Earth Equity News

World Dangerously Close to Food Crisis, U.N. Says. By John Collins Rudolf, NYTimes, 11/24/10. “Global grain production will tumble by 63 million metric tons this year, or 2 percent over all, mainly because of weather-related calamities like the Russian heat wave and the floods in Pakistan, the United Nations estimates in its most recent report on the world food supply. The United Nations had previously projected that grain yields would grow 1.2 percent this year… In the long term, growing demand for food staples like corn and seed oil for use as biofuels will most likely continue to play a central role in tightening world food supplies, the United Nations warned. Roughly 7% of global yields of corn and other coarse grains is being used to make ethanol.”