Food & agriculture – Dec 8

December 8, 2007

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Cheap no more

The Economist
Rising incomes in Asia and ethanol subsidies in America have put an end to a long era of falling food prices

ONE of the odder features of last weekend’s vote in Venezuela was that staple foods were in short supply. Something similar happened in Russia before its parliamentary election. Governments in both oil-rich countries had imposed controls on food prices, with the usual consequences. Such controls have been surprisingly widespread—a knee-jerk response to one of the most remarkable changes that food markets, indeed any markets, have seen for years: the end of cheap food.

In early September the world price of wheat rose to over $400 a tonne, the highest ever recorded. In May it had been around $200. Though in real terms its price is far below the heights it scaled in 1974, it is still twice the average of the past 25 years. Earlier this year the price of maize (corn) exceeded $175 a tonne, again a world record. It has fallen from its peak, as has that of wheat, but at $150 a tonne is still 50% above the average for 2006.

As the price of one crop shoots up, farmers plant it to take advantage, switching land from other uses. So a rise in wheat prices has knock-on effects on other crops. Rice prices have hit records this year, although their rise has been slower. The Economist’s food-price index is now at its highest since it began in 1845, having risen by one-third in the past year.
(6 December 2007)


Food Prices Climbing, With No End in Sight

Abra Pollock, Inter Press Service
Globalisation, climate change, and the mass production of biofuels are pushing up food prices worldwide, which could jeopardise the livelihoods of the world’s poorest, according to a report released Tuesday by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).1206 09

“Food prices have been steadily decreasing since the Green Revolution, but the days of falling food prices may be over,” said Joachim von Braun, lead author of the report and director general of IFPRI.

Titled, “The World Food Situation: New Driving Forces and Required Actions”, the 16-page report examined how various global trends are impacting world hunger on both the supply and demand ends of the market.

“Surging demand for feed, food, and fuel have recently led to drastic price increases, which are not likely to fall in the foreseeable future,” von Braun said. But “climate change will also have a negative impact on food production.”

Similar findings have been reported by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, according to IFPRI.
(6 December 2007)
Also posted at Common Dreams.


The garden of the future?

Jill Tunstall, Guardian
Forest gardens that replicate woodland ecosystems provide food, fuel and medicine, support wildlife, and could boom in popularity as the climate changes. Jill Tunstall explores a horticultural haven

Imagine a garden that needs no weeding, watering, digging or feeding and can be left to look after itself for weeks, even months, on end. Go further: it’s organic, wildlife-friendly, disease resistant, reduces your weekly food bill and brings fashionable foraging to your doorstep.

It might sound too good to be true, but this garden can be a reality for anyone with some outdoor space, whether it’s the backyard of an inner-city terrace or the grounds of a country vicarage.

Just over a year ago Jennifer Lauruol’s modest garden at her home on a new housing estate in Lancaster amounted to little more than a lawn that the previous owner’s dog had been peeing on for the past four years. Others may have seen stained grass, but Lauruol’s vision was to mimic a system of planting that goes back to the Aztecs but was reinterpreted by the late Robert Hart, a visionary gardener who brought the idea to Britain in the 1960s and named it “forest gardening”.

Studying the woodlands and forest around his Wenlock Edge home on the Shropshire/Wales border, Hart realised that they were both productive and self-maintaining. He set about rearranging his own garden on forest principles with edible layers of self-sustaining perennials that would provide food, fuel and medicines, as well as support wildlife. His philosophy was recorded in two books, The Forest Garden and Beyond the Forest Garden (Green Books), both published shortly before he died in 2000.

It was this idea that Lauruol, a garden designer herself, envisaged at her semi. As soon as she moved in she got busy planting 14 trees and importing tonnes of bark chippings to mimic the self-mulching forest floor.

“It’s all about layers and building them up year on year,” says Lauruol, who is still at the investment stage; putting in trees, shrubs and vines which will eventually largely look after themselves. Hart had identified seven layers: roots, ground cover, herb layer, fruiting shrubs, dwarf trees, tree canopy and the high canopy (or vertical layer), all of which coexist happily within their own ecosystem. In Lauruol’s garden, apple, plum and cherry trees will soon be underplanted with shade-tolerant fruiting shrubs once the trees are established.

“And underneath I’ve got herbs and salad leaves such as these dandelions, which I eat regularly,” she says. “And I planted nettle.”
(6 December 2007)
UPDATE (December 12)
Contributor Jennifer Lauruol writes:
Thank you for uploading the article about my garden that appeared in The Guardian onto the energybulletin website. If anyone wishes to know more about my garden design, please visit my website at www.carpe-diem-gardens.co.uk .


Tableland documents sustainable farming successes

Carolyn Ali, Georgia Straight (Canada)
The documentary Tableland focuses on farmers and other producers who have dedicated themselves to building sustainable local food systems.

Vancouver filmmaker Craig Noble may be an urbanite, but he doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. During the two years he spent filming his sustainable-food documentary, Tableland, he travelled to farms in B.C. and throughout North America, working for room and board. He did whatever needed doing: weeding, composting, irrigating. “It was basically [a] workaday, shoot-a-day kind of workflow,” he tells the Straight in a phone interview. “I pulled honey for three days and got stung five times. It was a full experience, that’s for sure.”

Noble spent periods varying from several days to a few weeks with small-scale farmers, chefs, winemakers, cheese makers, and others. Doing so “had a direct impact” on the film, he says. “I stayed with the producers and their families, and was eating and cooking for them. By the time I left, we had a personal relationship.”

Tableland, which premieres in Vancouver on Sunday (December 2), shows how local, seasonal food is being produced on a small scale in diverse places like Salt Spring Island, rural Quebec, and inner-city Chicago. The film advocates the relocalization of our food system; that is, building the infrastructure for a return to local food production.
(29 November 2007)


Food Summit studies the question: What’ll we do when the oil runs out?

Suzanne Atkinson, AgriNews (Eastern Ontario)
The looming peak oil crunch, that time when demand for the world’s oil outpaces its production, couldn’t deter the community here from optimistically embracing the concept of establishing a local, sustainable food system.

Led by Local 316 of the National Farmer’s Union, consumers, farmers, bureaucrats, activists, students, teachers, chefs and entertainers celebrated the availability of local food-stuffs and continued their odyssey of community action at the Food Down the Road summit on the first weekend in November.

The warnings delivered to the gathering by high school teacher Rick Munroe were dire. After years of research he has come to believe in the work of geophysicist Marion King Hubbert who suggests that the world is close to reaching peak oil production. Henceforth oil production will decline as it becomes more difficult to extract from the earth.

Munroe presented his findings, noting that oil is a finite, non-renewable resource which will eventually run out. The belief fuels the NFU’s strategy of achieving a local, sustainable food system involving the reduction of food transportation.

And if one doubted the sincerity of their belief, they need only witness the heart-wrenching presentation of a teary-eyed, Emily Dowling who shared the tale of her community shared agriculture farm. Fighting drought and with shareholders on side, she battled back to provide nutritious healthy produce and a learning opportunity.

Her tears offered one poignant moment in a weekend of passion, frustration, yearning, discerning, educating, and yes, eating
(December 2007)


Diesel prices pick farmers’ wallets

Ching Lee, Ag Alert via Central Valley Business Times
• Some may switch crops, change equipment
• ‘But there’s not a whole lot we can do’

California farmers who are considering changing their cropping patterns due to the state’s water shortage are now looking at growing crops that may also help them cushion the impact of the latest fuel crunch.

With diesel prices at record highs, California farmers and ranchers are trying to find ways to minimize fuel usage on the farm without compromising production.

One way is to farm crops that require less equipment usage, says Dan Errotabere, a Fresno County diversified farmer who grows almonds, pistachios, processing tomatoes, cotton, alfalfa, wheat and other crops.

Many farmers are favoring safflower because of current high prices and the minimum tillage required to grow the crop. Safflower may even displace crops such as processing tomatoes and garlic, both of which use more water but typically offer higher returns, he says.

Ching Lee is an assistant editor for Ag Alert, a publication of the California Farm Bureau Federation, where this story originally appeared. It is used here with permission.)
(5 December 2007)


Tags: Biofuels, Food, Renewable Energy, Transportation