Most Americans are unaware of the mounting global food crisis.  The following was taken from an article in YES magazine examining the root cause of the eruption of violence in Tunisia and Egypt.

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In many of these countries, certainly in both Tunisia and Egypt, tensions have simmered for years. The trigger, it seems, came in the form of food shortages caused by the record high global prices reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in December 2010. The return of high food prices two to three years after the 2008 global food crisis should not be a surprise. For most of the preceding decade, world grain consumption exceeded production—correlating with agricultural land productivity declining almost by half from 1990–2007, compared with 1950–1990.

This year, global food supply chains were again “stretched to the limit” following poor harvests in Canada, Russia and Ukraine; hotter, drier weather in South America cutting soybean production; flooding in Australia, wiping out its wheat crops; not to mention the colder, stormier, snowier winters experienced in the northern hemisphere, damaging harvests.

So much of the current supply shortages have been inflicted by increasingly erratic weather events and natural disasters, which climate scientists have long warned are symptomatic of anthropogenic global warming. Droughts exacerbated by global warming in key food-basket regions have already led to a 10–20 percent drop in rice yields over the last decade. By mid-century, world crop yields could fall as much as 20–40 percent due to climate change alone.

But climate change is likely to do more than generate droughts in some regions. It is also linked to the prospect of colder weather in the eastern United States, east Asia, and northern Europe—as the rate of Arctic summer sea ice is accelerating, leading to intensifying warming, the change in atmospheric pressure pushes cold Arctic air to the south. Similarly, even the floods in Australia could be linked to climate change. Scientists agree they were caused by a particularly strong El Niño/La Niña oscillation in the Tropical Pacific ocean-atmospheric system. But Michael McPhaden, co-author of a recent scientific study on the issue, suggests that recently stronger El Niño events are “plausibly the result of global warming.”

The global food situation has been compounded by the over-dependence of industrial agriculture on fossil fuels, consuming ten calories of fossil fuel energy for every one calorie of food energy produced. The problem is that global conventional oil production has most likely already peaked, having been on an undulating plateau since 2005—and forecast to steadily and inexorably decline, leading to higher prices. Although oil prices dropped after the 2008 crash due to recession, the resuscitation of economic activity has pushed up demand, leading fuel prices to creep back up to $95 a barrel.

The fuel price hikes, combining with the predatory activities of financial speculators trying to rake in profits by investing in the commodity markets, have underpinned worldwide inflation. Just as in 2008, the worst effected have been the poorer populations of the South. Thus, the eruption of political unrest in Egypt and elsewhere cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the context of accelerating ecological, energy and economic crises—inherently interconnected problems which are symptomatic of an Empire in overstretch, a global political economy in breach of the natural limits of its environment.

Did you ever wonder if Cheez Whiz was real food?

One of my favorite “foodie” web pages, Summer Tomato, was created by Darya Pino who has a PhD in neuroscience from UC San Francisco and also writes for several publications including The Huffington Post, SF Weekly, KQED Science and Edible San Francisco.  Her latest post proposes a slightly “tongue in cheek” method for determining if the food you are buying is real food!   She calls it her supermarket GPS.

Of course, you won’t need it if you shop at your local farmers market! And by the way, if you run Cheez Whiz through the test – it fails!

Have fun……

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization announced this week that food prices hit a record high last month.

According to the United Nations, food prices in December were close to the crisis levels that provoked shortages and riots in poor countries three years ago.  The reasons according to experts vary, but no one seems to deny that rising energy costs and erratic climate are among the primary causes.  Neither of these impacts are likely to improve.  Coupled with economic stress, this “perfect storm” requires a response.  While policy solutions are much needed, it is important for individuals and families to take action!

It seems to me like a good time to start growing your own food.  Economists predict the biggest impact on food costs in the U.S. is likely to be on meat and egg prices, which depend heavily on grain for feed.

For some background info on raising your own hens (for eggs of course), see Homes for Hens. And for more on diy food, go to my main page Just Food Now.

There are lots of reasons to start thinking about starting our own garden.  Perhaps you can even contribute to “saving the planet” by growing your own food.

Don’t miss the showing of In Transition on Sunday, January 16, 4 p.m. at the First Congregational Church; 165 Main St., Amherst MA.  Discussion • Refreshments • Suggested donation: $5

Join us for the first detailed film about the Transition move­ment, filmed by those who are  making it hap­pen. The Transition move­ment is about  commun­ities around the world re­sponding to peak oil sup­ply, climate change, and economic instability with creativity,  imagination and  humor.  It shows com­munities rebuilding their local economies, food supply, transportation, ener­gy-generation, and health care. The film is positive, solutions-focused  and fun.

For more information or snow-date, call Betsy Krogh, 413-549-2846

Call Your Senators Today
To Defend Family Farms and Local and Regional Food Systems

Debate and voting on The Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) is set to begin on the Senate floor on November 17th. The bill takes important steps to improve corporate food safety rules but it is not appropriate for small farms and food processors that sell to restaurants, food coops, groceries, schools, wholesalers and at farm stands and farmers markets.

Two amendments will be offered when S. 510 comes to the floor and both are essential to protecting the supply of locally grown food.

Please call your Senators and ask them to:

•    Vote for the Manager’s Amendment
•    Vote for the Tester-Hagan Amendment

It’s easy to call: Go to Congress.org and type in your zip code.  Click on your Senator’s name, and then on the contact tab for their phone number.  You can also call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121.

For more information on the bill and the amendments go to Nefood Alerts!

Thanks to NEFOOD for keeping us all informed.

A resolution written by the newly created U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance begins with the statement …

“…over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt—in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of “making salt” has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement— one that spans the globe—seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.”

A thousand activists representing family farms, and environmental, faith-based,  anti-hunger and poverty groups met recently in New Orleans to create the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance. The Alliance reminds us that “misguided policies and the recent sharp rise in food prices have left one billion people around the world facing hunger and food insecurity.” They state that volatility in the financial system puts many people the U.S. at risk as well, and they call for a movement to fix our broken food system.

The recent announcement by the Walmart Corporation that they intend to invest in sustainable agriculture and local food systems might worry some of us interested in food sovereignty.  I wrote about my own concerns recently.

Peter Rossett, speaking at Mt. Holyoke College this week reported that “the only real solution to helping small farmers, he said, lies in the concept of food sovereignty, a term first coined by a movement called La Via Campesina, or The Farmers’ Way – a grassroots coalition of small farmers, peasants, rural workers and indigenous communities in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe.”

For students interested in understanding this global problem for which sustainable agriculture is the solution, check out our program at UMass.

And to be kept informed about local activities, join the Facebook group Just Food Now in Western Massachusetts.

Vladimir Lenin, King Tut and the McDonald’s Happy Meal: What do they all have in common? A shocking resistance to Mother Nature’s cycle of decomposition and biodegradability, apparently.

According to Brett Michael Dykes “that’s the disturbing point brought home by the latest project of New York City-based artist and photographer Sally Davies, who bought a McDonald’s Happy Meal back in April and left it out in her kitchen to see how well it would hold up over time.

The results? “The only change that I can see is that it has become hard as a rock,” Davies told the U.K. Daily Mail.

She proceeded to photograph the Happy Meal each week and posted the pictures to Flickr to record the results of her experiment. Now, just over six months later, the Happy Meal has yet to even grow mold. She told the Daily Mail that “the food is plastic to the touch and has an acrylic sheen to it.”

Pretty impressive, huh?  Still “lovin it?”