I've been a very delinquent blogger of late, and am likely to be so for the next couple of weeks. Quite unexpectedly, I've been asked to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee in a couple of weeks time about the food crisis, and the World Bank's role in it. Veterans of this blog will know that I've already said, in print, that the head of the World Bank makes me gag and, on Canadian telly, that the World Bank is full of shit. I'll be reining in my potty mouth and putting together some pointed testimony over the next few days, so I'll be not spending quite as much time here as I'd like. I blame the government. ... read more »

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Posted on 3 May, 2008 - 19:13

So, as part of the article roundup, there are some fine cartoons here and here, and some very good writing about the crisis from Fred Magdoff Monthly Review, and Ian Angus.

But neither article pays much attention to gender, and this is a problem as ... read more »

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Posted on 3 May, 2008 - 19:19

Here's something to savour amid the nightmare of the food crisis. Faced with the nightmare of high food prices, many working families are recovering ways of eating (victory gardens, for instance) that had almost entirely been forgotten. This is knowledge that the Southern Food Alliance is keen to preserve, and their oral history project is tremendously exciting.

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Posted on 3 May, 2008 - 19:28

Farewell Jean Ziegler, whose tenure as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Food came to an end on April 30. He was an outspoken advocate of the right to food, and his denouncing of biofuels as "a crime against humanity" was every bit as forceful as it needed to be.

They're big shoes for the next Rapporteur to fill, but I have very high hopes for Olivier De Schutter, the Belgian law professor who took up the position on May 1, and has already come out swinging against biofuels, and putting the crisis into context by observing that "we're paying for 20 years of mistakes". ... read more »

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Posted on 3 May, 2008 - 19:35