in China accounts for 65 percent of domestic meat consumption, but also produces 1.29 billion metric tons of waste every year. China’s growing appetite for meat has put tremendous pressure on the livestock sector, which now produces three times more waste than industrial sources, and created a series of environmental and food safety issues.

The Wilson Center’s Urban Sustainability Laboratory, in partnership with USAID, International Housing Coalition, World Bank, and Cities Alliance, is pleased to announce the 5th Annual Urban Poverty Paper Competition for graduate students. The competition calls on students currently enrolled in a Master’s or PhD program to submit paper abstracts on topics relating to urban poverty in the developing world.

How has China managed to feed nearly one-quarter of the world’s population with only seven percent of the world’s arable land?

In 1995, Lester Brown forecasted doom and gloom for China’s ability to produce enough grain for its people, in his popular book, Who Will Feed China? He hypothesized that China would be forced to buy grain from abroad, thereby seriously disrupting world food markets.

The original version of this article, by Kaja Jurczynska, appeared on Population Action International’s All Access blog.

Pakistan is at a crossroads, and not for the reasons you might think.

In the sleepy northern Thai border town of Huay Luk, a community leader, Pornsawan Boontun, still remembers the day when villagers netted a Mekong giant catfish more than a decade ago. The fish weighed 615 pounds, and it surprised everyone since the elusive species has never been common in this stretch of river.

This past December, Bangladesh turned 42, bringing the country Henry Kissinger once predicted would become a “basket case” into comfortable middle age (though perhaps this analogy breaks down for countries like Switzerland, age 722).