Food & agriculture – Feb 13

February 13, 2008

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California’s corn production skyrockets

Janis Mara, Contra Cost Times
Experts say soaring demand for ethanol a big factor in 98 percent jump

California produced a bumper crop of corn in 2007, with production climbing 98 percent thanks to factors such as an increased demand for ethanol, a corn product used as a clean-burning additive for gasoline.

Farmers in the state harvested 1 million tons of corn in 2007 compared with 508,000 tons in 2006, agriculture officials reported last month. Demand for ethanol was a big factor, among other things, experts said.

Soaring demand for grains in China, India and other Asian markets and a growing thirst for biofuels have doubled the price of corn, said Tom Koehler, vice president of Sacramento-based Pacific Ethanol.

“California farmers are growing more corn because the price has risen,” Koehler said. “Corn is up to around $5 a bushel. Three or four years ago, it was under $2 a bushel.”

Corn dogs, corn on the cob and cornbread are taking a back seat to ethanol, which makes up 6 percent of every gallon of gas pumped in California.
(12 February 2008)


Insect Explosion ‘A Threat to Food Crops’

Steve Connor, The Independent/UK
Food crops could be ravaged this century by an explosion in the numbers of insect pests caused by rising global temperatures, according to scientists who have carried out an exhaustive survey of plant damage when the earth last experienced major climate change.0212 10

Researchers found that the numbers of leaf-eating insects are likely to surge as a result of rising levels of CO2, at a time when crop production will have to be boosted to feed an extra three billion people living at the end of 21st century.

Scientists found that, during one of the last great episodes of global warming 55.8 million years ago, there was a significant increase in both the amount of damage caused by leaf-eating insects and the variety of injuries they inflicted on plants.

They believe that the 5C rise in global temperatures caused by a tripling of CO2 levels during the palaeocene-eocene thermal maximum (PETM) period sent insect numbers soaring and left an indelible impression on the fossilised leaves preserved since that time.
(12 February 2008)
Also at Common Dreams.


Global demand lifts grain prices, gobbles supplies

Sue Kirchhoff and John Waggoner, USA TODAY
Soaring energy costs may be roiling the financial markets, but world governments are also being rattled by a more basic form of inflation: sky-high food prices.

Pakistan is stockpiling wheat and using its military to guard flour mills. Indonesian consumers have taken to the streets to protest rising soy prices. Malaysia no longer lets people take sugar, flour or cooking oil out of the country. North Dakota, the top U.S. wheat-producing state, may import from Canada due to tight supplies.

The world is facing the most destabilizing bout of food inflation since the “Great Grain Robbery” of the early 1970s when the former Soviet Union bought massive quantities of U.S. grain, sending prices soaring.

… The driving force behind higher food prices: More people in developing countries are earning more money and living better. And the first step to a better standard of living is a better diet. It’s a phenomenon called Engel’s law, named after the 19th-century German economist, Ernst Engel. Engel’s law says that as incomes increase, people spend a smaller percentage of their incomes on food – but they also switch from cheaper to more expensive food.

Grains make up around 60% of the diet in low-income Asian nations, North Africa and the former Soviet republics. Vegetable oil is about 12% of the diet in Sub-Saharan Africa and about 10% in some Asian and Latin American countries, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. The vegetable oil share of diets is growing as more processed foods are available in low-income countries.

People in developing countries are also starting to eat more meat, and that drives up demand for grains. It takes about eight times as much corn to produce the same number of calories from meat as from bread, says Homi Kharas, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

… Spiraling oil prices. Food needs fertilizer, and to make fertilizer, you need energy. The cost of natural gas, for example, is one of the biggest components in the price of ammonia and potash. While natural gas prices have tumbled from their 2005 highs, the price is still nearly double its 2001 levels. And to get food to market, you need trucks, trains and barges, all of which consume oil and gasoline, which have soared nearly 70% in the past 12 months.

•Government mandates for biofuels. In a bid to reduce oil dependence, many countries are requiring additional use of biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel. That, in turn, competes with food destined for the table – and increases the prices of what consumers eat.
(11 February 2008)
Good, in-depth article.


Cashing in on global warming
(audio and text)
Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
The stock market may be falling, but the carbon market is bullish. Carbon dioxide is considered major contributor to global warming. Carbon is now traded like a commodity on the Chicago Carbon Exchange and for farmers and cities, that can mean an unexpected cash infusion.

Moorhead, Minn. – Dale Enerson is a farmer who’s concerned about the environment.

He practices no-till farming, which means his fields aren’t plowed and each year’s crop is planted in the residue from the previous year. He sees many environmental and financial benefits.

“My land is eroding less, there’s less runoff and I’m using half as much diesel fuel as I used to to do my crop operation,” says Enerson. “I’m throwing those environmental benefits in for nothing in return for selling some carbon offsets.”

Carbon offsets are what Dale Enerson earns for storing carbon in the decomposing plants on his farmland. For each acre of land he earns carbon credits he can sell on the Chicago Carbon Exchange.
(12 February 2008)


Tags: Biofuels, Food, Renewable Energy