Food First News & Views Fall 2008, Vol. 30 #110

DownloadSize
N+V_102708final.pdf582.07 KB

TWIN TSUNAMIS?

The World Food Program described the global food crisis as a “silent tsunami” surging over an unaware populace, helpless in the face of massive destruction. The financial crisis—rapidly going global—now threatens to increase everyone’s vulnerability to hunger. The compound
effect of the twin crises seems overwhelming.

Policy Brief No. 16: The World Food Crisis What’s behind it and What we can do about it

by Eric Holt-Giménez, Ph.D.

“A Silent Tsunami” The World Food Program’s description of the global food crisis raises the specter of a natural disaster surging over an unaware populace that is helpless in the face of massive destruction. With billions of people at risk of hunger, the current food crisis is certainly massive and destructive.

Will a Bailout for Wall Street Spell Hunger for the World?

By Annie Shattuck and Amanda El-Khoury
Institute for Food and Development Policy

Hungry for Justice: How the World Food System Fails the Poor

Compilation of articles from Americas Policy Program including an article titled
Agri-food Industry's Deadly Cycle Feeds Immigration by Eric Holt-Gimenez

Inequalities in the world's food system have been aggravated by recent developments to create the much talked-about food crisis. But what is behind the headlines? This new series delves into agrofuels, trade policy, corporate concentration, climate change, and rising demand to help sort out the real causes of the crisis and what needs to be done about it.

To read these articles go to:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5249

Hunger, Crisis, and Business: The perfect storm of food aid

DownloadSize
N&V summer 2008.pdf353.37 KB

At the June 1-4, 2008 FAO Food Security Summit in Rome, representatives of 181 countries reaffirmed their commitment to food security goals from previous summits held in 1996 and "Five Years Later." Delegates voiced concern about the lack of progress toward the UN Millennium Development Goals. That's the good news.

Read more in the attachment.

Food First Fellow Dr. Raj Patel testified at the House Committee on Financial Services

Contributing Factors and International Responses to the Global Food Crisis

Wednesday, May 14, 2008, 10:00 a.m., 2128 Rayburn House Office Building
To listen to the webcast:

Click Here

Rising Food Prices, Rising Food Protests

by Loren Peabody

Food riots are currently on the rise across the globe, caused less by shortfalls in world food production than by the rising food prices that increased 45 percent in the past 9 months (July 2007 through March 2008), according to the FAO.

Food price increases—who gets hurt and what can be done about it

by Miguel A. Altieri, University of California, Berkeley

Food prices are increasing by the day, countries are cutting trade in some basic grains, and food riots, marches, and protests are happening in countries around the world. Is agriculture at a crossroads? Are the world’s 1.5 billion hectares of farmlands sufficient to feed us, the animals we consume… and also produce agrofuels for our industrial way of life?

Recently adopted U.S. and the E.U. renewable energy standards are contributed to rapidly rising prices for both land and food. Concerns about

Will Agro fuels Usher Famine?

Black Star News
by Sifelani Tsiko
December 14, 2007

Industrialized countries are drawing up ambitious renewable fuel targets to reap huge rewards from the bio-fuels boom while avoiding discussion of the heavy price people in the Global South are paying to help sustain the consumptive oil-based lifestyles of the West.

Agronomists, ecologists, environmentalists and development activists who met recently in Mali called on African governments to resist pressure from the Industrialized North to grow food crops for the production of biodiesel.