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World Food Crisis
Monday, May 19, 2008
You Waste Not, Others Might Want Not
Posted by Brian Ries on Mon, May 19, 2008 at 5:02 PM
This weekend, the NYT posted a story about the vast amount of food that American's waste every year, as much as 27% off all food available for consumption. That happens at every step of the distribution pipeline, from factories to your refrigerator, resulting in almost 100 billion pounds of edible food hitting the trash can.
What's worse is much of that -- as much as 98%, according to the article -- ends up in landfills, slowly moldering away and manufacturing methane gas. People go hungry, we waste money and the environment suffers. Triple whammy.
Here are some ideas to help cut your wasteful ways:
- Eat what you buy. When planning tonight's dinner, try to cook with the oldest food in the house, especially veggies that are past their prime.
- Compost. For both wasted food and inedible scraps, composting stops overloading landfills and starts putting the valuable energy and nutrients back into the soil. Even better if you're using the compost to fertilize a backyard vegetable garden.
- Shop frequently. It might use up a tad more gas, but at least you'll only be buying what you need for a few days, leaving you a better chance to consume as much as you buy. Goodbye, weekly trip to the grocery.
- Support reclaimed food charities. Groups like Tampa Bay Harvest work with grocery stores, restaurants and others to pick up unwanted but edible food and get it into the hands of people who need it most. Encourage places you shop to participate, or you can sign up to volunteer. The organization has a great system that pairs volunteers with pick up and delivery routes close to their work and home.
- Buy less food. The less you have, the less you'll waste. Maybe it's time to see the bottom of that vegetable drawer again.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Reducing Your Beef Footprint
Posted by Brian Ries on Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:56 PM
In today's issue I dug into the World Food Crisis, ending with a prescription for a few little things we can do to limit our impact on the shortage of grains that's causing hunger and poverty in dozens of countries. One suggestion was to limit your consumption of factory-farmed meat. Meat production has vast environmental impacts, isn't good for the hapless animals and consumes about 40 percent of all the grain grown in the world. (For more on the Crisis, check out past blog posts.)
Can you avoid factory-meat without turning vegetarian? Sure, but it takes some effort. Buying locally-raised meat, preferably grass-fed, reduces the impact of large-scale production until it's almost as eco- and hunger-friendly as giving up your steaks and chops. Plus, it tastes better and connects you with your food source.
Numerous local farmers and small ranchers have gotten into the act of providing the Gulf Coast with neighborhood meat. You usually have to buy in bulk -- beef is often sold as whole, half or quarter cow -- so you'll need room in the freezer, or an extra cold box in the garage, and you may want to get together with family or friends to split up a big buy.
Here are a few places to try out. I'll add more as I find them, but f you know of others, drop me a line.
Rosas Farms, 13450 N. Hwy. 301, Citra, FL, 32912, 888-353-9912 or rosasfarms.com -- 100% grass-fed beef, boar, buffalo and a lot more, raised on an organic farm jsut south of Gainesville.
Amazin' Grazin' Beef, 941-745-5630 -- This new operation in Bradenton sells 100% grass-fed beef raised by real-life cowboy Lee Sly. There will also be wild tilapia and acorn finished pork.
Plan It Earth, 15433 County Rd. 39 S., Lithia, 813-784-2727 -- Grass-fed, grain finished beef.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Water, Water, Everywhere, Let's Have A Monday Media Wrap-Up!
Posted by Brian Ries on Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 3:40 PM
- "Shortages are reaching crisis proportions in even the most highly developed regions, and they're quickly becoming commonplace in our own backyard, from the bleached-white bathtub ring around the Southwest's half-empty Lake Mead to the parched state of Georgia, where the governor prays for rain." [Wired]
- "I go alone during the day to collect my water from the lake but I get scared because there are bandits along the road and dangerous gases that come out from the lake."[Guardian]
- "Long-term refugees like Fathiya, in well-established camps, do not live in immediate fear of hunger. But they must devote about every hour of the day to the job of getting their families fed." [Guardian]
- "Under a little-known international treaty called the Convention on International Civil Aviation, signed in Chicago in 1944 to help the fledgling airline industry, fuel for international travel and transport of goods, including food, is exempt from taxes, unlike trucks, cars and buses." [NY Times]
- "I could theoretically do all that, but what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where ours was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling no longer to emit." [NY Times]
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Still Ignoring The World Food Crisis? Now It Hits Home.
Posted by Brian Ries on Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 2:28 PM
The New York Sun reported this week that major retailers like Costco have recently imposed purchase limits on commodity foods like rice, oil and flour. It's spotty, on a store by store basis, but people are noticing and some consumers (as well as restaurant owners concerned about rapid price hikes from distributors) are hoarding. And worldwide garin reserves are at an almost all-time low, resulting in a supply chain that has very little inventory to draw from. In the Sun article, survival blogger and former Army intelligence officer James Rawles noted that "even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.â€
Maybe Bush will recall troops from Iraq to start baking bread, a la Egypt's Mubarak.
Rationing food. Hoarding food. Here in the US. Huh.
[Classic photo by Margaret Bourke-White. Look back at the past few weeks of Eat My Florida for more on the World Food Crisis.]
Monday, April 21, 2008
Million Dollar Cookies, Green Consumption, Bubba and the World Food Crisis: It's The Monday Media Wrap-up
Posted by Brian Ries on Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 1:18 PM
- "Bake 7 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack. Store tightly covered." Win a million dollars. [Pillsbury]
- "It's nearly Earth Day: Time to consume more to save the planet." [Ad Age]
- "I don’t believe that anyone has asked Bill Clinton what he’ll be looking for in a chef should his wife become president or what he’ll serve at his first state dinner. (As his family’s former chef, I can’t resist affectionately suggesting that this is probably for the best, given his predilection for comfort food.)" [NYT]
- WORLD FOOD CRISIS: "In Haiti, protesters chanting “We're hungry†forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt's president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment." [Economist]
- WORLD FOOD CRISIS: "What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the world's rich consumers." [New Statesman]
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Your NY Strip Might Be Causing Starvation
Posted by Brian Ries on Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 2:54 PM
I know, I know, I've been obsessing lately over the World Food Crisis. But why not? It's an issue that affects everyone, from the increased hits to our budget during the weekly trip to the grocery store to decreased portion sizes in restaurants. And considering the food unrest in countries like Malaysia, Egypt, Haiti and India, it could cause lasting political change in the world that the US might have to deal with down the road. And, no matter how you look at it, people are starving.
Lately, I've focused on biofuels as one of the insidiously evil underlying causes of this food crisis, that just so happens to cause irreparable harm to the environment in the process. Today, The Independent nailed an even bigger culprit -- meat.
According to The Independent, almost 40% of all the grain grown in the world is slated for animal feed. Feeding animals is an inefficient process, requiring about 8 kilos of grain to produce every kilo of cow flesh, or 2k for every k of chicken. Meat production uses 6 to 17 times as much land, 5 to 26 times as much water, 6 to 20 times as much fossil fuels and 6 times as much biocides as grain. Just to cap it all off, remember that a single cow produces as much greenhouse gasses every day as an SUV out for a 45 minute cruise. And America is the world's largest consumer of red meat.
It's not all our fault -- giant developing countries like India, China and Indonesia are consuming more meat than ever before, twice as much as 20 years ago. I guess we can look forward to that leveling off once the people in those countries start contracting diabetes and heart disease at record rates.
If you eat meat -- like me --it's likely that none of this will change your carnivorous ways. But a little extra knowledge about what goes into getting that steak to your plate, and what effects it has on the environment, starving families and world politics, might make you cut back. Just a little. Like me.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Death by Ashton Kutcher, hoof and mouth, government subsidies, or the World Food Crisis: Monday Media Wrap-up
Posted by Brian Ries on Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 2:56 PM
- "April 12th's Saturday Night Live featured three clips of Ashton Kutcher dressed up as a giant chocolate bar with a killer instinct, cute mime clown face and all." (Thanks Serious Eats)
- "What was supposed to be a temporary financial safety net for imperiled family farmers has become a huge boondoggle for a fraction of wealthy farmers, including landowners who've never gotten close enough to a barn to slip on the manure." (Thanks PBS.org)
- "A simulated outbreak of the disease — part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" — ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets." (Thanks AP)
- "Planners couldn't come up with enough organic or sustainably grown food from Georgia to nourish just 600 people over two days." Hmm, maybe I'll have to start giving back to my alma mater. (Thanks AJC)
- "Smart owners, of course, have always carefully watched their costs, but when every bill comes with a "gasoline-price surcharge" and fewer people are walking through the door, it's hocus-pocus time." (Thanks WP)
- WORLD FOOD CRISIS UPDATE: "Cropland is suddenly in heavy demand, a situation that is fraying old alliances, inspiring new ones and putting pressure on the Agriculture Department, which is being lobbied directly by all sides without managing to satisfy any of them." (Thanks NYT)
- WORLD FOOD CRISIS UPDATE: "When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels," said India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, in an interview." (Thanks WSJ)
- WORLD FOOD CRISIS UPDATE: “As we know in the past, sometimes those questions lead to war,†he said. “We now need to devote 100 percent of our time to these questions.†(Thanks NYT)
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
World Food Crisis: Biofuels Update
Posted by Brian Ries on Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 7:05 PM
Anyone who's been following my frequent recent posts about the world-wide spike in food prices and the manifold problems associated with that will be familiar with some of this info. But in researching items for CL's Green Issue next week, I found that biofuels are a big part of the problem.
Science Magazine recently calculated that "biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages." Not bad, until you realize that developing nations are clear cutting at record rates to either plant biofuel crops or compensate for the switch from grain for consumption to fuel grain in other areas. That's when the shock comes - "Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a "biofuel carbon debt" by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annualgreenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels." Not very eco-friendly.
Here's the formula for biofuel crisis: US farmers switch from soy to corn to take advantage of the demand for biofuels. Brazil sees the demand for soy, and chops their rainforests and savannahs into neat little soy fields. Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia don't want to be left out of the bio-boom, so they clear-cut vast swathes to plant oil palms, displacing farmers and increasing food prices.
In 2006, more than 40,000 hectares of forest were destroyed every day. Deforestation puts more greenhouse gasses into the air than all the planes, trains, ships and automobiles across the world. Think about that before converting your car to "green biofuel."
Monday, April 7, 2008
Red Bull Cola The Only Bright Point In: The Monday Media Wrap-up
Posted by Brian Ries on Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 2:59 PM
- “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.â€
- "Red Bull Cola: Strong and Natural."
- "It gives me goose bumps," says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to promote sustainable ranching on the Amazon frontier. "It's like witnessing a rape."
- "At least 10,000 farmers have committed suicide each year over the last decade because of their inability of repay loans taken at usurious rates of interest from local moneylenders."
- "Oh, and in case you’re wondering: all the remaining presidential contenders are terrible on this issue."
Thursday, April 3, 2008
World Food Crisis
Posted by Brian Ries on Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 12:27 AM
This is only going to get worse, so start paying attention now:
