Were we perhaps expecting the event to come to us pre-labelled? The first US food riot of the twenty-first century didn't look like much, and there certainly weren't large signs announcing it. But the scenes outside the main welfare office in Milwaukee in the wake of last month's floods must surely count.

Like food riots past, the story involves both a demand for food and a demand that government live up to its obligations to provide. As with food riots past, the issue wasn't the availability of food. Last I checked, there was still plenty of it swilling around the Midwest. The issue, caught accurately in the first paragraph of this report, is poverty. And, with little changing for America's poorest, indeed with new data showing that inequality is increasing (also in the UK, Australia, South Africaand Canada), there's every reason to suspect that things aren't getting better any time soon. ... read more »

Raj's blog | 7 comments

Posted on 29 July, 2008 - 17:27

The excellent Avi Lewis, whose documentary with Naomi Klein -- The Take -- is well worth watching, has turned his attention to the struggles around rice in Haiti. Here, in seventeen minutes, is one of the best treatments of the recent food riots in Haiti, and their long history.

Update Find out more at the Haiti Action Committee

Raj's blog | 12 comments

Posted on 17 July, 2008 - 15:42

The San Francisco Victory Garden is well underway, as you can see here. For me, one of the most exciting parts of this lies in the thinking behind the planting.

John Bela is the garden's designer, and he's put together an astonishing space. It's one that's accessible to all, that maximises the exposure of the crops to the people, and is built with the principles of permaculture foremost in mind. I'd not heard of the 'keyhole' concept before, but it's genius. Look closely at ... read more »

Raj's blog | 21 comments

Posted on 10 July, 2008 - 08:09

The excellent ETC Group has just come up with a fine bit of social science that cuts through the guff of the recent FAO Food Summit in Rome.

As part of their 'translator' series, in which they parse the meaning of UN documents for the general public, they've come out with their latest report, Another "Failure-as-usual" Food Summit.

Alongside the fine analysis of the substance of the summit document, they've compared and contrasted the final declarations of the Food Summits in 1996, 2002, and 2008. The findings are striking:

... read more »

Raj's blog | 3 comments | 1 attachment

Posted on 30 June, 2008 - 15:57

I've a piece in this week's issue of The Observer on meat, and my intention to stop eating it.

It was a much longer article before the wise people at the Food and Drink desk cut some of my excesses. But I'm sad that they lost a couple of references to Mark Bittman, to whom I'm grateful not only because I get to guest-blog at Bitten but because I find his work on meat, first here and more recently here, tremendously important and I wanted to thank him publicly.

Incidentally, in the same issue of the Observer Food Magazine, Joanna Blythman disagrees with me about meat. Her arguments are unusually flimsy. She suggests that, because the nomadic Masai have developed a complex system of nutrition dependent on livestock, the British have too, and therefore should be let alone. There are a range of other logical leaps, most of which I address.

You can read my position below the fold, and Blythman's at the Observer Food Magazine website. ... read more »

Raj's blog | 8 comments

Posted on 23 June, 2008 - 06:04

Photo Credit: trp0

Beautiful celebrations of love aren't the only thing happening here in San Francisco. If you go down to City Hall today, you'll also see a few people pissed off at the government's inconsistencies. While fighting for equality, and even sponsoring the transformation of land in the middle of town into a Victory Garden, the government is also trying to stamp out local control of one of the city's oldest farmers markets.

"Budget and Finance Committee" aren't usually words to get the pulse racing. But today there are a couple of items on the Committee's agenda that will be of interest to folk concerned with San Francisco's Food Systems: Item 9 concerns a "Resolution for revoking the permit for a farmer's market at U.N. Plaza."

I've opined against this take-over in today's San Francisco Chronicle, a newpaper which has taken a strong editorial line against the power-grab here, here and here. Read it all below the fold, and see y'all at City Hall. ... read more »

Raj's blog | 3 comments

Posted on 19 June, 2008 - 18:06

Source: Ted Taber

The floods in the Midwest have already killed four people. Thousands have been evacuated, and the bill for clean-up will surely run into the hundreds of millions (the Red Cross alone is spending $15 million) - the estimate for Cedar Rapids' clean up just in: $700 million.

But these are the most cosmetic costs - the ripples from this storm will spread globally. Already, the price of corn has broken through the $7/bushel point. Soybeans are also up, and I'd be shocked if the price of white corn isn't going through the roof too - it has already been kicking up the price of tortillas in Mexico. Certainly, the ethanol price is soaring to its highest point since June 2006.

Large agribusinesses are taking a hit here too. See, for instance, Archer Daniels Midland’s flatlining share price. The disaster in the Midwest has put a serious dent in their profit forecasts. There’s just less corn around for them to make money off through trading, reselling, and using in meat, ethanol and high fructose corn syrup manufacture.

Worse for them, the disaster-induced shortage is making it politically harder to support corn-based ethanol, which is making ADM’s business plans – a glorified way of saying ‘sucking at the government teat’ – a little less politically and therefore economically viable.

But not all agricultural capitalists are taking a beating. The hedge funds and commodities traders are having a ball. According to The Wall Street Journal, “the decline in the dollar and rise in crude prices is resulting in investors piling on in the corn market, buying futures in anticipation that the price will continue to rise.” Yep, it’s speculative open season.

Meanwhile, stories abound about the floods’ horrors. A recurring theme is that people who step into the floodwaters immediately seek tetanus shots. The water is utterly polluted.

I’ve not read it in any of the reports so far, but I’ll put money on some of this pollution coming from burst sewage reservoirs from Concentrated Animal Feed Lots. We saw it happen in North Carolina and there’s no reason to think that it hasn’t already in Iowa.

Citizens in Iowa have long been active in trying to Clean Up Iowa. They’ve been stymied by large agricultural interests. The University of Iowa is the place I’d go to find more information – they’ve a fine research unit looking at some aspects of CAFOs, but at the time of writing, the University site says:

“Due to the flood situation on campus, The University has suspended normal operations. Classes have been cancelled and UI employees designated as non-essential are asked to stay home beginning Friday, June 13 through Sunday, June 22.” ... read more »

Raj's blog | 1 comment

Posted on 17 June, 2008 - 05:10

The Financial Times is doing what it usually does - providing concise and honest insight into how the elite bosses think, this time around genetically modified crops. The recent op-ed by John Gapper follows a logic that I've been bumping into increasingly.

1. We need to increase food production to feed the world.
2. Yield-increasing science has worked before.
3. The nay-sayers want to reduce output through organic agriculture.
4. Monsanto, on the other hand, is investing in science.
5. Therefore we ought to embrace GM technology to fight the food crisis.

Almost everything about this argument is wrong. ... read more »

Raj's blog | 3 comments

Posted on 13 June, 2008 - 17:36