With a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. The good news is that the twinned crises in food and energy are creating a political environment in which real reform of the food system may actually be possible for the first time in a generation. [...more]
The world is faced with a global fertilizer shortage, experts say, placing even more strain on food prices. [...more]
A discussion has ensued among international-security experts who believe climate-change-related damage to global ecosystems and the resulting competition for natural resources may increasingly serve as triggers for wars and other conflicts in the future. [...more]
A new report released by Oceana today concludes that more than 80 percent of the world's fisheries cannot withstand increased fishing activity and only 17 percent of the world's fisheries should be considered capable of any growth in catch at all. Too Few Fish: A Regional Assessment of the World's Fisheries shows there is very little room for further expansion of global fishing efforts. [...more]
Food prices have soared over the past year. One might think that this would provide a welcome boost to the incomes of the world’s poorest people, most of whom are farmers and farm workers. But it doesn’t work that way, as Raj Patel explains [...more]
Food shortages are causing sporadic riots in poor countries throughout the world, while Americans are wasting "an astounding amount of food -- an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption." It works out to about a pound of food wasted every day for every American. It doesn't have to be this way. [...more]
When tens of thousands of people staged demonstrations in Mexico last year to protest a 60 percent increase in the price of tortillas, many analysts pointed to biofuel as the culprit. Because of US government subsidies, American farmers were devoting more and more acreage to corn for ethanol than for food, which sparked a steep rise in corn prices. The diversion of corn from tortillas to biofuel was certainly one cause of skyrocketing prices, though speculation on biofuel demand by transnational middlemen may have played a bigger role. However, an intriguing question escaped many observers: how on earth did Mexicans, who live in the land where corn was domesticated, become dependent on US imports in the first place? [...more]
It's really an absurd travesty when starvation gets blamed on "global warming do-gooders," and we haven't seen the last of that. The problem is miscast, though. There isn't a food shortage, at least not yet. There is a food price crisis, which is a very different beast. [...more]
It was one of the dumbest "green" ideas ever proposed: Convert millions of acres of cropland into fields for growing ethanol from corn, then burn fossil fuels to harvest the ethanol, expending more energy to extract the fuel than you get from the fuel itself! Meanwhile, sit back and proclaim you've achieved a monumental green victory (President Bush, anyone?) all while unleashing a dangerous spike in global food prices that's causing a ripple effect of food shortages and rationing around the world. [...more]
One of the world’s largest humanitarian organisations has announced it can no longer provide food to 1.5million of the poor it fed last year. World Vision, whose work includes food programmes in 35 countries, blamed the soaring cost of food and unmet donor aid commitments for the decrease in the number of people it was able to provide with food aid. [...more]
