Global News Journal

from Environment Forum:

Food for thought

Feeling hungry? Maybe that's because of all the news, from around the world, about food today -- how much people produce, how much more they need, how much it's going to cost, how much of an effect it will have on climate change, and vice versa.

Starting in Washington, the U.S. Agriculture Department reported that American stockpiles of corn and soybeans will shrink to surprisingly low levels this year, which sent grain prices soaring to 30-month highs. Bad weather in places like Australia and rising world demand led by China are partly responsible for cutting crop inventories around the globe.

There's actually encouraging news on the food front from south Sudan, where citizens are voting now to become an independent nation. While much of Africa is under intense pressure to provide food for its people, the U.N. World Food Programme says south Sudan could become a food exporter and end its chronic food dependency within a decade. But immediately after the vote, this area is likely to need more food aid, according to the U.N.

In India, food inflation rose for the fifth straight week to the highest level in more than a year, part of a trend of rising food prices across Asia. In India's case, the price of staples like onions and tomatoes have political heft and are a major voter issue in advance of state elections there.

Back in the United States, two reports offer food for thought, or at least some interesting thoughts on food. The Worldwatch Institute, which puts together an annual "state of the world" report, focuses this year on agricultural innovation as the key to cutting poverty and stabilizing the climate. Looking at sub-Saharan Africa, where 239 million of the world's 925 million hungry people live, Worldwatch advocates building up soil and water (not just donating seeds for planting), using existing food more effectively, and thinking about the global climate impact of growing food. "African farmers could remove 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next 50 years, primarily by planting trees among crops and stewarding nearby forests," the report says, warding off "disastrous climate change."

Environmental analyst Lester Brown worries that this change is already imminent. Talking to reporters about his new book, "World on the Edge," Brown talked of a potential "food bubble" caused by over-use of natural water supplies and an over-plowing of soil. "When the food bubble bursts, we will see rises in food prices," Brown said in a telephone briefing. "No one knows how much they will rise and exactly when a big jump will come."

Still hungry? Perhaps for some fish? The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told Congress today that six nations -- Colombia, Ecuador, Italy, Panama, Portugal and Venezuela -- have fishing vessels that engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the last two years.

Can export bans be challenged at the WTO?

Russia’s ban on grain exports as a heat wave parches crops in the world’s third biggest wheat exporter has raised questions whether such export curbs break World Trade Organization rules. Russia is not a member of the WTO, and it remains to be seen how its new grain policy will affect its 17-year-old bid to join. But other grain exporters, such as Ukraine, which is also considering export curbs, are part of the global trade referee.

WTO rules are quite clear that members cannot interfere with imports and exports in a way that disrupts trade or discriminates against other members. But in practice most WTO rules aim to stop countries blocking imports – shutting out competitor’s goods to give their own domestic producers an unfair advantage.

EU asks public what it thinks of CAP reform

The European Commission’s agriculture department launched a public debate this week on the future reform of Europe’s common agricultural policy (CAP) from 2014. It wants everyone – not just farmers and politicians – to have their say on how the European Union should support agricultural production.

It’s odd then that the only question that’s off limits in the debate, according to EU Farm Commissioner Dacian Ciolos, is the one on everybody’s lips: how much taxpayers’ money should the CAP get?

The bloc’s farm budget is worth about €50 billion a year, or 40 percent of the EU’s total annual spending, and the political pressure to reduce it has never been greater.

As well as the squeeze on public spending resulting from the economic crisis, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso believes his new “Europe 2020” strategy to create jobs and economic growth would be a more intelligent use of EU funds.

The Commission, the EU executive, will carry out a conceptual review of the EU budget this summer, followed by a specific spending plan for 2014-21 next summer, when its CAP reform proposals are also due. With a cut in farm spending the only likely outcome, the real question is how deep will the cut be?

In an attempt to limit the damage, Ciolos and his agriculture department want to ignore the budget issue for now and focus the debate on what the objectives of EU agricultural spending should be in the future.

It’s a clever strategy. Rather than picking a fight with his new boss over money, which he would probably lose, Ciolos wants to show how the CAP can help the EU address new challenges such as climate change, food security and rural unemployment.

Best reads of February

Exotic animals trapped in net of Mexican drug trade - From the live snakes that smugglers stuff with packets of cocaine to the white tigers drug lords keep as exotic pets, rare animals are being increasingly sucked into Mexico’s deadly narcotics trade.

End of an era for the Amazon’s turbulent priests - They avoid taking buses, make sure friends know their schedules, and rarely go out when it’s dark. For the three foreign-born Roman Catholic bishops under death threat in Brazil’s northeastern state of Para, speaking out against social ills that plague this often-lawless area at the Amazon River’s mouth has come at a price.

West risks repeating Soviet mistakes in Afghanistan - The foreign warplanes swooped in just as the Afghan village of Ali Mardan was celebrating a wedding. Bombs slammed into the crowded village square, killing 30 men, women and children. After the smoke cleared and the dead were buried, all the able-bodied men left alive took up arms against the invaders. That was 1982…

from Africa News blog:

Selling Africa by the pound

The announcement by a U.S. investor that he has a deal to lease a swathe of South Sudan for farmland has again focused attention on foreigners trying to snap up African agricultural land.

A few months ago, South Korea’s Daweoo Logistics said it had secured rights to plant corn and palm oil in an even bigger patch of Madagascar - although local authorities said the deal was not done yet. Investors from Asia and the Gulf are looking elsewhere in Africa too.

Investor interest in farmland – not only in Africa – grew sharply after food prices shot to record highs last year. Although commodity prices have fallen since, there is still anticipation of long term demand growth once the world emerges from its current economic troubles.

Philippe Heilberg, chairman and CEO of New York-based investment firm Jarch Capital, told Reuters he saw ripe opportunity for decades in south Sudan’s Mayom county. The deal covers land nearly twice the size of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.

Land is being leased from General Paulino Matip Nhial, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) - the armed wing of the ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in semi-autonomous South Sudan. Jarch Management is also buying an interest in a local company from Matip’s son.

But should Africa be handing out its land to foreign investors and will the local people and countries involved be the ones to benefit?

This commentary in the Financial Times made comparisons with the colonial grab for Africa’s resources and points out the damaging legacy that remains.