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The excellent ETC Group has just come up with a fine bit of social science that cuts through the guff of the recent FAO Food Summit in Rome.
As part of their 'translator' series, in which they parse the meaning of UN documents for the general public, they've come out with their latest report, Another "Failure-as-usual" Food Summit.
Alongside the fine analysis of the substance of the summit document, they've compared and contrasted the final declarations of the Food Summits in 1996, 2002, and 2008. The findings are striking:
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Posted on 30 June, 2008 - 15:57
I've a piece in this week's issue of The Observer on meat, and my intention to stop eating it.
It was a much longer article before the wise people at the Food and Drink desk cut some of my excesses. But I'm sad that they lost a couple of references to Mark Bittman, to whom I'm grateful not only because I get to guest-blog at Bitten but because I find his work on meat, first here and more recently here, tremendously important and I wanted to thank him publicly.
Incidentally, in the same issue of the Observer Food Magazine, Joanna Blythman disagrees with me about meat. Her arguments are unusually flimsy. She suggests that, because the nomadic Masai have developed a complex system of nutrition dependent on livestock, the British have too, and therefore should be let alone. There are a range of other logical leaps, most of which I address.
You can read my position below the fold, and Blythman's at the Observer Food Magazine website. ... read more »
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Posted on 23 June, 2008 - 06:04
Save Civic Center Farmers Market!
Photo Credit: trp0
Beautiful celebrations of love aren't the only thing happening here in San Francisco. If you go down to City Hall today, you'll also see a few people pissed off at the government's inconsistencies. While fighting for equality, and even sponsoring the transformation of land in the middle of town into a Victory Garden, the government is also trying to stamp out local control of one of the city's oldest farmers markets.
"Budget and Finance Committee" aren't usually words to get the pulse racing. But today there are a couple of items on the Committee's agenda that will be of interest to folk concerned with San Francisco's Food Systems: Item 9 concerns a "Resolution for revoking the permit for a farmer's market at U.N. Plaza."
I've opined against this take-over in today's San Francisco Chronicle, a newpaper which has taken a strong editorial line against the power-grab here, here and here. Read it all below the fold, and see y'all at City Hall. ... read more »
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Posted on 19 June, 2008 - 18:06
Source: Ted Taber
The floods in the Midwest have already killed four people. Thousands have been evacuated, and the bill for clean-up will surely run into the hundreds of millions (the Red Cross alone is spending $15 million) - the estimate for Cedar Rapids' clean up just in: $700 million.
But these are the most cosmetic costs - the ripples from this storm will spread globally. Already, the price of corn has broken through the $7/bushel point. Soybeans are also up, and I'd be shocked if the price of white corn isn't going through the roof too - it has already been kicking up the price of tortillas in Mexico. Certainly, the ethanol price is soaring to its highest point since June 2006.
Large agribusinesses are taking a hit here too. See, for instance, Archer Daniels Midland’s flatlining share price. The disaster in the Midwest has put a serious dent in their profit forecasts. There’s just less corn around for them to make money off through trading, reselling, and using in meat, ethanol and high fructose corn syrup manufacture.
Worse for them, the disaster-induced shortage is making it politically harder to support corn-based ethanol, which is making ADM’s business plans – a glorified way of saying ‘sucking at the government teat’ – a little less politically and therefore economically viable.
But not all agricultural capitalists are taking a beating. The hedge funds and commodities traders are having a ball. According to The Wall Street Journal, “the decline in the dollar and rise in crude prices is resulting in investors piling on in the corn market, buying futures in anticipation that the price will continue to rise.” Yep, it’s speculative open season.
Meanwhile, stories abound about the floods’ horrors. A recurring theme is that people who step into the floodwaters immediately seek tetanus shots. The water is utterly polluted.
I’ve not read it in any of the reports so far, but I’ll put money on some of this pollution coming from burst sewage reservoirs from Concentrated Animal Feed Lots. We saw it happen in North Carolina and there’s no reason to think that it hasn’t already in Iowa.
Citizens in Iowa have long been active in trying to Clean Up Iowa. They’ve been stymied by large agricultural interests. The University of Iowa is the place I’d go to find more information – they’ve a fine research unit looking at some aspects of CAFOs, but at the time of writing, the University site says:
“Due to the flood situation on campus, The University has suspended normal operations. Classes have been cancelled and UI employees designated as non-essential are asked to stay home beginning Friday, June 13 through Sunday, June 22.” ... read more »
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Posted on 17 June, 2008 - 05:10
The Financial Times is doing what it usually does - providing concise and honest insight into how the elite bosses think, this time around genetically modified crops. The recent op-ed by John Gapper follows a logic that I've been bumping into increasingly.
- We need to increase food production to feed the world.
- Yield-increasing science has worked before.
- The nay-sayers want to reduce output through organic agriculture.
- Monsanto, on the other hand, is investing in science.
- Therefore we ought to embrace GM technology to fight the food crisis.
Almost everything about this argument is wrong. ... read more »
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Posted on 13 June, 2008 - 17:36
So, the FAO Summit is over. I didn't think to write in advance that it'd be a whitewash because, well, it was so very obviously going to be.
The US went in with three big ideas - food aid, vague promises of investment in agriculture, and biotechnology. ... read more »
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Posted on 5 June, 2008 - 22:41
My friend Patrick Wilkinson has put together a fine video about the upcoming spraying of large parts of California in the ongoing war on the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM, pronounced el-bam).
As Patrick's film suggests, there'd better be something mighty scary about this moth to warrant monthly aerial spraying over most of Northern California over the next five years.
So what's the danger? Will the moth summon forth the apocalypse? No. Is it the harbinger of some strange Africanized disease? Not even. Will it ravage California's agriculture? Kinda. But not actually by eating anything or laying anything or causing anything to be damaged.
The reason LBAM is a menace is, er, NAFTA. ... read more »
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Posted on 31 May, 2008 - 04:03
Food and Agricultural Organization: Prices High for the Foreseeable
Hot off the presses, the Food and Agricultural Organization and OECD's latest on agricultural food price rises.
In short, beef and pork could be 20 percent higher in nominal terms, wheat could be up to 60 high dearer, and the cost of vegetable oils might rise by 80 percent.
Click for large version ... read more »
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Posted on 29 May, 2008 - 17:08
This site 
Raj Patel.