Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Fastest rise in food prices for 14 years
Harry Wallop, UK Telegraph
Food prices are increasing at their highest rate for more than a decade, official figures showed yesterday.
Increased wheat, dairy, meat and vegetable prices mean food factories are having to pay six per cent more for their raw ingredients than a year ago – the highest annual rate since 1993, said the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
The surging costs will be passed on to consumers, who are experiencing the highest food bills for years and could end up paying almost £1,000 extra on their annual food bill than a year ago.
…Andrew Saunders, a leading food analyst at the City firm Panmure Gordon, said: “I’ve never seen food inflation like it. What we’re seeing is pretty much all the manufacturing cost increases being off-loaded straight to the retailers, who in turn are passing it immediately on to the consumer. Shoppers are picking up the tab right across the board.”
Today, consumer inflation figures from the ONS are expected to show that grocery prices are rising, confirming economists’ warnings that the era of cheap food is at an end.
…In recent months food inflation has calmed a little, but the soaring cost of fuel is expected to stoke prices again.
Many basic foods are more influenced by the cost of oil than the actual ingredients. Wheat, for instance, makes up only about 7p of the cost of a loaf. This is completely outweighed by its baking, packaging and distribution costs, all of which are determined by the price of fuel.
(13 November 2007)
Frozen vault saves crops for mankind
Robin McKie, The Observer
The world’s vital seeds have a last refuge from future disaster in a mountain near North Pole
—
Engineers last week finished work on one of the world’s most ambitious conservation projects: a doomsday vault carved into a frozen mountainside in the archipelago of Svalbard, a few hundred miles from the North Pole.
Over the next few weeks, the huge cavern – backed by the Norwegian government and the Gates Foundation – will be filled with more than a million types of seed and will be officially opened in February next year.
‘This will be the last refuge for the world’s crops,’ said Cary Fowler, of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is building the vault. ‘There are seed banks in various countries round the globe, but several have been destroyed or badly damaged in recent years. We need a place that is politically and environmentally safe if we are going to feed the planet as it gets hotter.’
New varieties of the world’s main plant foodstuffs – maize, barley, rice, wheat and other crops – are constantly being created by plant breeders as pests develop new ways to break down a strain’s natural resistance and as local climates change. ‘The bread you eat today is made from very different wheat strains from the bread you had 10 years ago,’ said Fowler.
The old strains – which can date back hundreds of years – are a crucial resource, nevertheless. Their seeds may prove invaluable as environments alter.
(11 November 2007)
US Food Companies Accused of ‘Cooking the Climate’
Haider Rizvi, OneWorld
Major U.S. companies are adding to the impending threat of global warming as they drive the production of palm oil in Indonesia’s tropical forests, says a new study by an international environmental organization.
According to the study released by Greenpeace International this week, Indonesia is losing its peat forests at a rapid pace due to massive operations by U.S.-based commercial concerns engaged in palm oil extraction.
Palm oil is widely used in food and cosmetic products, and, therefore, its demand is constantly on the rise, said Greenpeace researchers who conducted the study.
Indonesia’s tropical forests are considered by the scientific community to be some of the world’s great “carbon sinks,” and hence a solid defense in the fight against global warming.
The report, entitled “Cooking the Climate,” comes at a time when world leaders are preparing to gather in the Indonesian city of Bali next month to decide next steps to combat climate change after the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012.
(13 November 2007)
Also at Common Dreams.
A 4-part video about Farming and Peak Oil in Wales
Patrick Holden, BBC Wales via YouTube
Patrick Holden, Soil Association director, presents Week In / Week Out for BBC Wales examining the implications of a carbon constrained world on agriculture.
Four parts:
1 – www.youtube.com/watch?v=laisvjpYdBc
2 – www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6k1QtuEYE
3 – www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTP7dOTKwro
4 – www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BBvbzDXLh4
(November 2007)
I think we posted a link to BBC Wales for this broadcast, but it’s good to see that it is now available on YouTube. -BA
