U.N. Raises Concerns as Global Food Prices Jump


Angry rallies in Mozambique partly over a 30 percent rise in the cost of bread left 10 dead. A young protester in Maputo stood by a burning vehicle on Thursday.
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: September 3, 2010


UNITED NATIONS — With memories still fresh of food riots set off by spiking prices just two years ago, agricultural experts on Friday cast a wary eye on the steep rise in the cost of wheat prompted by a Russian export ban and the questions looming over harvests in other parts of the world because of drought or flooding.
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Antonio Silva/LUSA, via European Pressphoto Agency
A Mozambican policeman hit a protester with a baton on Wednesday in Benfica, a neighborhood in the Maputo suburbs.
Food prices rose 5 percent globally during August, according to the United Nations, spurred mostly by the higher cost of wheat, and the first signs of unrest erupted as 10 people died in Mozambique during clashes ignited partly by a 30 percent leap in the cost of bread.

“You are dealing with an unstable situation,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

“People still remember what happened a few years ago, so it is a combination of psychology and the expectation that worse may come,” he added. “There are critical months ahead.”

The F.A.O. has called a special session of grain experts from around the world on Sept. 24 to address the supply question. Given that the fields stretching out from the Black Sea have been the main source of a huge leap in wheat trade over the past decade, the fluctuating weather patterns and unstable harvests there will have to be addressed, he said.

It is an issue not limited to Russia alone. Harvest forecasts in Germany and Canada are clouded by wet weather and flooding, while crops in Argentina will suffer from drought, as could Australia’s, according to agricultural experts. The bump in prices because of the uncertainty about future supplies means the poor in some areas of the world will face higher bread prices in the coming months.

Food prices are still some 30 percent below the 2008 levels, Mr. Abbassian said, when a tripling in the price of rice among other staples led to food riots in about a dozen countries and helped topple at least one government.

The wheat crop this year globally is also the third highest on record, according to the F.A.O., but the sudden supply interruptions make the markets jittery. In June, Russia was predicting a loss of just a few million metric tons due to hot weather, but by August it announced it would lose about one-fifth of its crop. Wheat prices more than doubled in that period.

“There are reasons to be watching this and to be concerned because regionally there will be supply challenges,” said Justin P. Gilpin, the head of the Kansas Wheat Commission. “There is uncertainty in the marketplace.”

A decade ago, the area around the Black Sea — mainly Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan — used to supply just about 4 percent of the wheat traded internationally. But most of the growth in demand globally has been supplied from there, and the region now produces about 30 percent of the wheat traded internationally, said Mr. Abbassian. This is the first time a supply crisis has originated from that area, he noted.

In early August, Russia announced an export ban that it would review at the end of the year, but Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin announced Thursday that the ban on grain exports would extend into 2011. The price of wheat jumped again, and that has had a spillover effect into other grains like corn and soybeans. The forecast for the global rice harvest has also dropped, although it is still expected to be higher than in 2009 and should be a record, the F.A.O. said.

“If you look at the numbers globally, the Americans, the Europeans and the Australians can make up the supply,” Mr. Abbassian said of the wheat harvest, playing down the chances of repeating the 2008 crisis. “There is no reason for this hype, but once the psychological thing sets in it is hard to change that perception, especially if Russia keeps sending bad news.”

After two days of rioting set off by price increases for bread and utilities like electricity and water, the streets in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, were largely calm on Friday. But 10 people had been killed and 300 injured, Health Minister Ivo Garrido told a news conference, local news agencies reported. Price increases have been much sharper in Mozambique than in most of the world because the government kept prices artificially low before elections last year, some analysts said.

As with any commodity, questions of wheat shortages spur speculation and hoarding, and experts suggest both are at play in the current market. They believe more money is washing through the commodity market for wheat because with interest rates so low and the stock market so volatile, investors are putting their money in the Chicago Board of Trade.

But the world also has to come to grips with changing weather patterns due to climate change, argued Prof. Per Pinstrup-Anderson, an expert in international agriculture at Cornell University.

“We are going to have much bigger fluctuations in weather and therefore the food supply than we had in the past, so we are going to have to learn how to cope with fluctuating food prices,” Professor Pinstrup-Anderson said.

Barry Bearak contributed reporting from Johannesburg.

Higher Wheat Prices on Russian Ban, Food Riots Commence
Russia surprised the world when it announced it was going to extend the ban on exporting wheat, pushing wheat prices up, and resulting in riots in Mozambique because of higher bread prices.

Wheat won't be exported from Russia until the latter part of 2011, assuming the wheat harvest goes okay.

Wheat futures for December increased to $7.35 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, a gain of 21 cents. In just three days wheat has risen 7 percent. which follows on the footsteps of a 38 percent increase in July and a 3.7 percent increase in August.

This all seems to be driven by emotion, as the actual situation isn't that dire, and there are plentiful wheat supplies around the world.

Even the goofy call by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization to call a meeting over this is ridiculous. There's nothing to be concerned with, other then nations ordering supplies from alternative sources. How hard can that be?

This is more of a manufactured crisis with reporting on only one side of the issue, leaving out the huge supply of wheat there is available around the world.

Few in the industry are offering balance because they like the high prices and profits they're getting.

Genetically Modified Salmon As Safe To Eat As Normal Atlantic Salmon


U.S. regulators say that genetically engineered salmon as safe to eat as wild Atlantic salmon, after completing a preliminary analysis. Aqua Bounty Technologies Inc., have genetically modified their salmon so that they eat all year round and grow twice as fast as salmon typically would in their natural environments.

Genetically modified (engineered) salmon is an Atlantic salmon. It has been modified by adding a growth hormone regulating gene from another fish - the Pacific Chinook salmon - as well as an on-switch gene from an Ocean Pout (Zoarces americanus, an eel-type fish) to the Atlantic Salmon's 40,000 genes. The genetically engineered Atlantic salmon eats all year round and gets bigger much more rapidly. Normal Atlantic salmon only feed during the spring and summer.

The aim of the genetic modifications is to speed up the fish's growth, without affecting its eventual size or other characteristics. Normal Atlantic salmon take about three years to reach market size, while the genetically modified one takes from 16 to 18 months.

There is a 10-year ongoing review of an application to allow genetically modified salmon into the U.S. food supply - if approved, it will be the first modified animal to be approved to be sold for human consumption.

Aqua Bounty Technologies Inc. has named their modified salmon AquAdvantage Salmon.

A Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee, which advises the FDA, is holding a three-day meeting, starting on September 19th, 2010, at the Rockville Hilton, 1750 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, to decide whether to approve the fish for the U.S. food supply market. Although the Committee's decision/recommendation is not binding, the FDA tends to go along with what they say.

In a press release, Aqua Bounty Technologies informs that:

In addition, the FDA will hold a public hearing on the application of its food labeling requirements and how they might apply to AquAdvantage® Salmon on 21st September at the same location (Rockville Hilton, 1750 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland).


Today's news refers to documents released before the meeting by the FDA saying the genetically modified salmon is as safe to eat as normal Atlantic salmon, and that the modified fish were "highly unlikely to produce significant effects on the environment".

Dr. Ronald Stotish, President and CEO of AquaBounty, commented:

This is welcome and exciting news for the Company as we near the end of the detailed and necessary process to receive regulatory approval for our AquAdvantage Salmon. The meeting will provide an opportunity for the public to understand how the application of our technology will enable the safe and sustainable production of high quality fish. We believe the economic and environmental benefits of our salmon will very effectively help to meet the demand for food from the growing world population.


According to the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska, Anchorage, during the years 2000-2004, Americans consumed:
284 metric tons of salmon per year
One third of Salmon consumed consisted of Pacific salmon, and two thirds was Atlantic Salmon
One third was domestic production and two thirds was imported
60% was fresh salmon, 20% was frozen salmon, and 20% was canned salmon
45% of pacific salmon was canned
Almost no Atlantic salmon was canned
34% of Pacific salmon was frozen
13% of Atlantic salmon was frozen
21% of Pacific salmon was fresh
87% of Atlantic salmon was fresh
Americans consumed 130,000 metric tons of salmon in 1989, compared to 284,000 in 2004. This increase was mostly due to the growth in imported farmed salmon.

Idiots Tofu is much better for you!




Farmed salmon is bad for the environment!

S.