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(AFP) – 1 day ago PARIS — Feeding Earth's expected population of nine billion by 2050 will need a switch in eating habits and farming practices if inequalities and environmental overload are to be avoided, French researchers said on Wednesday. Teams from two institutes sketched projections for what could happen over the next four decades as the world's population swells by around 2.5 billion. The statistical basis for their study was food production between 1961 and 2003, a period that included the "green revolution" of rice production that especially benefited Third World countries. The researchers put forward one scenario that followed historical trends in food output and use of land in an open-market manner. Under this projection, production would grow by 2050 thanks to intensive farming. However, the movement towards meat production would also accelerate, inequalities between the nutritionally rich and nutritionally poor would widen, and environmental issues -- as today -- would only be addressed after they have become a problem. A rival scenario sees low-intensity,...

Ensuring the world’s population is able to eat healthily and sustainably is one of the ongoing dilemmas facing national governments and global organisations, with the events of the past two years meaning food security has become headline news. Changes in the nature of the world’s food production and supply have, in part, led to Britain’s first comprehensive review of food security and sustainability since the Second World War. After decades of relatively inexpensive and readily available food – until the surge in oil and commodity prices in 2007–08, food prices (relative to general inflation) fell for over 25 years – there are now tough choices to be made if the UK’s population is to continue enjoying healthy and affordable food without degrading the natural resources on which food production depends. It was in light of these future challenges in food production and supply that Defra Secretary of State Hilary Benn presented the first assessment of the UK’s food security in August. This will...

Hilary Benn launched The Future of our Farming pamphlet at the Royal Show earlier this year. This has been written for the farming community and outlines shared aims for, and actions towards, achieving a thriving and environmentally sustainable farming industry. In his introduction to the pamphlet Hilary Benn addresses the two main global challenges that we face – food security and climate change. “I want British farmers to produce as much food as possible – and this is very important to maintaining our food security. But how will we feed nine billion people in 40 years time if a damaged environment and changing climate hit yields and increase the risk from disease? The answer is: we will have to produce more food, but we will also have to change the way we do things.” Hilary Benn stresses that Defra and the farming community need to embrace a new approach – based on co-operation to meet the challenges that lie ahead, with the farming...

THE use of corn cobs as feedstock for the production of cellulosic ethanol after the corn has been removed is receiving additional financial support from the US Department of Energy (DOE). The $US6.85 million will help POET, the world's largest ethanol producer, fund the production of 700 tons of cellulosic biomass per day of operation. Cobs are the feedstock for POET's effort to commercialise cellulosic ethanol, Project LIBERTY, which will be built in Emmetsburg, Iowa. The grant increases will play a key role in establishing corn cobs as a viable commodity and setting the stage for corn cob harvesting across the United States. POET will work with equipment manufacturers to help speed the process of getting cob-harvesting technology into fields around Emmetsburg and will provide incentives for early adopters of cob harvesting. Project LIBERTY is a 25 million-gallon-per-year cellulosic ethanol plant that will be attached to the current grain ethanol plant in Emmetsburg. Operations are scheduled to begin in late 2011. POET has operated a...

THE UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has thrown down what appears to be an impossible agricultural challenge to expand food output drastically on a planet with depreciating land and water resources. In order to feed the extra 2.3 billion people expected to be on the planet by 2050, the FAO said last week the world will have to produce 70 per cent more food. Annual cereal production will need to increase by nearly one billion tonnes to meet this mark, and meat production by more than 200 million tonnes. About 90 per cent of the necessary increase will have to come from increased crop yields and cropping intensity, according to the FAO discussion paper, while extra arable land will have to be found - 120 million hectares of it in the developing world. In Australia, director of CSIRO's Sustainability Agriculture Flagship, Dr Peter Carberry, says the world demand for food and fibre will eclipses climate change as the world's next great challenge. The "21st...

FARMERS have been warned that storing grain on-farm is not a marketing strategy in itself. Danny Verbeek, the accumulation manager for Elders Toepfer, the business that is working to bring on-farm storage into the mainstream through its on-farm storage accreditation scheme, said it was not enough simply to store grain post-harvest hoping for a spike in the months after. "You have to have a strategy prior to storing the grain, it is not enough to just dump the grain on-farm and hope for a rally," Mr Verbeek said. Please read more on http://fw.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/grains-and-cropping/general/have-a-plan-in-mind-for-onfarm-grain-storage/1637075.aspx?src=enews...

By 2050, according to new modelling work by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), climate change could help push wheat prices up by 170-194 percent, rice prices up by 113-121 percent, and maize prices up by 148-153 percent. Please read more on http://fw.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/population-boom-to-double-food-prices/1637126.aspx?src=enews...

The overarching aim of this study is to provide a complete and detailed insight of the evolution of high-volume retailers (HVR) in the food and clothing sectors in different EU Member States, over the last 5 years. The main conclusions from the analysis are the following. The number of HVR (firms with more than 5% market share) in the food sector is around 5 in each country. The combined market share of the top-5 firms (C5) in the food retail market varies significantly between countries. Germany and the UK are the most concentrated markets with over 70% of the market controlled by the largest five firms. The French market is also comparatively concentrated (C5 of 60%) whereas in Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic it is between 30% and 45%. Over the last three years, there have been significant increases in market concentration in the UK, the Czech Republic, Romania and Spain. Pleaseread more on http://www.londecon.co.uk/le/publications/recent_reports.shtml...

February 10, 2009 "Market Oracle" -- After reading about the droughts in two major agricultural countries, China and Argentina, I decided to research the extent other food producing nations were also experiencing droughts. This project ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. 2009 looks to be a humanitarian disaster around much of the world To understand the depth of the food Catastrophe that faces the world this year, consider the graphic below depicting countries by USD value of their agricultural output, as of 2006. The countries that make up two thirds of the world's agricultural output are experiencing drought conditions. Whether you watch a video of the drought in China, Australia, Africa, South America, or the US , the scene will be the same: misery, ruined crop, and dying cattle. Please read more on http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21955.htm...