Free Republic

Henry Kissinger was reported to have said, “Control the food and you control the people.” Controlling people is as simple as controlling food, water and energy through a variety of controls. “No Farmers No Food,” the bumper sticker distributed by The Adopt a Farm Family ministry, is a message of warning. The Adopt ministry was started by Mary Myers, wife of Peter Myers, former Deputy Secretary of Agriculture who served in the Reagan Administration. She confided to me that God had instructed her to “watch over the food.” At that time there appeared to be no reason for concern. Now...

Let's suppose that people do decide to "buy local" with the goal of saving the world and reducing their carbon footprint. This will increase the demand for locally grown foods, but it will also have an unintended and likely deleterious consequence; it will increase the demand for farm implements and labor. Since the decision to buy locally is essentially the decision to forsake comparative advantage, every unit of agricultural output will be more resource intensive than it would be under specialization, division of labor, and trade. In other words, each additional unit of output will require more resources than it...

As Price of Grain Rises, Catfish Farms Dry Up By DAVID STREITFELD LELAND, Miss. — Catfish farmers across the South, unable to cope with the soaring cost of corn and soybean feed, are draining their ponds. “It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil. As for his 55 employees? “Those jobs are gone.” Corn and soybeans have nearly tripled in price...

How Gilroy turned a potent Italian bulb into a culinary staple and the country's biggest and smelliest food festivalTHIRTY YEARS AGO, a group of American food writers trooped into a packing shed at Gilroy's Christopher Ranch off Highway 101. Greeted by the pungent aroma of millions of garlic cloves being processed in the building, the journalists sat down for a garlic-laced lunch that included scampi, calamari, pasta and pepper steak. Together with the Fresh Garlic Producers Association, an industry trade group, Christopher Ranch founder and former president Don Christopher hosted the journalists to showcase Gilroy garlic. Gilroy was then the...

GENEVA (Reuters) - Record growth in the world's poorest countries has failed to prevent an increase in their total numbers of poor people, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said on Thursday. Recent rising food costs threaten to undercut what modest progress has been achieved, while three quarters of people living in least developed countries (LDCs) still survive on less than $2 a day, it said in a report. Income under $2 a day does not allow most people to meet basic needs for food, water, shelter, health or education, the Least Developed Countries Report 2008 noted. The...

It was supposed to be a healthy snack. But a bunch of cut-price supermarket grapes became poisonous after they were infested by a pair of false widow spiders. Ceri and Rose Williams suffered numbness, head aches and high blood pressure after eating the fruit they purchased in Tesco. Mr Williams, 52, and his 45-year-old wife had already started munching on the two £1 bags of fruit when they noticed that something was moving inside. A quick rummage revealed that two spiders, one alive and one dead, had already made a meal out of the Moroccan-grown grapes. Mr Williams also spotted...

** EXCERPT ** A crucial measure of inflation rose at its fastest rate in 16 years, the government said on Wednesday, just a day after the chairman of the Federal Reserve warned that inflation poses a significant risk to the nation’s economic outlook. The Consumer Price Index, which measures prices of a batch of common household products, rose 1.1 percent in June, the Labor Department said. That means inflation accelerated at nearly twice the rate in May, when the index grew 0.6 percent. It was the biggest monthly gain in the closely watched inflation indicator since June 1982. The increase...

A new, abundant and environmentally friendly source of protein is creating some buzz The world is getting hungrier. After years of falling food prices, eating is suddenly getting expensive. With price-tags now rising some 75%, the World Bank estimates that the soaring cost of food will push 100m people into poverty. What with rising fertiliser prices, increasing concerns about deforestation and unreliable rains brought on by climate change, how will we find new sources of nourishment? Scientists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico have an answer: entomophagy, or dining on insects. They claim the practice is common in some...

Air Pollution: Bovine emissions are once again the subject of scientific study. Can changing the diet of the world's livestock be the solution to greenhouse gases and global warming?To quantify yet another possible contributory source of greenhouse gas emissions, Argentine researchers at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology strapped plastic tanks to the backs of cattle to collect gas from their stomachs in what could be called a cow-talytic converter. Researcher Guillermo Berra announced that each cow produced up to a thousand liters of gas daily. Argentine scientists estimate that methane produced by Argentina's 55 million cows account for more...

Could growing fresh vegetables help save crumbling inner cities around the world and tackle hunger? ___ That is the ambitious aim of a charity called Urban Farming, which has its headquarters in Detroit, the capital of the US's wilting car industry. The idea is very simple: turn wasteland into free vegetable gardens and feed the poor people who live nearby. Motown has lost more than a million residents since its heyday in the 1950s and it is common to see downtown residential streets with just a few houses left standing. Taja Sevelle saw the hundreds of hectares of vacant land...

The recent news that Wal-Mart is planning to buy more locally sourced food could be seen as a marketing ploy by the world's largest retailer. But Wal-Mart's decision to buy local will undoubtedly have an effect on American agriculture, just because of the scope of the giant corporation. The company expects to source about $400 million in locally grown produce from U.S. farmers in 2008. Wal-Mart officials announced July 1 that they intend to buy more local fruits and vegetables to keep produce prices down and provide affordable selections that are fresh and healthful. A news release said Wal-Mart's partnership...

This week's outrage comes to us courtesy of the fringe animal "rights" group known as the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance (NJARA). We've reported before on animal "rights" groups that try to push their agenda via "educational materials" that are foisted upon our school systems. The propaganda usually consists of the same, radical, scare tactics and lies we've seen time and again and come to expect. This time, however, the NJARA has served up a version that, even by current standards, is utterly ridiculous. "The Zargon Connection" is part of NJARA's "Humane and Responsible Teachers" curriculum designed for grades pre-K...

AMSTERDAM: World Bank president Robert Zoellick said on Saturday that he expected food prices to remain above 2004 levels until at least 2012 and energy prices would also remain high and volatile. He repeated that with food and fuel prices in a "danger zone" there was a need for $10 billion to provide food and cash handouts for the world's poorest. Soaring oil and food prices have fuelled inflation across the globe at the same time as economies slow, posing a sharp dilemma for policymakers. Earlier this week, leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations in Japan agreed on...

The G8 summit may have agreed to try to cut greenhouse gas emissions - but don't count on that saving your favourite crusty French bread. German researchers have shown that high CO2 levels in the atmosphere lead to wheat crops throughout Europe with less gluten, the protein in flour that forms the gooey matrix of dough. By 2050, the researchers say, the expected CO2 levels in the atmosphere may lead to dough that rises nearly 20% less than it does now. The researchers, from the Johann Heinrich von Thunen Institute in Braunschweig , say that CO2 disrupts nitrogen uptake by...

Bread and Rosy Scenarios by: Brooke Rieder, July 10, 2008 The current food shortage has no lack of scapegoats, ranging from the newfound carnivorous habits of the Chinese, to global warming. But Finance Consultant Kel Kelly sets out to debunk these and similar theories about the food crisis in the Free Market newsletter put out by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He takes on New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, setting out to discredit Krugman’s four main causal arguments for the current food shortage, which include increased demand from China, high oil prices, bad weather, and reduced available farmland. Kelly...

Want pico de gallo on your fajita taco? You just might have to settle for chopped onion. Jalapeño and serrano chiles, as well as cilantro, have been implicated in the multistate outbreak of salmonella infections. They join the list that began with tomatoes — and all are ingredients in the enormously popular Tex-Mex relish, pico de gallo. San Antonio’s hundreds of Tex-Mex restaurateurs are faced with some important decisions this week. Blanca Aldaco, owner of two local Aldaco restaurants, said she’s not serving pico de gallo at this time. “We’re only using our cooked salsa,” she said. Tomatoes, connected with...

WASHINGTON -- More than 1,000 people have become sick in the salmonella outbreak originally blamed on tomatoes, and federal health officials now say jalapeno peppers appear more likely to be at fault, at least in three large clusters of illnesses. The outbreak has caused the death of a Texas man in his 80s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. The agency said the outbreak may also have contributed to the death of another Texas man, who had cancer. As of Tuesday, 1,017 people -- from 41 states, the District of Columbia and Canada -- had become sick...

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda. G8 leaders make a toast: The lavish dining will embarrass Mr Brown, who has made tackling the global food crisis a key priority The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use...

America's Regional Hot Dog Styles Posted by Jenn Sit, July 2, 2008 at 5:00 PM As we head into the 4th of July weekend, hot dogs are everywhere. They're on our grill and on our plates. They're on our TVs (the annual hot dog eating contest on ESPN). And this being Serious Eats, they're on our mind. Let's discuss. We bring you Serious Eats' definitive guide to America's regional hot dog styles. Sonorans (Tuscon and Phoenix, Arizona) Bacon-wrapped hot dogs are grilled, then nestled in steamed bolillo rolls and topped with pinto beans, chopped tomatoes, onions, mustard, mayo, and jalapeños....

The price of meat, milk and other British farm products will have to rise to reflect the environmental cost of producing them, a Government study has concluded.

Leaders of the G-8 nations are gathered this week in Toyako, Japan, to root out the culprits in a food crisis that has moved hundreds of millions from subsistence to starvation. They need look no further than an old group photo. The G-8 countries' interventions have distorted global agricultural markets to the paralysis point. Politicians legislate price supports to enrich farm voters. Lobbies extort tariffs to block cheap food imports and subsidies to underwrite food exports at prices that destroy competitors in poor countries. Conservationists have agitated to set aside productive land and pay farmers not to grow. And now...

rising prices and a global shortage of provisions. But yesterday the Prime Minister and other world leaders sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at a G8 summit in Japan, which is focusing on the food crisis. The dinner, and a six-course lunch, at the summit of leading industrialised nations on the island of Hokkaido, included delicacies such as caviar, milkfed lamb, sea urchin and tuna, with champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S.

Food Inflation: In advance of the G-8 meeting, a new World Bank report blames rising global food prices on the mandated use of biofuels, including ethanol. G-8 leaders may be forced to relax their mandates. Will we?The report, actually completed in April, likely will make interesting reading as leaders of the G-8 industrialized countries meet in Hokkaido, Japan, this week. One of the topics of discussion is the global food crisis. The report concludes that biofuel mandates intended to fight global warming in Europe and the United States are the prime culprit in a 75% rise in food costs between...

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda. The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use of food. Mr Brown and his wife Sarah were among 15 guests at the "blessings of the earth and the sea social dinner"....

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda.

US and EU urged to cut biofuels Biofuels can be made from crops like wheat and rapeseed World Bank President Robert Zoellick has called for reform of biofuel policies in rich countries, urging them to grow more food to feed the hungry. He was speaking at the G8 summit in Japan, where soaring food and fuel prices are top of the agenda. The G8 leaders have been holding talks with seven African leaders. UN chief Ban Ki-moon - also at the summit - urged the group to tackle the "interconnected" challenges of climate change, food prices and development. Speaking on...

Gordon Brown called for prudence in the kitchen last night, telling us not to throw away so much food. With prices soaring, he suggested we could save up to £8 a week by making our shopping go further. Waste could be reduced by simple steps such as storing fruit and vegetables in the fridge to make them last longer. While the Prime Minister was preoccupied with his household management tips, a joint report by the U.S. government and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was warning world food prices will rise by an average of 5 per cent this...

Producers warn the price of snails - one of France's more exotic foodstuffs - is about to soar, because of economic development in eastern Europe.France consumes more than 14,000 tonnes of snails every year but practically none of them are actually French. With the most prized species now under protection, the industry relies on central and east European imports. But economic progress in countries like Poland and Bulgaria means less appetite for the hard work of snail-gathering. Until now, every year rural families there could earn a decent wage from collecting the animals in the fields and woods. So the...

Ethanol Industry in DistressBusiness Adviser: 16 Ethanol Plants Filing Bankruptcy, Many More to Come By Todd Neeley DTN Staff Reporter 06/20/08 4:37:15 PM OMAHA (DTN) -- The U.S. ethanol industry is in trouble and can expect to see a rash of bankruptcies and dismantling of at least some production, according to a specialist who helps companies in distress. Alex Moglia, president of Moglia Advisors based in the Chicago area, said he knows of at least 16 ethanol companies that are filing for bankruptcy, and there will be at least two to three times that number filing within the next year....

New York is having a cannoli conundrum. The shell-encased treats at two of the city's top bakeries tested well above the Health Department's trans-fat limit that went into effect Tuesday, according to lab results commissioned by the Daily News. Veniero's, the popular East Village eatery where one cannoli contained trans-fat levels four times above the city limit, vowed Friday to pull the shells from the shelves until the supplier it deals with bans the bad-for-you fat. "I want to thank you for alerting me," owner Robert Zerilli said. Veniero's wasn't alone. The taboo fat was also found in a cannoli...

WASHINGTON - Investigators are seeing more signs that the salmonella outbreak blamed on tomatoes might have been caused by tainted jalapeno peppers and have begun collecting samples from restaurants and from the homes of those who have been sickened, according to health officials involved in the probe. New interviews with those who became infected found that many had eaten jalapeno peppers, often in salsa served with Mexican food, according to two state health officials. So far, none of the jalapenos taken from restaurants and from the homes of those who became ill have tested positive for Salmonella saintpaul. Echoing federal...

Link to videoHas anyone tried one of these? I have not, but they look kinda neat.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's inflation rate, which has provoked intense criticism of the government, topped 26 percent in June, according to a central bank statement published in the press on Saturday.

The thrust of the article, however, is not to highlight the folly of the leftist policies of mandating the use of biofuels, it is of course, to bash the Bush Administration. "The daily said the report was finished in April but was not published to avoid embarrassing the US government, which has claimed plant-derived fuels have pushed up prices by only three percent." Last time I checked, Bush is not in the Enviro-kook camp, so it’s not like he’s trying to cover for Barack Obama, Al Gore, and their minions, who want to use more biofuels as an alternative to...

UH-OH: Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis. Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis 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. . . . "Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. Perhaps they...

A new state law is now in effect requiring all restaurants in Mississippi to clearly display the specific country of origin of the catfish they serve. While supermarkets have previously been required to display “Country of Origin Labeling” for catfish, restaurants have been under no such mandate until House Bill 728 went into effect Tuesday. According to a statement recently released by Roger Barlow, president of the Jackson-based Catfish Institute, “This is possibly the most significant piece of legislation the Mississippi Catfish Industry, or for that matter, the entire U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish industry has ever had. “Since Mississippi is the...

A senior Ministry of Agriculture official on Thursday dismissed foreign media reports about China hoarding overseas farmland, saying the country is fully capable of ensuring its own food security. "Such reports are groundless and not factual we have not hoarded any farmland overseas and have taken no steps to introduce any such policy," Li Zhengdong, director of the ministry's international cooperation department, told a press conference held by the Foreign Ministry on the agenda of President Hu Jintao's visit to the outreach session of the G8 summit in Japan next week. Li was responding to a report in the Financial Times on...

Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive. 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.

While most governments are reacting to the global food shortage by growing more food, the Chinese have decided to grow the same amount of fruits and vegetables, but with A TWIST: giant versions of standard food staples: 210-pound pumpkins, 2-pound tomatoes, and cucumbers that are over 2-feet long -- that are currently feeding families in 22 of China's provinces, and governments in Europe, Japan and elsewhere are taking notice. This weird, believe-it-or-not scenario becomes even more fantastic as it turns out that the reason these foods can grow so huge is because they've been sent to outer space. The seeds...

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. The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on...

Wellington, FL. (AHN) - Add hay to the list of items expected to be in short supply and cost more this year, which could send prices for dairy products even higher.In the south drought has cut into hay production, while Vermont and some states in the Midwest have had too much rain and farmers either can't plant in muddy fields or can't harvest because their crop is too wet. Nationwide there is a 2 percent drop in hay acres with only 60.6 million acres. Some of the decline in hay acres is because farmers are planting those acres in corn....

The Bordeaux region's St Emilion wines have been stripped of their top classifications by a French court, which has ruled that "grand cru classés" labels should be taken off bottles. The ruling follows a year-long legal fight by four wine makers whose wines were demoted in 2006. They argued that the system used to rank wines after a tasting was "partial". "It's an aberration to condemn the classification over so little," said Nicolas Thienpont, owner of Chateau Pavie-Macquin, recently awarded the second highest rank of St Emilion premier grand cru classé. "All those who have worked so hard to move...

How do you keep the ice out of ice cream? Antifreeze. A UW-Madison scientist has discovered an edible antifreeze that can keep ice crystals from forming inside ice cream containers, a real turnoff to late night snackers who just want their fix of Rocky Road without digging through a layer of frost. According to the UW-Madison news service, food science professor Srinivasan Damodaran mixed gelatin with papain, a natural enzyme from fruit that cuts proteins into smaller pieces. When blended into ice cream, the antifreeze works to keep ice cream smooth. Frozen foods get crystallized because of temperature fluctuations, such...

In a startling new development in the Salmonella crisis, focus is shifting away from the tomato as the main suspect. Investigators had previously named the tomato as a "..vegetable of interest.." in the case, but have since sought to backpedal on the pronouncement. As of noon, tomorrow, over 3,000 law firms have filed Motions of Habeus Chorus against the FDA, seeking billions in legal fees. "The taxpayers must be protected," explained Mary Exmas, a partner in the firm Fennel, Romaine and Kale, "from those who would hold foodstuffs hostage without being charged. They rushed to judgement on the tomato, acting...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Giving one million dairy cows a growth hormone makes them produce more milk would cut greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking 400,000 cars off the road, a US study found. Large scale cow milk production requires the use of huge amounts of land, water and feed resources, noted Judith Capper, a researcher at Cornell University in New York. But using rbST -- the first biotech product used on US farms which has been in farm use for about 15 years -- can help reduce the "carbon hoofprint" while still meeting dairy demand, she explained. Known as either...

Over the past 20 years, Wisconsin-based Organic Valley has grown into the nation's largest organic cooperative, carving out a niche selling milk from small dairy farmers who treat their cows like members of the family. So imagine the shock within the organic food world when an industry watchdog group recently discovered Organic Valley quietly has been getting some of its milk from a giant Texas dairying operation with more than 5,000 cows. "Buying milk from this factory farm could potentially be catastrophic to our marketplace reputation," said Darlene Coehoorn, a longtime Organic Valley member from Rosendale, Wis., where she milks...

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — A simple change to the design of the gallon milk jug, adopted by Wal-Mart and Costco, seems made for the times. The jugs are cheaper to ship and better for the environment, the milk is fresher when it arrives in stores, and it costs less. What’s not to like? Plenty, as it turns out. The jugs have no real spout, and their unorthodox shape makes consumers feel like novices at the simple task of pouring a glass of milk. “I hate it,” said Lisa DeHoff, a cafe owner shopping in a Sam’s Club here. “It spills...

LAREDO – Day after day, Mexican trucks line up as far as the eye can see for entry to the U.S. at the World Trade Bridge, carrying everything from raw tomatoes, broccoli and fresh basil to frozen seafood. They also bring in salmonella, listeria, restricted pesticides and other food poisons. Customs and Border Protection officers take less than a minute per truck to determine which products enter the U.S. and find their way into grocery stores and restaurants across North Texas

NEW YORK: Soaring corn and soy prices on top of rising construction costs and tight credit markets have pushed about a dozen US biofuel plants to file for bankruptcy protection, experts said. Prices for corn, the feedstock for most US ethanol plants, hit fresh records above $8 per bushel this week as floods this month in the Midwest have caused billions of dollars of crop damage. “Corn prices are making the feasibility of ethanol plants every day more and more questionable,” said Alex Moglia, president of Moglia Advisors in suburban Chicago, which helps biofuel companies restructure. Meanwhile prices for soy...

WASHINGTON -- Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday. "No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert D. Edwards told a House Agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent. About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon...