Food « The Cost of Energy

Journal Alert: Food and Energy Security

By Lou, on November 18th, 2011%

From my e-mail hopper comes this welcome announcement:

Wiley-Blackwell and The Association of Applied Biologists Launch New Wiley Open Access Journal, Food and Energy Security

Wiley-Blackwell, the scientific, technical, medical and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, Inc and The Association of Applied Biologists (AAB) have launched Food and Energy Security, a new journal to meet . . . → Read More: Journal Alert: Food and Energy Security

Energy, water, food. Any questions?

By Lou, on November 4th, 2011%

Water Energy Food Nexus, Bonn 2011 (emphasis added):

A new report on the water-food-energy nexus from the World Resource Institute (WRI), the Coca-Cola Company and iSciences, compiles information the WRI gathered with help from its partners in the Aqueduct project, which includes General Electric, The Coca-Cola Company, Bloomberg, The Dow Chemical Company, Talisman Energy, United Technologies Corporation . . . → Read More: Energy, water, food. Any questions?

Doc alert: Understanding the Nexus

By Lou, on November 3rd, 2011%

“Understanding the Nexus”, Water Energy Food Nexus, Bonn 2011:

Background paper for the Bonn2011 Nexus Conference is now available

This paper for the Bonn 2011 Conference presents initial evidence for how a nexus approach can enhance water, energy and food security in a green economy by increasing efficiency, reducing trade-offs, and building synergies across sectors. It also underpins . . . → Read More: Doc alert: Understanding the Nexus

Food for fuel, again

By Lou, on October 13th, 2011%

The U.S. Now Uses More Corn For Fuel Than For Feed:

For every 10 ears of corn that are grown in the United States today, only 2 are consumed directly by humans as food. The remaining 8 are used in almost equal shares for animal feed and for ethanol. And, for the 12 months from August 2011 . . . → Read More: Food for fuel, again

Doc alert: Food insecurity update

By Lou, on October 10th, 2011%

FAO Media Centre: World hunger report 2011: High, volatile prices set to continue:

Food price volatility featuring high prices is likely to continue and possibly increase, making poor farmers, consumers and countries more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity, the United Nations’ three Rome-based agencies said in the global hunger report published today.

Small, import-dependent countries, . . . → Read More: Doc alert: Food insecurity update

Land grabs

By Lou, on September 23rd, 2011%

Oxfam International: Land and Power:

The new wave of land deals is not the new investment in agriculture that millions had been waiting for. The poorest people are being hardest hit as competition for land intensifies. Oxfam’s research has revealed that residents regularly lose out to local elites and domestic or foreign investors because they lack the . . . → Read More: Land grabs

The forces behind higher food prices

By Lou, on July 20th, 2011%

The Farm Foundation has released a report, What’s Driving Food Prices in 2011?, which analyzes the current world and US food price situation in some detail. You can grab the 47-page PDF from the link above, but here’s a summary of the findings taken from that same page:

The authors identified five key factors in shaping . . . → Read More: The forces behind higher food prices

Reaching the last dots

By Lou, on July 11th, 2011%

One of the great challenges of climate change is understanding all the knock-on effects of a “small” amount of warming, because not only are they not all immediately apparent, and not only don’t we understand each of them as fully as we’d prefer, but once you begin to consider the interactions between the effects and try . . . → Read More: Reaching the last dots

A simple little food problem

By Lou, on June 19th, 2011%

Honestly, I sometimes wonder how you people do anything without my help.

Take, for example, the alarming plunge in world corn stocks (emphasis added):

Even a fifth consecutive year of record global corn harvests will fail to meet demand for food, fuel and livestock feed, reducing world stockpiles to the lowest in two generations.

Consumption will rise 3 percent . . . → Read More: A simple little food problem

Doc alert: Climate change, water, and food

By Lou, on June 10th, 2011%

From the Food and Agriculture Orangization of the United Nations, Climate change: major impacts on water for farming:

Climate change will have major impacts on the availability of water for growing food and on crop productivity in the decades to come, warns a new FAO report.

Climate Change, Water, and Food Security is a comprehensive survey of existing . . . → Read More: Doc alert: Climate change, water, and food