Prime Time Crime
Global Food Crisis
The report, published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, projects that prices for cereals could jump as much as 20% in the next ten years, and meats as much as 30%. (CTV) REPORT: Agricultural outlook 2011-2020 .pdf
LONDON - Britain’s most powerful grain company jointly owned by Cargill and Associated British Foods bought and took delivery of all the available UK feed wheat last month. (Bureau) Frontier Agriculture
LONDON - The food industry has been criticized for being secretive about its use of nanotechnology by the UK's House of Lords Science and Technology Committee. (BBC) Nanotechnologies and food Project on emerging nanotechnologies
Drought-stricken Ethiopia is pleading for food aid again to stave off starvation, but some critics are complaining that the policies of the country's most generous donor, the US, is exacerbating the cycle of starvation. (ABC) REPORT: Band aids and beyond GAO: addressing international food aid Band-Aids insufficient Oxfam
Graft could trigger food crisis
Cameroon faces a food crisis this year as corruption in the impoverished nation’s Agriculture Ministry worsens a shortfall in maize supply. Some $4.3M of state subsidies aimed at raising production of maize, a staple food for Cameroonians, was embezzled by ministry officials through fictitious farmers groups, the government anti-corruption commission said in a report leaked to the media. (AFP) RELATED: Guatemala declares hunger crisis
Rising prices tip another 75M towards starvation
ROME - Global numbers afflicted by acute hunger rose from 850 million to 925 million by the start of 2008 because of rising prices, the head of the UN Food & Agriculture Organization said. (AFP)
PARIS - Such are the famed historic excesses of Europe's infamous CAP - Common Agricultural Policy - an unutterably complex array of often-wayward subsidies, price controls and tariffs by which the European Union nurtures its farming sector. (Toronto Star) PREVIOUS: Greed & Corruption: EU
Asian parasite killing honeybees
MADRID - A parasite common in Asian bees has spread to Europe and the Americas and is behind the mass disappearance of honeybees in many countries, says a Spanish scientist who has been studying the phenomenon for years. The culprit is a microscopic parasite called nosema ceranae. (Reuters) PREVIOUS: Why are bees dying? Colony Collapse Disorder
Virus blamed for collapse of American bee colonies
Japan lab may have induced mad cow infection
TOKYO - The Hokkaido Animal Research Centre in northern Japan injected prions from infected cows into the brains of 14 Holstein calves in 2004 and some in the first group have developed what seems to be early symptoms of the mad cow disease, said Tsutomu Ogi, director of the institute's livestock engineering section. (AP)
A third or more of all the honey consumed in the US is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. (Food Safety News) Honey
PORT-AU-PRINCE - The earthquake not only smashed markets, collapsed warehouses and left more than 2.5M people without enough to eat. It may also have shaken up the way the developing world gets food. (AP) MORE: Chile: 342 dead, $2.8B needed Haiti: 222,000+ dead, $11.4B needed 827M slum-dweller worldwide
WASHINGTON - An industry-funded food labeling program was halted just days after US officials warned they were investigating if nutrition claims on the front of packages were misleading. The Smart Choices Program said it would "voluntarily postpone active operations and not encourage wider use of the logo at this time by either new or currently enrolled companies." (Reuters)
Hunger 'kills 17,000 children per day'
ROME - Somewhere in the world, a child dies of hunger every five seconds - even though the planet has more than enough food for all. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, laid out the sobering statistic as he kicked off a three-day summit on world food security in Rome on Monday. "Today, more than 1 billion people are hungry," he told the assembled leaders. Six million children die of hunger every year - 17,000 every day, he said. (CNN) MORE: Ethiopia tries to cover up new famine UN food shift World summit on food security Global hunger worsening 2009 global hunger index
Another success for regulators
WASHINGTON - In September, the price dairy farmers received for 100 pounds of milk was $11.90, according to the US Department of Agriculture, down from a high of $19.50 in June 2008. (LA Times) MORE: Milk prices turn sour Dairy farmers killing cows as milk prices sink
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian. The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body. (Guardian UK)
Floods feed grain price inflation
CHICAGO - Beyond the short-term losses from physical damage and lost business, the worst flood to hit the US breadbasket in 15 years has added momentum to the recent surge in food prices worldwide. (MSNBC)
PREVIOUS: Flooding in Midwest Flood news from around the state
UK supermarkets 'fixed milk & cheese prices'
LONDON - Five of Britain's biggest supermarkets have been fixing the prices of milk, butter and cheese at a cost to the consumer of £270 million, according to the Office of Fair Trading. Asda, Morrisons, Safeway, Sainsbury's and Tesco colluded with five leading dairy producers to keep prices artificially high, the OFT claimed this morning. (Telegraph UK) RELATED: Canadian regulators want to regulate cheese Cheesed off Government's cheese plan stinks
Dietary supplements face stricter regulations
WASHINGTON - For the first time, makers of dietary supplements, including vitamins and herbal pills, will be required to test their products, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday. (MSNBC) PREVIOUS: Trucker's death uncovers drug in herbal remedy
A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs "Top Five Risks" conference. (Telegraph UK)
RELATED: California is in a drought
LOS ANGELES - Southern California meatpacker United Food Group LLC expanded a recall to include 5.7 million pounds of fresh and frozen beef that may be contaminated with the potentially deadly E. coli bacteria, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Saturday. (MSNBC)
MOGADISHU - Tens of thousands of famine-stricken Somali refugees were cold and drenched after torrential rains pounded their makeshift structures overnight into early Sunday in the capital, leading to appeals for aid. (AP)
Famine has killed tens of thousands
Why India can't feed her people
World's population soon to hit 7B
Latest generation will live 20 years longer than their grandparents
The FAO Food Price Index, which measures the wholesale price of basic foods within a basket, averaged 231 points last month, up by 3.4% from December (BBC)
BERLIN - More than 4,700 farms have been temporarily closed in Germany as a result of a feed contamination scare. (Spiegel)
Germany halts poultry, pork, egg sales
Report: Chickens getting dirtier
NEW YORK - Fresh chickens we buy in stores are more laden with potentially harmful bacteria than they were three years ago, according to Consumer Reports. "We've got a very dirty industry out there," Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist at the magazine, said on The Early Show Tuesday. "Part of the problem has to do with the inspection system, not testing for enough bacteria. It's simply faulty." (CBS)
Aqualfina labels to spell out source
NEW YORK - PepsiCo Inc. will spell out that its Aquafina bottled water is made with tap water, a concession to the growing environmental and political opposition to the bottled water industry. According to Corporate Accountability International, a US watchdog group, the world's No. 2 beverage company will include the words "Public Water Source" on Aquafina labels. (Reuters)
Food imports 'to top $1 trillion'
The amount of money being spent globally on importing food is set to top $1 trillion in 2008, an influential report estimates. Soaring food prices are the cause of the huge bill - likely to be up 26% on the 2007 total - said the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). (BBC)
Food prices to stay high despite record crops
Blame Wall Street for $135 oil
OPEC 2013 break-even point $70 a barrel
Commodity markets Institutional investor Hedge funds Pension funds
Famine Early Warning Systems Network
UN warns about higher food costs
Abolish wasteful world food body
UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
UN food body 'should be scrapped'
Bush seeks $770M more in World Food Aid
Canada earmarks $230M for food aid
Some traditions die
BANGKOK - Every Wednesday for as far back as anybody can remember, a small group of businessmen has met for lunch down a leafy lane in central Bangkok before sitting down to set world rice prices. It may have been only an "indicative" level, but few countries or exporters could risk deviating too far from the benchmark set by the big hitters of Thailand's Rice Exporters Association, the guardians of nearly a third of all the rice to be traded globally.
Rice price surge frustrates and puzzles
Fears mount as rice prices soar
Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC)
'Time bomb' for world wheat crop
Asia's rice crisis goes global
United Nations world food program
Food costs threaten world's political stability
Hungry crowds spell trouble for world leaders
Hike in world prices sparks deadly riots
The new global menace: food inflation
Government falls after food riots
Death roll raises in Haiti food protests
Haitians riot over food prices
No progress in fight against hunger, UN says
OK, Sister, drop that sandwich
Hunger costs millions of lives & billions of $s
Little progress in fighting world hunger
'No drop' in world hunger deaths
The state of food insecurity in the world 2006