China limits non-feed use of corn

China is to put limits on the use of grain and edible oils as raw materials for any non-animal-feed projects such as alcohol and biofuel in an effort to secure grain supplies. 

The government will also limit corn starch projects with processing capacity of less than 300,000 metric tons a year, and eliminate those projects with annual capacity of less than 100,000 tons, the National Development & Reform Commission said in industrial guidelines published on its website.

About one third of China's corn is used to make non-feed products ranging from ethanol to starch and sweeteners. China has seen unprecedented expansion of corn processing industries, with combined annual capacity rising to almost 70 million tons in the marketing year ending Sept.30, Shang Qiangmin, director of the state-backed China National Grain & Oil Information Center, told an industry forum recently.

These industries are expected to consume about 50 million tons of corn in the current marketing year, or about 29% of total corn output in the 2010 calendar year, the CNGOIC said.

New climate change news roundup

The climate change-food security nexus is a hot topic, but staying abreast of the latest news and reports about the changing climate and its impacts has become a daunting challenge.


In partnership with IFPRI, The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) launched this month a weekly roundup of climate change-related news, reports, and events. 


This comprehensive list based on diverse sources focuses on agriculture and food security, but covers a wide range of related topics, including biofuels, water, and land management. Consider it a one-stop shop for the latest information about climate change, food security, and agriculture. http://bit.ly/eeFYTe

Reinvest in agriculture while we're still fat

By the start of the twenty-first century, rich countries were spending barely 1.8 cents in every science dollar on agriculture, so unimportant had food become to them.

This line from Julian Cribb's book The Coming Famine puts a highlighter through the shameful neglect of agricultural science since about 1980, only a decade after the Green Revolution had helped India to meet its basic food needs for the first time. As Cribb notes, the "outstanding success of the Green Revolution...also contained the seeds of its own undoing". Fat and happy, we let the research machine we'd built to overcome hunger rust away in the field.

For over thirty years, funding for agricultural research has progressively contracted taking the number of scientists working in this field with it. "A gaping deficit in the river of knowledge and technology on which farmers depend to maintain growth in food production has opened up, which could take decades to fill," writes Cribb.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has recognised this neglect and is putting more funds into CGIAR than many governments. Politicians across the developed world need to have the blinkers torn off. They need to follow the Gates example and reinvest in agriculture while food is still an afterthought in rich countries. Reinvigorating the research machine will take time, so run down have we allowed it to become.

Linking agriculture, nutrition and health

Agriculture, nutrition, and health are linked.


These links play a role in the lives of millions of poor people in developing countries. Yet despite potentially strong synergies, many policymakers and practitioners in these areas continue to work in isolation. 

IFPRI and its research partners have been studying critical links between agriculture, hunger, food security, health, disease and nutrition and attempting to bridge the divide between the agriculture and nutrition communities.

http://www.ifpri.org/blog/world-health-day-april-7-2011

Economist covers 'hidden hunger'

Excellent piece by the Economist on how much farming can improve people's health: "Farming ought to be especially good for nutrition. If farmers provide a varied diet to local markets, people seem more likely to eat well. Agricultural growth is one of the best ways to generate income for the poorest, who need the most help buying nutritious food. And in many countries women do most of the farm work. They also have most influence on children’s health. Profitable farming, women’s income and child nutrition should therefore go together. In theory a rise in farm output should boost nutrition by more than a comparable rise in general economic well-being, measured by GDP."


See the full story at http://econ.st/gwKN9F

Purdue takes on food security challenge

Purdue University has established the Center for Global Food Security to take up one of the world's most pressing challenges: getting enough food to people who need it the most today and producing enough to meet even greater demand in years to come.
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/general/2011/110324EjetaCenter.html

Research group holds thin green line

The 40th anniversary of CGIAR demands recognition if only because the group is part of a dying breed.

Research into farm productivity has been starved over the last thirty years in the developed world where hunger has been far enough from our door that we've become complacent about our ability to keep growth in farm yields ahead of growth in human population.

Holding this increasingly thin green line are the likes of CGIAR (the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). Since 1971 the collaborative research driven by this group featured heavily in the Green Revolution. For example, a 2010 Food Policy journal article estimates "about 60 per cent of the food crop area planted to improved varieties is occupied by many of the 7,250 varieties resulting from CGIAR research".

And this: a 2003 study concluded that without CGIAR's work developing countries would be producing 7-8 per cent less food and some 13-15 million more children would be malnourished.

A review of the group's contribution to farm productivity and food security can be read at http://www.cgiarfund.org/cgiarfund/cgiar_at_40. 

Collectively the developed world has dropped the ball with farm production research, with government funding in massive decline since about 1980. This short-sighted approach has caught up with us, but few have yet noticed.