Green Options

Five farmers will appear in five advertisements, shown in five different states, each saying that they grow potatoes that Frito-Lay then turns into ‘local’ chips. Of course, each state gets to see only its own local advert, not the other four, which could rather spoil the impression …

Jatropha, despite the hype, will not be a contributor to fuel security on the planet in the near, or even the middle future.

Without an additional £100m a year being spent on crop research in Britain, there could be food riots in developing countries as the growing world population fails to find enough affordable food.

Around Matabeleland elephants have broken into the crop fields and eaten the crops being grown by villagers. As well as elephant, wild pigs and baboons from Hwange National Park have begun to roam into agricultural land, causing havoc wherever crops are grown.

Most of us are familiar with the idea of carbon dioxide (CO2) from industrial development leaching into the atmosphere, causing global warming. The effect of CO2 on ocean temperatures and acidification is much less well publicised, but just as worrying. In fact, it’s a potential cause of famine.

We’ve got used to roller-coaster oil prices, although it doesn’t stop panic buying at the pumps when gas prices are projected to rise, but roller-coaster food prices are something that hasn’t been seen in most of the developed world for many decades.

The general idea is fantastic, 1,000 plots could provide the British population with 2.6 million lettuces per year or 50,000 sacks of potatoes, as well as reducing food miles, improving land use, and giving individuals healthful exercise in the fresh air.

The recent fall in grain prices across the developed world may have given the impression that food security isn’t a problem – but it is. There are more people not getting enough to eat than there were a decade ago.

The US Fish & Wildlife Service has been told by a Federal Court that it must stop planting genetically modified crops at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge on the west shore of the Delaware Bay.

Today, the upper part of the Zambezi river has pushed past the highest ever recorded water levels. It’s cutting off communities, destroying crops and washing out the networks of small dirt roads that were the only travel system through this remote part of Africa.

Most food eaten in the USA is produced on mega-farms, whether inside America’s borders or imported from large farming operations overseas. Within the US, 5% of farms actually deliver 75% of America’s agricultural produce.