In The News

Elimination of Food Waste Could Lift 1bn Out of Hunger

Adam Vaughan September 9, 2009
Eliminating food waste could have a number of beneficial, and potentially multiplicative, effects. First, if a quarter of the amount of food typically thrown away annually in the US and UK was instead redistributed globally to the poor, this action could lift over a billion people out of the hunger. Second, by reducing food waste, consumption would decline, thereby lowering demand and thus prices...

The New Colonialism: Foreign Investors Snap Up African Farmland

Horand Knaup, Juliane von Mittelstaedt August 4, 2009
Expected population growth coupled with stable to dwindling agricultural land supply has led many an analyst to forecast an optimistic picture for agricultural investment for many years to come. The world needs more food. Throw in the high grain and food prices in 2008 with the resulting occasional food riot and both governments and investment funds catch a glimpse of what the future could look...

Dams in China Turn the Mekong Into a River of Discord

Michael Richardson July 16, 2009
The Mekong, one of the world’s major rivers, starting in Tibet and flowing through south China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, provides sustenance through irrigation and fishing to those living in its basin. But it also provides hydroelectric power through dams, three of which were built in China and with more planned. And it is precisely these dams that are now threatening the...

Hungry World: A Silent Crisis Calls for Urgent Action

Marshall Bouton July 7, 2009
When the leaders of the eight industrialized countries meet in Italy this week, they will need to urgently address a silent crisis of hunger. With over a billion hungry people around the globe, it is critical that the developed world takes measures to increase agricultural productivity, writes Chicago Council on Global Affairs president Marshall Bouton. Such a solution is ever more pressing given...

African Land Grab

Gwynne Dyer May 26, 2009
The scarcest of scarce resources, land for agricultural use in Africa has attracted a slew of foreign buyers. While some proclaim this “neo-colonialism.” Profit seeking and concern over food security appear to be the main culprits. The purchases started in 2006 – as oil prices began shooting up – and the land was intended to grow crops for bio-fuels. But some buyers also hail from countries that...

Fermenting a Taste for Kimchi

Lee Eun-joo April 23, 2009
The Korean government is trying to promote globally the taste for kimchi, a cabbage-based spicy side dish. Part of this promotion includes creating the International Kimchi Association, set to discuss the history, culture, and industry of kimchi as well as expediting distribution and sales of the food. Currently, close to 90 percent of exported kimchi goes to Japan. And although exports posted a...

“Stem Rust” Fungus Threatens Global Wheat Harvest

John Vidal March 23, 2009
With global stockpiles of grain already low and food prices high, a deadly airborne fungus, known as stem rust or Ug99, could compound famines and unrest in developing countries that cannot afford fungicides for their crops. “Plant breeders are now racing against time to develop new resistant wheat strains and distribute the seeds around the world,” reports John Vidal for the Guardian. The fungus...