By Gina Munsey •
February 16, 2009
When searching for a natural-foods cookbook, it’s easy to get swept away in the eye-popping visuals, the thick, glossy pages, and the sleek typefaces. The choices are dizzying; one national bookseller offers over 15,000 cooking titles, and that’s not even counting the 150,000 additional options offered in the wellness section.
But while colorful photos of expertly-arranged super foods may be appealing and even inspiring, the relentless demands and limitations of everyday life often call for something more practical. It is moments like this when recipes from the classic More-with-Less Cookbook, in its 47th printing, never fail to impress.
By Sam Aola Ooko •
September 6, 2008
Biofuels war has broken out in Africa. Newspaper headlines have not proclaimed it but the gist of it is already out. Big money profiteers from Europe and United States are rushing to Africa in a new scramble for the continent, transforming large swathes of arable land into massive biofuels plantations.
Local but poor populations in many parts of Africa are increasingly being driven deeper into economic obscurity yet 60% of them still depend on agriculture for survival. Another 60% of that eke out a living by subsistence farming and animal husbandry.
The World Bank has been sitting on a secret report since April that says biofuels are responsible for the global food crisis; food prices have risen 75% because of the impact of the search for alternative fuels through the use of food products.
African civil society is calling for a moratorium on new biofuels investments in Africa amid concern that that the biofuels revolution will bring more food insecurity, higher food prices and hunger to the continent.
By Sam Aola Ooko •
June 16, 2008
“Khotso, pula, nala.”
“Peace, rain, prosperity.”
When there is peace and rain people live happier because they will not be fighting; they will plough their fields and will have food. - African proverb.
Listening to Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni at any forum has never been boring. He can make his audiences jeer and laugh at the same time but not without drama at times. Museveni is both loved and hated by many because of his straight talking. But that is not to say he does so all the time.
One such time was at a recent Commonwealth leaders meeting in London where he happily laughed off the current global food crisis.
What seems good riddance for his small landlocked nation in east Africa has been boggling minds elsewhere and governments from Argentina to Senegal, from Egypt to South Africa, have grappled with riots of sorts over high prices of food. In Haiti, it cost the political life of a prime minister who had to vacate office for failing to soften the hunger pangs of his people.
By Levi Novey •
May 20, 2008
This past weekend, a major summit was held in Lima, Peru between leaders of European Union countries and also Latin American and Caribbean countries. Numerous agenda items were on the table, but the overall focuses of the meetings were upon the global food crisis, climate change, poverty, and potential trade agreements. Of course, what would an international summit be without some
- good, old-fashioned name-calling to put everyone on edge before hand
- a President attending a “rival summit” and taking time to go play some football! (Soccer for Americans.)
- and an uninspiring finish where seemingly little got accomplished, but yet we can hold onto hope because there are plans to keep the conversation going.
By Beth Bader •
April 15, 2008
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Consumers in the United States struggle with prices rising as much as forty percent for grains and twenty-five percent for eggs, eighty percent for dairy and double-digit increases for other staples. The situation has led to a record number of individuals seeking assistance from food banks nationwide. Globally, however, the crisis has taken on life and death consequences.
As prices have risen, fifty and even three hundred percent in areas like Sierra Leone, these areas have experienced food riots. The growing lists of nations that have had food price protests and riots in the last six months includes Mexico, Haiti, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Cameroon, Yemen, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.
The situation resulted from what some experts call “a perfect storm” of factors combined; oil prices, the use of farmland for ethanol instead of food, Australia’s drought, crop disease, climate change, U.S. economy, and the growth of a more meat-intensive diet worldwide.
