‘Food security’ Category
Marion Nestle: Food Politics and Food Safety
In a recent blog post, Nestle responds to the question: A decent food safety system: will we ever get one?
“Push-pull” agriculture in Kenya links to Nobel discussions
Some news on the international ag production front. As background on the article, stem borer is obviously a kind of pest we are familiar with, but the Striga pest mentioned in the article is a parasitic weed with varied species that use their roots to steal nutrients from corn, sorghum, millet, and cowpeas (aka black-eyed […]
Expired, but still good? An ethical musing
On the blog for his CSA, Paul Thompson reflects on whether or not it’s ethical to donate food that passed its “best by” date.
“When a woman has assets, it impacts more directly on the access to nutrition for all members of the family than when only the man has assets.”
India’s Congress Party president, Sonia Gandhi, has recently called for a constitutional right to food, according to this article in the New York Times (“India Asks: Should Food be a Right for the Poor?”). She also advocates expanding the existing food entitlement program, to ensure that each family “would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag […]
Optimistic news on the Russian seed bank?
Following a surprise inspection at the the Pavlovsk station (the Russian seed bank being threatened with destruction to make way for a housing complex), the auction has reportedly been “postponed for an uncertain period.” Read more here about the August 31 happenings.
Nature magazine series on the role of science in meeting world food demand
The Nature magazine article series available at this link (http://www.nature.com/news/specials/food/index.html ) takes a look at the role of science in meeting world food demand in the future. There seems to be an honest effort to look critically at what scientific research can and cannot do in meeting growing food demand while protecting the environment. One […]
Frances Moore Lappe: World Hunger…Again and Again and Again
In 1979, Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins published a little book called World Hunger: Ten Myths. Subsequently revised to include twelve myths, the book was reprinted countless times and is still a classic in the field of food and justice, a mainstay publication of the organization Food First. In the book, Lappe and Collins […]
Why crop diversity matters
Here’s an interesting piece, called “Why the UK Should Pay More Attention to Its Food,” which discusses the reasons that diversity in our plant species matters. Read into it and you’ll find a discussion of Cary Fowler and the Global Seed Bank project. ““It would cost $30million to conserve wheat, one of the world’s most […]
Biodiversity and Food Security
At a Capitol Hill briefing on June 16 sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “Paul Gepts, a geneticist and professor of agronomy at the University of California, Davis, warned that inadequate crop biodiversity in the United States could hamstring American farmers as climate change intensifies.” This topic will be sure to […]
Cary Fowler protests “the largest intentional, preventable loss of crop diversity in my lifetime”
Construction on a new housing development in Russia jeopardizes the world’s largest collection of fruits and berries, according to an article in The Independent that quotes Cary Fowler.