Visualization of food and income.
Lots to infer but in simple terms the lower consumption countries need economic growth and more per capita income.
Calories, food and income
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Category Archives: Green Food
Economists Ponder Human Adaptation to Climate Change
As scientists struggle to predict exactly how global climate change will affect our environment, economists are grappling with another question: How well can humans adapt?
Judging from the history of wheat production in North America, the answer is very well, says Paul Rhode of the University of Michigan. In a paper done together with Alan Olmstead of the University of California-Davis, which he presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, Mr. Rhode looks at how wheat production fared between the mid-1800s and the late 1900s, as production moved into parts of North America with harsher climates. The conclusion: Production adapted successfully as farmers introduced new strains that grew well in the new climates.
“We’ve been there and done that in terms of adjusting wheat production to new climates,” he said.
via Economists Ponder Human Adaptation to Climate Change – Real Time Economics – WSJ.
This is one example of wheat production in North America but what is relevant is that adaptation is possible and may be more important to concentrate than anything else for the next century.
Beijing Gives Nod to Modified Rice
China’s government declared two strains of genetically modified rice safe to produce and consume, taking a major step toward endorsing the use of biotechnology in the staple food crop of billions of people in Asia.
Scientists vs Greenpeace on Salmon, I will go with the the boffins
It’s generally better for the planet to eat frozen grub that's come a lot of food miles than fresh which has travelled fewer miles by air, in fact. According to the enviro-scientists:
The choice to buy frozen matters more than organic vs conventional or wild vs farmed.
There were other conclusions from the study which could be seen as flying in the face of conventional eco-wisdom. According to the assembled boffins:
Catching salmon in large nets as they school together has one tenth the impact of catching them in small numbers using baited hooks and lures.
This directly contradicts the advice offered by Greenpeace, for instance, which says “choose line-caught fish wherever possible”.
Deep waters, these.
via Eat frozen food and avoid line-caught fish, says eco study • The Register.
Organic foods or bio-tech foods – for solving world hunger and helping the environment?
- Some anti-genetic engineering activists “talk of defending the ‘intrinsic integrity’ of crop-plant genomes,” writes Stewart Brand in his new book, Whole Earth Discipline. “What integrity? Crop plants have no integrity of their own…. Botanist Klaus Ammann points out that good old wheat, fashioned through good old breeding, has modifications that include ‘the addition of chromosome fragments, the integration of entire foreign genomes, and radiation-induced mutations.’” Next to this orgy of gene swapping, biotechnology offers a precision that makes genetically engineered food look downright tame.
- On the mitigation front, they are creating grains that require less water and that utilize nitrogen more efficiently—a boon for the atmosphere, the oceans, and farmers’ bottom lines. And on the adaptation front, they are developing drought-resistant maize varieties for sub-Saharan Africa, rice that can tolerate flooding in Southeast Asia, and rice that can grow in China’s increasingly salty soils.
- Next month, when experts from across the globe convene in Rome for the annual World Food Summit, … how to diminish the number of hungry people in the world, which according to the FAO, rose to an alarming 1.02 billion this year. A vital part of their conversation will be to what extent biotechnology can—or should—play a role in these efforts.
- For the rest of us “foodies,” now is the time for some deep soul-searching, to decide whether we will allow ideology to win out over evidence, particularly when the goals of biotech are increasingly aligned with many of the values the organic community allegedly holds dear.
From SEED magazine
Cadbury’s Sustainability Statement on Palm Oil
The palm oil Cadbury uses in Australia and New Zealand comes primarily from Malaysia and is not sourced from Sumatra, Borneo or any of the regions where the Orangutan is under threat. Cadbury also has a long and proud record on the environment. Our ‘Purple Goes Green’ initiative has been widely recognized with Cadbury winning independent recognition on everything from packaging reduction, water reduction and sustainable agriculture. Furthermore, as a business we have a target to reduce our carbon footprint by 50% by 2020 – a commitment that goes far beyond what most Governments are requiring, and a commitment that we are currently on target to meet.
Cadbury stands unashamedly behind our decision to reduce the size, and the wholesale price to our customers, of our Cadbury Dairy Milk range in order to ensure that it remains a treat all Australians can enjoy. We have taken this action to ensure Cadbury Dairy Milk remains affordable, but not at the cost of the environment. That is why we pay an additional ‘social’ premium through the GreenPalm certification process to ensure the palm oil we purchase comes from sustainable sources. This premium is directly passed on to the growers and producers of sustainable palm oil so that they are rewarded for sustainable business practices, and have an incentive to grow more palm oil in a sustainable manner.
We want consumers to continue to love our chocolate, and it makes no sense whatsoever for us to make changes that the majority of people won’t appreciate. We believe as a business we are doing the right thing and are acting far more responsibly than many other companies that use palm oil without any of the assurances Cadbury are able to provide.
We remain immensely proud of our products and continue to believe that Cadbury Dairy Milk is the best tasting milk chocolate in the world.
via Palm Oil.
That is a very clear statement from a company which wants to do the right thing and make money at the same time. The language used and the direct communication used is very impressive.
Rice production soars
How the World Works – Salon.com
According to the FAO, “Average world rice consumption per person is set to increase by 0.5 percent to 57.3 kilo per year, up from 57 kilo in 2007.”Whether that means going from one meal a day to two or three, or a Western-style epidemic of ballooning portion-sizes, the FAO doesn’t say. But it should give some pause to those who would blame the spread of biofuels for everything that is suddenly awry in grain markets. While it is true that competition from other crops (corn, soy) is depressing rice production in the United States, almost everywhere else in the world, rice harvests are booming — including Africa, where the FAO reports that “large expansions” are “anticipated in Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Mali and Nigeria.”
Anticipating the food vs fuel debate
Sreenivas Ghatty points me to a interview with Thomas M. Connelly, Executive Vice President & Chief Innovation Officer of DuPont. The main important part of the interview is the discussion on the food vs fuel debate in bio fuels.
But how is it that DuPont, which thinks much ahead of others, was caught on the wrong foot on this issue of using food crops?
It is not a question we did not recognise. We thought the timescale on which we will move there would be different. Keep in mind, for example, that certain other agricultural commodities were trading at low prices for decades. And frankly, many farmers were looking for additional markets for their products.
So while we recognised that in time the supply trends would become a limiting factor, that the grand plan would accelerate in a matter of five years we never anticipated. We thought it would be at least ten years. The pace at which this has been progressing has been surprising to us.
I think it is because of the global emphasis on climate change, run up in the prices of petroleum. All these are pushing us to non-food crop sources of carbon material for the production of fuel.
I should say we anticipated the direction but not the speed at which we would reach there.
This is the interesting part. How fast the food prices have gone up and the increasing ban on exports from various countries. In some cases, countries like India are ready to sacrifice growth to curb food inflation.
Organic farming in Kerala – Economic nonsense
Sustainability is a good thing. Everybody agrees on it. However, what is the process of achieving this?
Previously we reported that 9 Indian states are looking at organic farming to tap into the $37 billion
global market. That is good. The Mint reports that Kerala is planning to get into the field by converting all its cultivable land into organic farms in 5 years.
“The policy will be ambitiously aimed at freeing Kerala of all chemical fertilizers and pesticides in five years. This is with a long-term vision of ensuring that future generations here do not consume food contaminated by toxic pesticides and fertilizers. The strategy is clear: Convert 20% of the cultivable land to organic farming using biofertilizers and biopesticides every year so that total conversion can be achieved in five years,” adds Vijayan. Currently, there are around 7,000 certified organic farmers covering a minuscule area of 5,750ha, when the net sown area in the state is 2.13 million hectares.
To begin with, 100 villages across the state will soon be organized as organic farm villages. Mullakkara Ratnakaran, state agriculture minister, says the government will set up an Organic Agriculture Authority of Kerala, which will be the nodal agency to interact with grass roots level groups, and also national and international agencies.
The authority will have a governing council headed by a chairman, to be elected from representatives at the pan chayat and village levels, where organic farmer interest groups will be formed. The council will also have officials, scientists, farmers’ representatives and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promoting organic farming, he adds.
[...]
Vijayan admits that a major stumbling block will be funds and the lack of a market for this produce.
For the first three years, conversion to organic farming means a drop in yields, putting farmers to hardship. It is for this that the authority will have funds both from the Union and state governments to support the farmers. Financial support from international agencies can also be looked at, Vijayan says. As part of the marketing thrust, the authority will look at independent retail outlets and also tie up with others to market these products, which will include rice, vegetables and fruits.
It has been clearly demonstrated around the world that centrally managed economies do not work.
Even though organic farming may be a good thing; the process of converting all lands compulsorily without figuring out the market for the produce and creating more hardship for already poor farmers is totally unacceptable.
This is the exact kind of economic nonsense that has troubled India all these years. If this is the same thinking used for “sustainability issues” then it will not make any difference and can actually harm the people and the environment. Economic sense matters.
Organic Farming: The New Cash Crop for Indian farmers
Organic farming seems to be the new growth area for Indian farmers.
So what exactly is a Cash crop?
In agriculture, a cash crop is a crop which is grown for money. The term is used to differentiate from subsistence crops, which are those fed to the producer’s own livestock or grown as food for the producer’s family. In earlier times cash crops were usually only a small (but vital) part of a farm’s total yield, while today, especially in the developed countries, almost all crops are mainly grown for cash. In non-developed nations, cash crops are usually crops which attract demand in more developed nations, and hence have some export value.
The Mint reports that 9 India states have applied to the “Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda), a government-run export promotion body, asking for accreditation to do the same.”
In the seven years since the National Programme for Organic Production was notified by the government, only 11 accreditations have been issued by Apeda, of which only one is to a state government organization, the Uttaranchal State Organic Certification Agency. The rest are international private agencies.
“Now, nine states, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, have submitted proposals for approval (for accreditation),” says K.S. Money, chairman, Apeda.
[...]
According to a study by the US department of agriculture, consumers in the US and the European Union account for 95% of the world’s retail sales of organic foods, estimated at more than $25 billion (Rs1.03 trillion).In 2005-06, India exported organic products worth $228 million.
Currently, India ranks 33 in the world in terms of total land under organic cultivation and 88 in terms of the ratio of agricultural land under organic crops to total farming area. With an eye on the market, a few states have begun to take organic farming seriously.
Interestingly, the state of Orissa, which has no policy for Organic farming has the largest organic farming production. Why?
“If you see, organic farming is working out in states which have a higher percentage of smaller farmers. It is difficult to push farmers, who own large tracts of land, to go organic. These farmers have been using pesticides for years and years,” says Arun Chandra, executive director, Chetna Organic Farmers Association, a group representing 7,500 organic farmers across five states.
The market is clearly there for the taking.
