I am a fan of the writings of Bruce Sundquist. His latest paper, “The Food Crisis – Some Solutions for a World with Fewer Options for Satisfying Increasing Demands,” can be seen at http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/food.html.

Thanks to Steve Kurtz for this article.
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Rises in food prices and global population, especially among the middle classes in India and China, have brought renewed respect to the philosopher of demographic catastrophe, Thomas Robert Malthus.

In the 1990s, a number of writers, including me, were denounced as grim, deterministic Malthusians because of our emphasis on the role the natural world played in global affairs. It was an era without limits, it seemed, when any country could achieve prosperity and human rights. Contrarily, we argued that rising populations, depleted soils and water resources, and other natural phenomena might limit what could be achieved in specific places, and that there was therefore a need for tragic realism.

For full article, visit:
http://thecurrent.theatlantic.com/archives/2008

News Release

Tuesday, September 16, 2008; 9:30 a.m. ET

For further information contact:
Rakesh Singh (650) 2349232 or rsingh@kff.org
(Day of the Event (202) 347-5270)

Washington, D.C. – Most viewers who tune in each night to television’s top-rated sitcoms and dramas do so because they want to be entertained, but according to two new studies released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation, many of them are being educated about important health issues at the same time. In order to document how well viewers learn health information from entertainment television, the Foundation worked with writers at Grey’s Anatomy to embed a health message in an episode, and then surveyed viewers on the topic before and after the episode aired. The storyline involved an HIV positive pregnant woman who learns that with the proper treatment, she has a 98% chance of having a healthy baby. The study found that the audience’s awareness of this information increased by 46 percentage points (from 15% to 61%), a four-fold increase among all viewers. This translates to more than eight million people learning correct information about mother-to-child HIV transmission rates from watching the episode.

For full article, visit:
http://www.kff.org/entmedia/mh091608nr.cfm

Thanks to Scott Connolly for this article.
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India’s supply of arable land is second only to that of the United States, its economy is one of the fastest growing in the world, and its industrial innovation is legendary. But when it comes to agriculture, its output lags far behind potential. For some staples, India must turn to already stretched international markets, exacerbating a global food crisis.

It was not supposed to be this way.

Forty years ago, a giant development effort known as the Green Revolution drove hunger from an India synonymous with famine and want. Now, after a decade of neglect, this country is growing faster than its ability to produce more rice and wheat.

For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008

Thanks to John Tanton for this article.
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A burgeoning population. Soaring energy costs. Rising demand for meat. A catastrophic harvest. A sudden run on the grain market – and an 80 percent surge in food prices in three years.

A brief run-down of the current world food crisis? Yes, but it also applies to the early 1970s – the last time the collective cupboard was bare. Despite similarities, today’s food price shock also has some striking features which sets it apart from past crises.

As world leaders gather in Rome Tuesday for a three-day United Nations conference on what steps to take to address the international food crisis, they might study what lessons can be learned from the recent pages of history.

For full article, visit:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0603/p12s01-wogn.html

Thanks to Scott Connolly for this editorial from the Burlington Free Press. Incidentally, the author’s statement, “Our own administration prohibits financial aid to any organization that promotes family planning through contraception” is not accurate. The administration may not be enthusiastic about family planning, but it has not prohibited aid to organizations promoting family planning. The focus of the gag rule is to deny aid to organizations involved in promotion or information related to abortion. The administration has also required some portion of family planning aid be used to promote abstinence.

My Turn: Population key to global food crisis (PDF, 26KB)

Thanks to Joyce Tarnow for this article.
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The latest controversy over biofuels backs up Oxfam’s report published last week. Profit, pressure from industry and farm subsidies show that there is more behind this enthusiasm for the crops than a desire to stop climate change.

If politicians want to reduce emissions and stop global warming, biofuels are not the solution. Recent research suggests that biofuels may increase greenhouse gas emissions rather than reduce them. And by pushing up demand for agricultural land, they’re causing farming to expand into other areas that store carbon – such as wetlands and forests – releasing way more carbon than is saved through biofuels.

For full article, visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/04/biofuels.carbonemissions

Thanks to Joyce Tarnow for this article.
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Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% – far more than previously estimated – according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

For full article, visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy

Thanks to Carter Dillard for sending this OpEd from USA Today.
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For anyone wondering where food prices are really headed, the news that Beijing has begun buying up farmland in Africa and South America offers a troubling hint. When China began acquiring oil fields in the 1990s, it signaled both the end of China’s self-sufficiency in oil and the start of a competition between China and other big oil importers that helped push crude prices to their current record levels. That the world’s most populous nation now seeks to lock up pieces of foreign food production not only confirms that China has reached the end of food self-sufficiency as well, but suggests that Western hopes for a quick end to today’s food-price crisis could be overly optimistic.

For full article, visit:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/05/todays-food-cri.html

Many thanks to Bill Willers for this copy of his 1994 paper on sustainable development.

Sustainable Development: A New World Deception (Word doc., 3 MB)