Food Crisis: World Roundup

Britain's The Independent has a roundup detailing how the global food crisis is affecting different parts of the world. In China, for example, food prices have risen 21 percent this year. The World Food Programme is warning of a potential repeat of the famine that hit North Korea in the 1990s, killing millions.

Leaders from Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba flew to Venezuela this week to announce a joint $100m scheme to combat the impact of rising food prices on the region's poor. Riots tore through Ivory Coast after the prices of meat and wheat increased by 50 per cent within a week, and violent protests were also seen in Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Senegal. Hundreds of thousands of poor Africans in Uganda and Sudan are to lose out on a vital source of food after World Vision, one of the world's largest humanitarian organisations, said it was cutting aid to 1.5m people.

The government of the Philippines has been desperately trying to secure alternative sources of rice to counteract the decision of a number of nations, including India, to halt rice exports.

In the U.K. the government's estimates that grocery bills have gone up by an average of 12 percent over the past 12 months. And in the U.S., two of the country's largest warehouse stores this week announced that they would limit the number of bags of rice each customer could buy, in an effort to prevent people from stockpiling.

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Backyard (and Frontyard) Farming

If you haven't been paying close attention, you might be surprised to know that scores of people across North America are responding to soaring food and fuel prices and product shortages by turning to urban agriculture. This is a phenomenon that has been covered fairly extensively in the media - but it's not easy to keep up with all the stories. So here's a little compendium of some of the best stories I've seen so far:

Cuba's organic revolution
From The Guardian
Cuba could be seen as the mother land of urban agriculture, since the country was forced to become self-sufficient in the early 90s, when it lost the large majority of its trade with the former Soviet Union. An urban gardening culture sprang up almost overnight.

Urban Back-to-the-Land Movement
From The San Francisco Chronicle
Urban sustainability projects in San Francisco, including the Institute of Urban Homesteading, which teaches city dwellers urban farming techniques and Sustaining Ourselves Locally, a collective of nine people maintaining a 5,000-square-foot urban garden.

Life (Mostly) Off The Grid
From The New York Times
A video featuring the Dervaes family, who live a green life on 1/5 of an acre in Pasadena, Calif.

Eat Your Lawn
From CHOW
An all-encompassing story about the move towards converting urban yards to sustainable growing lots.

Green Acres II: When Neighbors Become Farmers
From The Wall Street Journal
For one man, a front yard was not enough. So he got his neighbors together and co-opted their lawns too.

The Face of the Global Food Crisis: The Colbert Report

The answer might be sitting right next to you!

The Secret to Perfect Pizza

Wired Magazine has a great article by Joe Brown, a New Yorker transplanted to San Francisco, who wonders why he can't get the flavor of a New York slice in any SF pizza joints.

It could be in the water... Or in the oven.

"Californians do a lot of great stuff with their green-market goods," fellow pizza nerd Mario Batali says, but "some of it's just not pizza." I called the Iron Chef to help me figure out why San Francisco — a formidable food town — can't birth a respectable pie. Part of the reason, of course, is that while Rice-A-Roni and zinfandel are native to Northern California, pizza is not.

"New York has a grand tradition of pizza making and holds it dear," Batali says. Which means institutions like Arturo's have been using the same equipment for decades. "An oven captures the gestalt of beautifully cooked pizza. And it imparts that."

I'm not comfortable attributing a pizza's quality to gestalt — it sounds like something a California pizzeria would list as a topping. But Batali's theory makes sense to David Tisi, a food-development consultant who has spent much of his career studying pizza.

"As you cook, some ingredients vaporize, and these volatilized particles can attach themselves to the walls of the baking cavity," Tisi says. "The next time you use the oven, these bits get caught up in the convection currents and deposited on the food, which adds flavor." Over time, he says, more particles join the mix and mingle with the savory soot from burned wood or coal — the only fuels worth using — to create a flavor that you can't grow in a garden: gestalt, if you will.

Why though, Brown wonders, does that not hold true of some of SF's older pizzerias, which have been making pizza for generations?

"Water," Batali says. "Water is huge. It's probably one of California's biggest problems with pizza." Water binds the dough's few ingredients. Nearly every chemical reaction that produces flavor occurs in water, says Chris Loss, a food scientist with the Culinary Institute of America. "So, naturally, the minerals and chemicals in it will affect every aspect of the way something tastes."

The Face of the Global Food Crisis: U.S.A.

Today's New York Times is reporting that warehouse stores like Sam's Club and Costco are imposing limits on how much rice customers can buy.

American rice futures are hitting record highs amid global food inflation, although one rice expert said the warehouse chains might be reacting less to any shortages than to stockpiling by restaurants and small stores.

Sam’s Club said it would limit customers to four bags at a time of imported jasmine, basmati and long-grain white rice. The limits affect 20-pound bags, the kind that most retail customers are not likely to buy. Costco could not immediately be reached for comment on its limits, which apparently affect bulk purchases in some stores.

A Sam’s Club spokeswoman, Kristy Reed, said she could not comment on whether the problem had been caused by short supplies or by customers stocking up in anticipation of higher prices.

A USA Rice Federation spokesman, David Coia, said there was no rice shortage in the United States. A smaller chain, BJ’s Wholesale Club, said it was not imposing limits for now.

The Face of the Global Food Crisis: Japan

I posted an article a few days ago about the lack of rice in Liberia and how that is affecting the regular diet. In Japan, the problem is not with a shortage of rice but of butter.

Domestically produced butter is scarce at retail stores because of a shortage of raw milk and higher prices of butter imports.

A shortage of butter for commercial use began to hit cake shops and restaurants last fall. The problem has now spread to homes.

Worse, butter makers are planning to raise retail prices in April, when raw milk prices are set to increase. The move will likely keep butter off more mealtime tables.

A second-tier supermarket chain in Tokyo put up a notice at outlets that states: "Butter stocks may run out due to a drop in production."

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