food prices

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Thailand Plans OPEC-Style 'Rice Cartel'

PM wants to control market with neighbors, including Burma

(Newser) - The prime minister of Thailand is exploring the idea of setting up a rice price-fixing cartel with four other governments in southeast Asia, including the military dictatorship of Burma. The Bangkok Post reports that Samak Sundaravej wants to establish an OPEC-style collective of producers that will influence the market for...

Ethanol Guzzles 25% of US Corn; Links Food, Fuel Prices

Switch to corn-based fuel links grain and energy prices

(Newser) - When Congress passed its latest energy bill four months ago, the provision to boost ethanol requirements was exceedingly popular. But now, critics are lambasting that measure, and the ethanol movement in general, for linking skyrocketing food and oil prices. “We used to have a grain economy and a fuel...

Gods Go Hungry in Food Crisis
 Gods Go Hungry in Food Crisis 
Apr 30, 2008 1:13 PM CDT

Gods Go Hungry in Food Crisis

Inflation takes bite out of traditional offerings at Indian temples

(Newser) - Skyrocketing food prices have a new victim in India: Hindu deities. Supplicants offer milk and other food at temples where they pray, but with the cost of staples soaring, many are unable even to feed themselves, the Washington Post reports. "If poor people don't even have enough for bread,...

Another Key Shortage: Fertilizer
 Another Key Shortage: Fertilizer 
Apr 30, 2008 10:02 AM CDT

Another Key Shortage: Fertilizer

Prices skyrocket, ingredients scarce as growing population demands more food

(Newser) - One of the less touted factors behind the global food crisis is a shortage in chemical fertilizer, which has helped boost crop yields dramatically and particularly benefited the developing world. But while growing demand is unlikely to be met for many years, the environmental impact of producing and using chemical...

Rice Is the New Oil
 Rice Is the New Oil 
Apr 27, 2008 3:31 PM CDT

Rice Is the New Oil

Rising food prices threaten a more serious global crisis

(Newser) - Even as the burgeoning price of oil slaps consumers at the pump, a darker global market crisis looms as rising commodities prices compound the pressures of poverty worldwide. The UN has said that spiking food prices have started "a silent tsunami threatening to plunge more than 100 million people...

Restaurants, Retailers Gulp as Consumers Tighten Belts

Penny pinchers shifting to generics, eating in

(Newser) - The rising price of staples like milk and gas, coupled with layoffs and flat-lining wages, is creating a nation of penny-pinching consumers, the New York Times reports. Industry is taking notice as buyers substitute generic brands for top-of-the-line products and skip eating out at restaurants.

Scientists Work on New 'Green Revolution'

Solving food crisis will depend on a steady diet of innovation

(Newser) - Food scientists are plotting a new "green revolution" to solve a growing food crisis, LiveScience reports. Facing what a World Food Program official called a “silent tsunami” of world hunger, researchers are working on a sequel to the first "green revolution" of the mid-20th century, whose innovations...

Restaurants Hungry for Economic Recovery

Rising food costs, tight credit cut into profits

(Newser) - Rising costs, tightening credit, and trimmed consumer spending are giving restaurateurs indigestion as they struggle with a slowdown the industry says is its worst in decades, reports the Wall Street Journal. A spate of bankruptcy filings and woeful earnings reports have chains slowing expansion and cutting amenities. With a minimum...

Sam's Club Joins Costco in Limiting Rice Purchases

Warehouse chains react to rising prices, apparent hoarding

(Newser) - Sam's Club joined Costco today in limiting how much rice customers can buy, Bloomberg reports. The restrictions by the nation's largest warehouse retail chains come with the price of rice at record highs around the world, which has spurred some to begin hoarding, Bloomberg notes. Sam's Club customers can buy...

US Farmers Want Feds' Help on Food Crisis

Skyrocketing prices bring speculators to grocery stores

(Newser) - US farmers asked for federal help yesterday in stemming a tide that has seen speculators hitting grocery stores and consumers hoarding basic foodstuffs, the Washington Times reports. "The public is all too aware of the recent credit crisis on Wall Street," a farmers-union rep said. "We don't...

Costco Sees High Demand for Basics Rice, Flour

CEO attributes run to customer uncertainty over food supplies

(Newser) - Costco is seeing unusually high demand for basics such as rice and flour, Reuters reports, a development the warehouse giant attributes to customer uncertainty over global food shortages. The company, which sells to individual shoppers as well as restaurants, has put limits in place for those items at some stores....

UN Compares Food Crisis to 'Tsunami'
UN Compares Food Crisis
to 'Tsunami'
Apr 22, 2008 12:41 PM CDT

UN Compares Food Crisis to 'Tsunami'

International help needed before situation deteriorates

(Newser) - Rising food prices are creating a crisis every bit as deadly as the tsunami of 2004, and the situation requires a similar response, the UN says. Political and business leaders from around the world gathered today in London and heard the head of the World Food Program, Josette Sheeran, call...

Food Crisis Is 'Mass Murder': UN Envoy

Official blames multinationals for surging food prices

(Newser) - A UN envoy called the world's food crisis "silent mass murder" today and blamed multinationals for "monopolizing the riches of the Earth," Reuters reports. Jean Ziegler, UN food rapporteur, chalked up surging food prices in poorer nations to biofuels, commodities markets, and EU subsidies—meaning the West...

Europe Backtracks on Biofuels
 Europe Backtracks on Biofuels 
Apr 19, 2008 2:42 PM CDT

Europe Backtracks on Biofuels

Environmental concerns put 10% quota on hold

(Newser) - The European commission is backing off a proposed 10% biofuels quota as scientists warn that the alternative fuels actually hurt the environment, the Guardian reports. “This is all very sensitive and fast-moving,” said a commission official. “There is now a lot of new evidence on biofuels, and...

UN May Cut Food Rations for Schoolkids

Soaring food prices raise 'world's misery index,' group says

(Newser) - Food rations for hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren may be cut because of surging crop prices that have widened the World Food Program’s funding gap to $750 million, Reuters says. The UN food aid agency also blamed the situation on high fuel prices and reductions in new crop plantings....

Humble Spud Could Solve Food Crisis
Humble Spud Could Solve Food Crisis
Apr 15, 2008 2:39 AM CDT

Humble Spud Could Solve Food Crisis

International 'Year of the Potato' to highlight tuber's virtues

(Newser) - Sharp hikes in the prices of staples like wheat and rice are sending shockwaves around the world and convincing governments to rediscover the virtues of the potato, Reuters reports. Spuds are nutritious, will grow just about anywhere, and they yield up to four times more food per acre than other...

Food Crisis Lurks in Soaring Prices, Says IMF Chief

Predicts widespread starvation, conflict

(Newser) - Rising food prices may soon have dire global consequences with starving people rioting in the streets, warns the head of the International Monetary Fund. “Hundred of thousands of people will be starving,” he said yesterday at a meeting in Washington. “Children will be suffering from malnutrition, with...

Haitian Senate Sacks Prime Minister

Food riots spark ouster of president's close ally

(Newser) - Amid skyrocketing food prices and deadly riots in Haiti, the country's senate has voted to oust Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis. President Rene Preval, who appointed his ally Alexis in 2006 to lead the country's coalition government, must now choose a new cabinet. The vote came in spite of a recently...

Surging Energy Prices Drive Global Inflation

Food costs, up 83% in 3 years, also slap worldwide economies

(Newser) - Inflation in Europe and the US is projected to reach its highest point since 1995, the Wall Street Journal reports, with food prices up 83% in three years and rising energy and transportation costs. The International Monetary Fund predicts the US and Europe will see inflation of 2.6% this...

Record 28 Million Americans to Get Food Stamps

Slip into poverty a grim economic indicator

(Newser) - In an economic indicator that paints a grim future for swaths of the US population, an all-time record 28 million Americans are expected to be close enough to poverty to receive $36 billion in food stamps in the coming fiscal year, reports the New York Times. There is a surge...

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