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ROME (AFP) – World food production must increase by 70 percent by 2050, to nourish a human population then likely to be 9.1 billion, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation forecast Wednesday. "FAO is cautiously optimistic about the world's potential to feed itself by 2050," said FAO Assistant Director-General Hafez Ghanem. However, he stressed that feeding everyone in the world by then "will not be automatic and several significant challenges have to be met." The agency is preparing for a high-level expert forum in Rome on October 12-13 on "How to Feed the World in 2050" and plans to gather...

Executive Summary The United Nations is celebrating its 40th anniversary amid much hoopla and endless expressions of goodwill. Last month dozens of heads of state descended on New York for the opening of the 40th session of the General Assembly; scores more are expected for the official commemorative festivities the week of October 21. Despite widespread and withering criticism of the institution in recent years--in September Singapore's foreign minister, Suppiah Dhanabalan, told the General Assembly that the UN's prestige "is at an all time low"[1]--hope burns eternal. Austrian ambassador Thomas Klestil recently reaffirmed his nation's support for the international body:...

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Jacques Diouf charged that “Americans grow fat while the world starves” and demanded a “redistribution of food.” The problem stems from capitalism, Diouf said. “Under capitalism, pure greed runs rampant,” he asserted. “Food that should be going to the undernourished poor in the Third World is being sold to obese Americans for profit.” Diouf suggested that world hunger could be ended if food were parceled out based on need. “Everyone should get the food he needs, whether he is able to pay for it or not,” Diouf declared. “Those who are able to...

UN food chief roasts 'overfed' West 3/06/2008 9:51:00 PM. UN food agency chief Jacques Diouf said today that billions of dollars are being wasted on feeding obese people in the West while millions starve around the world. "No one understands... how over-consumption by obese people in the world costs $20 billion each year," the head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation told an international summit on the food price crisis. On top of this, he added, there are "$100 billion in indirect costs resulting from premature deaths and associated diseases." Diouf also highlighted how an estimated $1.2 trillion was spent...

While Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has tried to keep a low profile thus far, he and his entourage have finally emerged into the spotlight from the five-star Ambasciatore, one of Rome's finest hotels.The restaurant reputedly serves up the very best of Italian cuisine and the wine-cellar is stocked to meet the requirements of the most discerning palates. But whatever Mr Mugabe and his hand-picked delegation are enjoying, there is no doubt that for the next few days they will be living the sort of life the average Zimbabwean can only dream of. His companions are acutely aware of how this looks....

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he is moving "at full speed" pushing efforts to tackle the world food crisis. Ban said he will hold the first meeting of his recently formed United Nations task force on food next Monday. He also said he is sending invitations to all world leaders to join him at a high-level meeting to work out a strategy for addressing food shortages and soaring prices. The conference, organized by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, will be June 3-5 in Rome. "This crisis did not come out of the blue," Ban told...

LONDON (Reuters) - Food trade liberalization in developing countries can hurt attempts to alleviate poverty and damage the environment, according to a report from a United Nations and World Bank sponsored group issued on Tuesday. "Opening national markets to international competition can offer economic benefits but can lead to long term negative effects on poverty alleviation, food security and the environment without basic national institutions and infrastructure being place," the report said. Sixty governments, including Brazil, China, France and India, have approved the report. The U.S., Australia and Canada are due to submit reservations later this week while Britain have...

BRASILIA (Reuters) - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defended Brazil's production of biofuels on Wednesday, rejecting criticism that they are furthering a surge in global food prices and harming the environment. "Don't tell me, for the love of God, that food is expensive because of biodiesel. Food is expensive because the world wasn't prepared to see millions of Chinese, Indians, Africans, Brazilians and Latin Americans eat," Lula told reporters. "We want to discuss this not with passion but rationality and not from the European point of view." His comments follow a week of protests in Brazil and Europe against...

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Foods riots in Haiti and elsewhere are a wake-up call for the world to fight harder against poverty and reduce agricultural trade barriers, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday. "It was necessary to watch dramatic scenes for the international community to wake up to the urgency of finding a definitive solution to the challenge of poverty," Lula said during a lunch with visiting Indian President Pratibha Patil. Protests in Haiti over high prices for rice, beans and other staples ousted the government on Saturday. Rising food prices showed that the world "was poorly...

U.N. Conference Promotes Insect-Eating for Everyone From Famine Victims to Astronauts Sunday , February 24, 2008 CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Crickets, caterpillars and grubs are high in protein and minerals and could be an important food source during droughts and other emergencies, according to scientists. •Photos: Mmm! Bugs for Dinner "I definitely think they can assist," said German biologist V.B. Meyer-Rochow, who regularly eats insects and wore a T-shirt with a Harlequin longhorn beetle to a U.N.-sponsored conference this month on promoting bugs as a food source. Three dozen scientists from 15 countries gathered in this northern Thailand city, home...

ROME (AFP) - Despite projections of a bumper grain crop this year, 33 countries will not have enough food, with Iraq and Zimbabwe among the hardest hit, the UN food agency said Tuesday. Countries with "widespread lack of access to food" include Afghanistan, North Korea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Liberia, Mauritania, Nepal, Niger and Sierra Leone, according to the April issue of the Food and Agriculture Organisations "Crop Prospects and Food Situation" report. Hardest hit, with an "exceptional shortfall" in food production and supplies, are Iraq, Lesotho, the Philippines, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, the FAO said. In eastern Africa, millions "still depend...

Migrating wild birds have played and will likely continue to play a role in transporting highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, or bird flu, over long distances. This was among the main conclusions of a two-day international scientific conference called by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). But the conference, attended by over 300 scientists from more than 100 countries also recognized that the virus was mainly spread through poultry trade, both legal and illegal. "Several presentations at the Conference, some supported by recent publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, implicated wild birds...

United Nations: The world body this week invited Zimbabwe's dictator, who starves his own people for political purposes, to its World Food Day — where he compared President Bush to Hitler. We kid you not. ... Also on hand at the celebration was Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, who used the occasion to accuse the U.S. and our allies of threatening "all life on the planet." Chavez praised Mugabe's policies, and said Venezuela was enacting similar "reforms." Mugabe and Chavez were photographed embracing happily, like the two birds of a feather they are.

ROME (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Monday railed against U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling them "unholy men" and "international terrorists" bent on world domination. Mugabe departed from his text at a ceremony for the 60th anniversary of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to accuse Bush and Blair of illegally invading Iraq and looking to unseat governments elsewhere. "Must we allow these men, the two unholy men of our millennium, who in the same way as Hitler and Mussolini formed (an) unholy alliance ... to attack an innocent country?"...

ROME: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe denounced US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as “unholy men” on Monday, comparing them to fascist leaders trying to dominate the world. Speaking at 60th anniversary celebrations of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Mugabe said the United States and Britain had illegally invaded Iraq and were looking to change governments in other countries. “Must we allow these men, the two unholy men of our millennium, who in the same way as Hitler and Mussolini formed (an) unholy alliance, formed an alliance to attack an innocent country?” Mugabe...

The United States has expressed "amazement" at a United Nations invitation to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to address a hunger conference in Rome on Monday to mark the 60th anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). "I find it amazing they've invited Mr Mugabe to speak at the 60th anniversary, who in a way has done so much to hurt the hungry, and who has absolutely turned his back on the poor," said Tony Hall, US ambassador to the UN food agencies in Rome. "I find it amazing. What can he possibly say to us at the conference, when...

Denis Boyles is a must read to follow the ongoing hypocrisy of our "allies" in Europe. He is also wicked funny.

The way in which scientific endeavors are pursued globally is marked by clear inequalities, said United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in a recent editorial. Noting that developing countries spend much less on scientific research and produce fewer scientists, Annan warned that this unbalanced distribution creates problems for both the scientific community in developing countries and for development itself. He further urged scientists and scientific institutions around the world to resolve this inequity and bring the benefits of science to all. How humanitarian. How enlightened. How hypocritical. In fact, for a large portion of the world's population, the U.N.'s wanton...

<p>FAO Schwarz's high-profile San Francisco toy store near Union Square will close in early 2003, the manager of the store said Tuesday -- a day after its troubled parent company said it could close as many as 70 stores by late March.</p>

http://www.bushcountry.org/news/columnists/acaruba/c_060502_acaruba.htm Saving Fat People From Themselves By Alan Caruba Let's forget about cholera, typhoid fever and malaria, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) and its Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has now set its eyes on saving fat people from themselves. A case is being made is that obesity is not only a health threat to those who are too fat, but that various restrictions must be imposed on everything from soda to snack foods to save the rest of us from possibly becoming fat. Fat as defined by the UN, of course. And who shall we accuse of this...