Biofuels have quickly turned from environmental saviour to just another mega-scale get-rich quick scheme. Countries and regions without their own oil reserves to tap now see their farms, peatlands and forests as potential "oil fields" -- shallow but renewable lakes of green oil. However, renewable does not mean sustainable, and in most cases the only green part of biofuel is the wealth they generate.
I cannot avoid the subject any longer. Almost every day I receive a clutch of emails about it, asking the same question. A frightening new report has just pushed it up the political agenda: for the first time the World Food Programme is struggling to find the supplies it needs for emergency famine relief. So why, like most environmentalists, won't I mention the p-word?
A rising concern with personal and environmental health in the world's richer countries is influencing lifestyles and public debate alike. One significant trend is the increase in the consumption of organically grown produce - a significant proportion of which is imported. International trade in organic food and beverages currently has a value of more than £15 billion ($30 billion) per year; the United States, Britain and Germany account for two-thirds of imports.
Imagine a planet where nuclear-powered desalination plants ring the world's oceans; corporate nanotechnology cleans up sewage water so private utilities can sell it back to consumers in plastic bottles at huge profit; and the poor who lack access to clean water die in increased numbers. This may sound like science fiction dystopia, but according to Maude Barlow, author of the recently released book "Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water", this future is not too far away
In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.
Congress can still act decisively this year to right a wrong that is hurting both small American farmers and the poorest people on the planet. A long-overdue debate is taking place on reform of the 1933 farm bill, passed during the Great Depression to alleviate the suffering of America's family farmers. I was a farm boy then, and the primary cash crops on my father's farm were peanuts and cotton. My first paying job was working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, measuring farmers' fields to ensure that they limited their acreage and total production in order to qualify for the life-sustaining farm subsidy prices.
