World Food Is Running Dry for Too Many

11Jul09

Last year the skyrocketing cost of food was a wake-up call for the planet. Between 2005 and the summer of 2008, the price of wheat and corn tripled, and the price of rice climbed fivefold, spurring food riots in nearly two dozen countries and pushing 75 million more people into poverty. But unlike previous shocks driven by short-term food shortages, this price spike came in a year when the world’s farmers reaped a record grain crop. This time, the high prices were a symptom of a larger problem tugging at the strands of our worldwide food web, one that’s not going away anytime soon. Simply put: For most of the past decade, the world has been consuming more food than it has been producing. After years of drawing down stockpiles, in 2007 the world saw global carryover stocks fall to 61 days of global consumption, the second lowest on record.

Filed under: Agriculture, Food Security, Food Sovereignty, Policy and Law, Society   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: corn, crisis, famine, Food, grain, hogs, hunger, Jeffrey Sachs, maize, Malthus, Millenium Development Goals, Millenium Villages, pigs, pork, poverty, security, shock, sovereignty, soybean, wheat

35 Million Americans Without Proper Access to Food

09Jun09

New York, NY–In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, investigative journalist and Demos Senior Fellow Sasha Abramsky exposes the untold story of America’s hunger crisis in his new book, “BreadlineUSA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It” (PoliPoint, June 2009).

Filed under: Economics, Food, Food Security, Food Sovereignty, Policy and Law, Society   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: bread lines, breadlines, economic crisis, food banks, food stamps, Great Depression, hunger, job losses, labour, low income, poverty, USDA

Lima City Agriculture Beats Adversity: Film

25May09

The Paradigm Shift Project is holding their first slideshow-documentary “From the Earth to the Pot: Urban Agriculture & Food Security in Lima, Peru” on Tuesday, May 26 at 7:10pm at Mountain Equipment Co-op in Toronto (400 King Street West).

Filed under: Community Development, Events, Food Security, Food Sovereignty, Local Agriculture, Urban Agriculture, Video/Film   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: challenge, Community Development, documentary, film, lima, marginalization, MEC, obstacles, paradigm shift project, peru, poverty, PSP, Urban Agriculture, video

Organic farming ‘could feed Africa’ - Africa, World – The Independent

27Nov08

New evidence suggests that organic practices – derided by some as a Western lifestyle fad – are delivering sharp increases in yields, improvements in the soil and a boost in the income of Africa’s small farmers who remain among the poorest people on earth. The head of the UN’s Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, said the report ‘indicates that the potential contribution of organic farming to feeding the world maybe far higher than many had supposed

Filed under: Food Security, Food Sovereignty, Organic Agriculture   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Africa, Agriculture, farming, organic, poverty, productivity, yield