Food shortages not in the news but scarcely over

The Guardian's Jayoti Ghosh has an excellent article about the increasingly low media profile the food shortage is receiving. Remember the riots in Haiti? The famine in Liberia? Rice hoarding in the Midwest of America? Is it over?

"No, the "silent tsunami" has simply been overwhelmed in public awareness by the much noisier tsunami in the world of international finance, with the giant sucking sounds of possible bank collapses and enormous bail-outs grabbing all the attention. Yet the global food crisis is far from over, and is even likely to intensify in the near future," Ghosh writes.

Falling crop prices this year after two years of massive increases may have led policy makers to believe they could pay less attention to the issue. The U.S. had a bumper crop of grain this year; crop prices fell 40% in Australia. Somehow, though, those bumper crops and cheaper prices are not putting any more food in people's bellies.

Weather and insect plagues can cause food shortages. Extremely cold temperatures and gasoline shortages in Bosnia have completely cut some villages off from food. Floods have washed out roads in the Philippines have prevented food from being delivered. Be glad you're not a Liberian farmer, having to flee your lands because of an invasion of Army worms-- fierce caterpillars that eat anything in sight. News24.

Climate and poor soil can reduce crop yields. Much of Kenya's soil is nutritionally depleted and the severe drought is pushing the people toward famine. Drought in Burundi has caused thousands of families to flee to neighboring countries in search of food.

Ghosh points to three main causes of of the food crisis:

• A crisis in cultivation. Policy neglect and lack of investment in agriculture's infrastructure, lack of credit for the farmers and trade liberalization have made farming an unprofitable venture.
• Depression of wages in developing countries. The food is there, but people just can't afford it.
• Fewer agribusinesses exercising more control. Government subsidies encourage taking land meant for food to production of ethanol. Thus, consumer prices remain the same or higher.

All of these forces are less obvious in the United States but still have their role to play. Over the last three years, one in nine Americans has experienced food insecurity. That means that 13 million households went hungry some time during each year. Oddly, though, poverty in America tends to equal obesity. In 2004, Jefferson County, one of the poorest counties in the country, also had the dubious honor of being the most obese. You get more calories from a dollar's worth of carbohydrates than a dollar's worth of fruit.

In the capitalist global economy, corporations have to make a profit to survive. But where do we draw the line? This month Monsanto, the world's largest seed corporation, boasted its quarterly earnings have doubled over last quarter. To understand Monsanto's stranglehold on agriculture, see Vanity Fair's May, 2008 article.

We are unlikely to be able to change agricultural policy until we can make sense of it.

Sculpture from Frankie Roberto's photostream on Flickr.

How will we feed ourselves? Food pantries feel the pinch

Pamela Metaxas at the Republican checked in with the area food pantries in an article on Tuesday, and the news is not good: as you might suspect, demand is up and supply is down. Well, few of us are better off this year than last. We need to find ways to feed ourselves.

There's a commercial on TV that drives me crazy. It shows a family in a car trying to eat a fast food meal. Soda is slopping, ketchup is dripping, and a hidden voice says, "Since when did this become a sit-down meal?" Next scene is set in a kitchen, eager family around the table, and mom pulling a pre-made Stouffer's lasagna out of the oven. "Now that's a sit-down meal!" the voice exclaims. Oh, yeah? Convenience foods are convenient, and that's about it.for value.

In future posts I intend to talk about community-supported agriculture, food coops, community gardens, kitchen gardens and bulk purchasing. But we have a long winter ahead of us, and the best food in the world will be for naught unless people start learning/remembering how to cook.

OK, I'm generalizing; I do know people who cook a lot and cook well./ But I'm not sure those folks are in the majority anymore.

We were on a pretty tight budget when I was a kid and I know now we usually ran out of money before the next paycheck. Coming from a French-Irish household, I can't say my mother was a very creative cook. Still, one of my favorite meals was potato stew with lots of black pepper. Basically, this was potatoes and onions sliced thin and thickened with a paste of flour. Maybe there'd be a small salad also. Then there was creamed peas and tuna on toast, or sometimes just the peas. Nutrition would balance out over time. Anyway, we got by.

My organization, Arise for Social Justice, is collecting "end of the month" recipes. if you have one, you can send it as a comment or email me at michaelannb@gmail.com.

Pigs and chickens help empty the oceans

We catch nearly 100 million tons of fish from our oceans each year, and an astounding one-third of that catch is fed to pigs, chickens and farm bred fish, according to a new study by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science.

Even worse, the fish in question-- sardines, anchovies and other small to medium-sized fish-- come from near the bottom of the food chain, not the top, meaning their decline impacts ocean life on every level, right up to the tunas, swordfish and ocean mammals.

A billion people a day, mostly in developing countries, depend on fish as their primary protein source. Yet in a scenario similar to the production of ethanol, three to five pounds of fish is required to produce a single pound of farm-bred fish. Given that these "forage fish" are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, it makes more sense for people to consume these fish directly, the Institute's director Ellen Pikitch says.

Fish stocks are in decline worldwide, although at least some nations-- members of the European Union, the United States and Canada-- have begun reducing their fishing fleets controlling the size of the catch. Better management in warm water countries have shown fish populations can rebound in as little as 18 months, although cold water fish take longer.

In the meantime, people who enjoy fish have yet another reason to stick to fresh-caught fish and to avoid farmed products.

Chart from the World Watch Institute