How to solve the global food crisis

BBC
By Kaushik Basu, Professor of economics, Cornell University

The world economy has many problems but none more pressing than what is happening to food prices.
There have been food riots in Haiti, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Indonesia and several other nations.
Twenty thousand desperate textile workers in Bangladesh went on a rampage, giving rise to fears of [...]

Chávez Increases Corn Prices, Announces Shift From Oil to Food in Venezuela

The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, announced Thursday that the regulated prices of corn and sorghum will be raised by 30% and that a new Socialist Agricultural Development Fund (FONDAS) has been launched to promote national food production.
“The day will arrive when, just like we send petroleum to other countries, we will be able to [...]

Haiti: A reporter’s notebook

Yesterday we spent the day in Cayes, the third largest city in Haiti and the spot where the hunger riots started in April. At first the city does not seem as poor as Port-au-Prince, even though is has its own shantytown – Savane – where the demonstrations started. Like Cite Soleil (see previous posts), Savane [...]

Spain’s “water wars”: A scramble for essential resources

Here.

Global Food Crisis - On the Margins in Mauritania

Video here.

Somalia: Plea for Help As Drought Pushes People Towards Urban Centres

Here.

Fidel Castro warned of food crisis a year ago

Reuters
As global fears about food security mount with riots in Africa and panic buying elsewhere, one world figure can sit back and say he warned a year ago of a coming food crisis — Fidel Castro.
Cuba’s ailing revolutionary has not appeared in public since he underwent intestinal surgery in July 2006 from which he has [...]

UN condemns biofuels growth

The United Nations is expected to reveal a new battle plan to tackle the growing crisis in global food provision.
Monday’s meeting in Switzerland follows a warning from the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, who says developed countries and the biofuel industry are largely to blame for the current food shortages.
“Bioethanol is one [...]

Scenes from the world food crisis

In the United States, spiraling food and energy prices mean shock at the gas pump and a per-customer cap on Sam’s Club rice purchases. But food-price hikes in Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Yemen and Mexico, to name a few nations, mean hunger, rioting or even death. 
In February, months before significant Western attention to the [...]

Afghanistan’s food shortage triggering riots

In the teeming, dense flour bazaars of Kabul, it’s hard not to miss the anger.
“Something has to change…my life is horrible,” Zahir, an Afghan trash collector says. Zahir is buying flour for his family of 11, a simple act that has become increasingly difficult for Afghan residents in recent months. “We cannot eat more because [...]