The Global Food Crisis

The end of the plenty By Joel K. Bourne Jr Photograph by John Stanmeyer It is the simplest, most natural of acts, akin to breathing and walking upright. We sit down at the dinner table, pick up a fork, and take a juicy bite, obliv­ious to the double helping of global ramifications on our plate. Our beef comes from Iowa, fed by Nebraska corn. Our grapes come from Chile, our bananas from Honduras, our olive oil from Sicily, our apple juice—not from Washington State but all the way from China. Modern society has relieved us of the burden of growing, harvesting, even preparing our daily bread, in exchange for the burden of simply paying for it. Only when prices rise do we take notice. And the consequences of our inattention are profound. Last year the skyrocketing cost of food was a wake-up call for the planet. Between 2005 and the summer of 2008, the...
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Brazil – as food superpower in The Economist

September the 6th 2010 via http://www.agfood.net/2010/09/brazil-as-food-superpower-in-economist.html Continuing with AGRI FOOD THNK TANK analysis of what we consider the most promising food producer in the world, we share a couple of analysis made by The Economist during last week. The leading economic magazine. The Economist describes in two recent releases the current situation of Brazil as food producer. Both notes have interesting data on available land, current infrastructure development and potential of the new agricultural frontiers. Brazil has more spare farmland than any other country (see chart 3). The FAO puts its total potential arable land at over 400m hectares; only 50m is being used. Brazilian official figures put the available land somewhat lower, at 300m hectares. Brazil alone (population: 190m) has as much renewable water as the whole of Asia (population: 4 billion). And again, this is not mainly because of the Amazon. Piauí is one of the country’s driest...
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