Wednesday Jul 30, 2008 Farmers fear poor crop year
All of Quebec's major commercial crops, which earned $1.1 billion for the province's farmers last year...
Thursday Jul 24, 2008 Food prices join gasoline in fuelling inflation
Just as Canadian consumers are starting to get some price relief at the gas pump, they are being hit... Food prices - padded by hikes of 44 per cent for flour, 36 per cent for pasta and 12.3 per cent for baked goods - rose three per cent in June from a year earlier, Statistics Canada said yesterday, while gasoline prices, which were 26.9 per cent higher, remained the major inflation culprit.
In addition, a nine-per-cent increase in mortgage interest costs and 14.3-per-cent jump in air transportation prices also exerted strong upward pressure on the index
Saturday Jul 12, 2008 Canada quells local farmers' concerns
Canada's agriculture ministers have promised that their efforts to harmonize food standards will reflect... "Who produces olives in Canada?" Lessard asked his counterparts. The rules now say that olives not grown in Canada can be considered Canadian if they are canned in here. The same applies to other imported foods.
Monday 07 July 2008 Rising costs dominate G8 summit
World leaders are starting a key summit in Japan that is expected to focus on soaring global food and fuel prices.
Friday 04 July 2008 Fresh record for Indian inflation
Indian inflation reaches its latest record high as food, fuel, cement and steel prices continue to rise.
The head of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, Jacques Diouf, says the world's farmers need help immediately to prepare for the next growing so as to alleviate the ongoing international food crisis. Speaking in Frankfurt, he said that while people need food aid to stave off starvation, farmers in developing nations need immediate access to more seeds, fertilizers and animal feed for the 2008 growing season in September, October and November. Mr. Diouf says that in the absence of such aid, the situation will worsen. In London, the World Food Program's executive director, Josette Sheeran, compared the situation to a silent tsunami. The World Bank has estimated that food prices have risen by 83 per cent in three years.
“I will leave with the next boat going to Miami because I can no longer resist this hunger,” says Marcel Jonassaint, a Haitian mother of four. The Star reports that Haitians, starving due to the scarcity and rising cost of food, are talking about taking to the sea to escape worsening food-shortage conditions in Port-au-Prince. Anxious westerners, beginning to comprehend the scale of the crisis, have been stocking their cupboards. In response, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has placed a restriction on the amount of rice per customer in many of its Sam’s Club warehouse-style grocery stores in the US. Meanwhile, World Vision has just announced that, this year, it will not be able to feed 1.5 million of the 7.5 million people it aided last year. Surveying these various and related stories in the Big Seven today, things look grim.
More than one hundred million people are being driven deeper into poverty as a result of surging food costs, warned Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). This came after Monday’s summit in London, England, where experts gathered to develop a plan to deal with the problem. World Vision, which gets most of its food from WFP, has called upon governments to collectively contribute $500 million to cover the shortfall. Dave Toycen, president of World Vision Canada, says Canada has been “reasonably generous” in donating food aid to WFP, but expresses that Canada ought to shoot higher than its target of just less than half a million tonnes of food. Toycen also weighs in on the confluence of factors that have led to World Vision’s cutbacks. The cost of oil (once again soaring nationwide) drives up the price of fertilizer, a major factor. Additionally, the crops normally used to feed people are feeding the production of biofuels instead. Finally, to bring it all back home, a Harris/Decima poll asked some ten thousand Canadians how they felt about the world’s environmental problems. The survey found that Canadians, in general, blame themselves for the wasteful consumption that is now coming back to bite the world, in the form of environmental degradation and food shortages.
Tuesday 24 June 2008 OTTAWA: MAD-COW CASE DETECTED
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is reporting another case of mad-cow disease, this time in British Columbia. There's no word on where the cow was located, but an investigation is underway to find its birthplace. It's the third case of BSE or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in the province in the last three years and the 13th across the country. A ban on using animal materials in feed products has practically eliminated BSE but a small number of cases are still expected to surface. BSE is a fatal, neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes degeneration in the brain and spinal cord.
Tuesday 17 June 2008 UNITED STATES
Corn prices hit a record high on Monday, as huge floods in the U.S. Middle West caused fears of a smaller crop and higher prices. Corn futures for July rose as high as US$7.60 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, before closing at US$7.40 a bushel. The floods have engulfed soybean fields as well, pushing prices to near all-time highs.
Corn prices have hit new highs after the US Department of Agriculture forecast that output would fall because of poor weather.
Corn hit a record price of $6.672 a bushel for July delivery on the Chicago Board of Trade after the government cut its forecasts for the 2008 yield by 3%.
Wednesday Jun 11, 2008 Food crisis comes home for summer
The world food crisis is as close as your corner, if you live at the corner of St. Urbain and Rachel... "We used to get enough to sustain us until September," Sun Youth co-founder and executive director Sid Stevens said.
03 June 2008 Nationalistic capitalism and the food crisis, Cleo Paskal Different countries have divergent approaches to international trade, and these are changing the way food is bought and sold. As world leaders meet in Rome this week to discuss soaring prices, C Paskal considers China’s approach.ChinaDialogue.net
Thursday 05 June 2008 OTTAWA: GOVT. CRITICIZED FOR NOT ATTENDING UN FOOD CONFERENCE
The opposition in the House of Commons on Wednesday attacked the Conservative government for not sending the agriculture minister, Gerry Ritz, to the Food and Agriculture conference in Rome. Liberal Member of Parliament Maria Minna asked the minister why he wasn't in Rome defending Canada's interests when Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who is generally thought to have destroyed his country's agricultural sector, is defending his nation's. Mr. Ritz responded that Mr. Mugabe's presence precisely defines the credibility of the event, a remark which Mrs. Minna called "totally inappropriate and totally irresponsible." Canada is represented at the FAO meeting by the ambassador to Italy. The conference is being held as world food prices have skyrocketed and several poor countries have experienced food riots. The minister noted that Canada does take the crisis serious and that when the World Food Program asked for emergency contributions in April, Canada responded with an additional $50 million.
Tuesday Jun 3, 2008 Canadians want more inspectors
Canadians don't think the federal government has enough health inspectors to make sure the food for ... Health Canada conducted a series of focus groups in February in Toronto and Montreal to determine the level of concern about food and consumer product safety in Canada.
Agricultural protectionism fuels food crisis
The world has enormous reserve capacity in food production to deal with the current food crisis. But this potential has been held back too long by agricultural protectionism in developed economies and, more recently, by export restrictions imposed in some less developed countries.
Monday 02 June 2008
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FOOD PRICES RISE, CANADIAN CREDIBILITY FALLS
CBC News: Sunday Night opened last night’s show with a look ahead to Tuesday’s meeting of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome to discuss what the group has called “the worst food crisis in forty years” and an “invisible emergency” that demands the attention of the world’s richest nations. In the face of rising food prices around the globe, critics have slammed the apparent inability of world leaders to address the needs of people who are starving, malnourished, and dying every day. The current crisis has been spurred by a perfect storm of high commodity prices—oil, of course—around the world, bad harvests and weather, increased bio-fuel production, and slanted trade policies that have left millions hungry—more than 850 million, according to the UN—in less developed nations. UN World Food Program spokeswoman Brenda Barton said that budgets are tight and money is drastically needed to meet the basic needs of the poorest people in the world. Meanwhile, the Globe’s editorial board laments the hypocrisy of the Canadian position on the global food trade. While Ottawa “has laudably earmarked short-term funding to buy food for the hungry,” the editorial reads, the feds have no long-term vision to help the crisis. The government is telling the World Trade Organization it wants to protect Canadian farmers from low prices (by exerting control over those prices), all the while using more and more crops for bio-fuel production, a policy that may be seen as frivolous in light of the food crisis. The Star wades into the debate, saying that the current food crisis “reflects the world’s failure to respect, protect and fulfill the human right to adequate food.” Writers Stuart Clark and Cathleen Kneen, both involved in Canadian food-security NGOs, call for a moratorium on bio-fuel development, more support for farmers in the developing world, and a renewed trade regime that treats those farmers fairly.
Nick Taylor-Vaiseyis an Ottawa-based MediaScout writer for Maisonneuve Magazine.
Thursday 29 May 2008 UN warns about higher food costs
Expect higher food prices and volatile commodity markets, says a report by the UN's food organisation.
Causes of Food Borne Illness Many people have had foodborne illness and not even known it. It’s sometimes called food poisoning, and it can feel like the flu. Symptoms may include the following: stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever.
Friday 23 May 2008 Has “a dollar a day” had its day?
Clean-energy research firm New Energy Finance has waded into the "food versus fuel" debate and finds that oil is a bigger factor in rising food prices than biofuels.
New Energy Finance, which will release its report Tuesday, also finds that changing food patterns around the world, growing population, and rising input costs, such as fertilizers, are contributing to upward pressure on food prices.
Wednesday 21 May 2008 New Trend in Biofuels Has New Risks
Many crops that could be used to make biofuels without driving up food prices are invasive species, scientists say.
ROME — In the past year, as the diversion of food crops like corn and palm to make biofuels has helped to drive up food prices, investors and politicians have begun promoting newer, so-called second-generation biofuels as the next wave of green energy. These, made from non-food crops like reeds and wild grasses, would offer fuel without the risk of taking food off the table, they said.
The price of wheat and corn crops have escalated to record highs
Global food prices may have shown some signs of stabilising, according to the United Nations.
But it has not stopped large numbers of investors from piling into food commodities and options traded in the City of London and other financial centres around the world.
So much so that some farmers and foreign governments are putting the blame firmly on speculators for at least some of the 40% year on year price gain for staples like wheat, soya and maize.
World Hunger
There is much talk but seemingly little action on world hunger. In addition to the effect of government policies favouring supply control marketing and international trade of farm produce, there is the issue of domestic animal feed. Cattle are naturally herbivores, but are fed grain because it is less expensive than sending them to pasture. Thirty -seven percent of grain produced is said to go to feed livestock with indifference to their natural biological needs, in order to provide relatively inexpensive meat. Ultimately, our patterns of consumption are unsustainable without further adversely further affecting the survival of the population of have-not nations.
In less than two weeks the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will meet in Bonn. One of the principal topics is Biodiversity & Agriculture, with biofuels a key agenda item, reflecting the change in international views on what was not long ago considered a viable solution to the world’s dependence on oil. Since that early euphoria, intense criticism of some biofuel production has been followed by even harsher denunciation of the changes brought to agriculture - and thus to the world’s food supply. [Editor’s note: A vivid example is the story by AFP that Myanmar is struggling to feed its people in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis — in part because the regime has been forcing some farmers to stop growing rice in a plan to produce biofuel instead.]
Top U.N. human rights forum to examine food crisis
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, May 9 (Reuters) - The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session on May 23 to examine how the world’s food crisis is undermining the right to food for millions of people, officials said on Friday.
Myanmar News Agency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
An aerial view of a town in the southern Irrawaddy Delta region of Myanmar that was devastated by the cyclone More Photos >
May 10
Wednesday 07 May 2008
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GHRELIN GETS WHAT IT WANTS
CTV News fronts, while The National and the Star go inside with a hormone, produced by the stomach, that tricks you into eating more by making food look especially delectable. A new study, published in the May issue of Cell Metabolism, suggests that ghrelin, a hormone that triggers hunger in humans, causes the brain to react to images of food in much the same way as it does when drug addicts look forward to their next fix. McGill University researchers found that ghrelin not only regulates appetite, as previously thought, but also triggers the brain’s pleasure centres, indicating that high-calorie food has addictive potential. According to CTV News, the evolutionary purpose of the hormone was to guide humans in choosing food based on appearance when options were scarce. However, ghrelin was not meant for the age of twenty-four-hour convenience stores and abundant, tantalizing food images in the media, the combination of which seems to be encouraging people to eat more than they should, which leads to obesity and other health problems. The study suggests possible treatments for obesity (blocking the hormone) and anorexia (increasing it), but researchers warn that mood disorders can be serious and unpredictable when messing with the brain’s pleasure centres.
Jordan Himelfarb is a Quebec City-based MediaScout writer for Maisonneuve Magazine.
Friday 02 May 2008
Bush offers $770m for food crisis
George W Bush offers $770m (£390m) in new international food aid to help ease the effects of surging food prices.
Friday 02 May 2008 OTTAWA: COMMONS VOTES FOR BIOFUEL
Members of Parliament have voted in second reading for a bill that would empower the government to impose mandatory amounts of biofuel in gasoline and diesel fuel. The governing Conservative and the Liberals and Bloc Québécois voted for the measure. The legislation will now go to third and final reading in the House of Commons. If the bill becomes law, the Conservatives would be enabled to fulfil a campaign promise to require that all fuel contain five per cent biofuel. Biofuel supporters says it's environmentally friendly and a partial solution to global warming. Critics blame biofuel for the global rise in food prices.
Thursday May 1, 2008 Canada boosts food aid by $50 million
Canada will bump its international food aid by $50 million this year in response to a "silent tsunami...With the extra $50 million, Canada's total food aid contribution for this year will be $231 million. This includes $160 million directed to Africa, as part of Canada's G8 commitment to double aid to the continent.
Wednesday 30 April 2008 On the brink?
Wheat price crisis threatens to further destabilise Afghanistan
Afghans struggle as food prices soar
A severe food crisis in Afghanistan - caused by rising wheat prices - threatens to further destabilise an already deeply troubled country, writes the BBC's Alastair Leithead in Kabul.
Qamair says prices were not this bad even during the war
Inside a small mud house in the communal garden of a block of flats, Qamair Gul is hunched over a bread oven, her eyes streaming from the thick smoke bellowing out from the scrap-wood fire she uses to cook.
Two women in blue burkas sit inside watching as she kneads the dough and slaps and stretches it into the characteristic shape of Afghan bread before sticking it to the side of the oven to bake.
Qamair is a war widow - there are tens of thousands of women like her in Kabul - who make a few pence cooking bread for the poor.
In the last few weeks her workload has halved as the price of wheat has doubled.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 OTTAWA: FOOD CRISIS SEEN ARRIVING IN CANADA
The Bank of Nova Scotia predicts that high food prices will soon be prevalent in Canada as they are elsewhere in the world. Until now, the country has been spared the food crisis that has raged in much of the developing world because of the strong Canadian currency which shields Canada because commodities like grain, fuel and fertilizer are priced in U.S. dollars. Consumers also have benefited from competition among grocery chain. But Derek Holt, the vice-president at Scotia Capital Economic and the author of the report, says the country won't be able to escape an international trend indefinitely and that some key categories of food have already begun to rise in price. Mr. Holt says Canadians' spending habits will change when they have to spend dozens or hundreds of dollars a month on "basic groceries, home heating and gasoline costs." The economist predicts that the result will not be inflation but rather lower prices for everything except food and energy.
Rising food prices are worrying governments across the world
Key United Nations development agencies are meeting in Switzerland to try to develop solutions to ease the escalating global food crisis.
Led by secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, officials want to mitigate the impact of the steep rise in staple food prices and prevent food shortages worsening.
The World Food Programme (WFP) says an extra 100 million people cannot afford enough food because of higher prices.
Monday Apr 28, 2008 Higher prices for food, fuel raise D-word
Professional economy watchers say there's "a material risk" the federal government could find itself...
"It wouldn't take much to put them back into deficit," said Don Drummond, chief economist at TD Bank. "But I think you've got to keep it in perspective. We're not talking like 1992 or 1993 all over again. It would be fairly small."
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has vowed that Ottawa will not go into deficit and will continue to be able to balance its books.
Saturday 26 April 2008 UNITED NATIONS
The secretary general of the United Nations says rising food prices have become a global crisis. Ban Ki-moon is urging immediate action to curb the steeply-rising cost of food. The World Food Program says the UN agency faces a 40 per cent increase in the cost of food. THE WFP has issued an appeal for food aid to help countries deal with the increase. Meanwhile, Cameroun has launched an emergency plan to raise food production. Several West African and neighbouring states including Gabon, Senegal, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea and Mauritania have taken steps aimed at combating rising food prices.
Saturday 26 April 2008 OTTAWA: CANADA TO RESPOND TO WORLD FOOD CRISIS
The Canadian Press reports that Canada could double the aid that it contributes to the UN World Food Program in response to the worsening international crisis caused by soaring food prices. An unnamed federal official has told the agency that Bev Oda, the minister responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency, will make a "significant" announcement early next week in reaction to an appeal by the UN for help. The source said that the announcement will place Canada's food aid contribution for 2008 beyond what was given in the previous year. The UN has set a deadline of May 1 for receiving $755 million in emergency food aid pledges. Canada is pledged to provide the WFP with the dollar equivalent of 420,000 metric tonnes of wheat annually. The country has failed to live up to the promise in four of the past eight years but exceeded its commitment in the last two years.
Students from Charlotin Marcadieu school have lunch near Port-au Prince. France provides support for school food programs in Haiti.
THONY BELIZAIRE, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Acute hunger and the rising cost of living could send a new wave of boat people from Haiti, where rising...
World hunger pangs
Pictures of hunger usually show passive eyes and swollen bellies. The harvest fails because of war or strife; the onset of crisis is sudden and localized. Its burden falls on those already at the margin.
Tuesday 22 April 2008 Leaders warn on biofuels and food
Two Latin American leaders speak out against biofuels, as a London meeting prepares to assess EU policy on the issue.
Mideast Facing Choice Between Crops and Water Monday 21 July 2008 
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