The world's most expensive food

In the chair's summary of the last G-8 conference in Heiligendamm, Germany, there was no mention of food prices or agriculture.

What a difference a year makes.

Since the G-8 last assembled in June 2007, food prices have reached unprecedented heights, threatening to push millions into poverty.

Earlier this month, the general director of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, said the rising prices of basic foodstuffs have added 50 million additional people to the ranks of the hungry. And World Bank President Robert Zoellick has estimated that the surging prices could push 100 million more people deeper into poverty.

Aid organizations are strapped for cash. Soaring prices forced the U.N's World Food Program, based in Rome, to embark on a massive fund-raising campaign to combat what executive director Josette Sheeran called a "silent tsunami" - a global crisis that, in some fashion, will strike every nation.

Overall, countries like Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Haiti, which import most of their food, stand to hurt the most. And in the poorest countries, the rising prices are causing hardship for farmers, whose production volumes are simply too small to reap a windfall.

One long-term solution is improving agriculture in the developing world so that more countries can one day feed themselves. In fact, 2008 has been dubbed the International Year of the Potato as part of an effort to boost production of the tuber globally. Potatoes are high energy and easy to grow, and experts consider them a good crop for food security because they are not widely traded. But potatoes can only do so much so fast; for many countries, harvests that fill the national stomach are still years away. Nobody expected food prices to rise so high so quickly.

"It caught the world by surprise, to be honest," says Nancy Roman, the director of communications and public policy for the World Food Program. "We were early in identifying rising food prices as a problem, and that was last summer, before this was on the front pages everywhere. But we didn't anticipate just how far this would go."

By all accounts, it's gone too far. The World Bank estimates that 41 countries have suffered losses of between 3% and 10% of their gross domestic product because they've been hammered by soaring prices of food and fuel. More than 30 countries have experienced rioting over food shortages, according to the World Bank.

The humanitarian need to ease the crisis is obvious; people shouldn't be starving. Perhaps less obvious is the global economic threat: Stagnant or collapsing growth in the developing world combined with political instability has the potential to drag down growth everywhere.

People living on a dollar a day are likely spending almost their entire income on food. If the prices double, the amount of food they can afford is halved.

To measure the world's most expensive food, we looked at data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Rather than look at the most expensive food in absolute terms - of course, Beluga caviar and hippopotamus steaks are more expensive than rice - we looked at everyday commodities whose prices have soared the most in the last year. The average family's grocery bill is expanding because of these goods, like rice and butter.

Using information from the commodity prices database maintained by the Commodities and Trade Division of the FAO, we averaged the price of various commodities from January 2008 to April 2008 (the most recent month for which data were available on a wide range of food items) and compared these figures with prices during the same period one year ago.

Some commodities have peaked, and their prices seem to be easing. The costs of rice and wheat, which had nearly doubled, have slacked some. But they are still dramatically higher than a year ago. Some crops, like corn and the grain sorghum, continue to climb.

Prices for food can be highly inter-related. Increased demand for corn, largely driven by production of ethanol as an alternative fuel to gasoline, has caused American farmers to plant less soybeans in favor of corn fields. But fewer soybean fields mean less soy oil, driving up not only the price of soybeans but also other oilseeds.

Using this data, we found that sunflower seeds and its products have experienced the most dramatic increase in prices--up nearly 150% from last year.

Behind the price increases, one sees a perfect storm of factors fueling the "silent tsunami": unexpected bad weather, from floods to droughts, pillaged fields across the world; soaring oil prices lifted costs of producing and transporting the crops; prices rose along with demand from both an ever-growing global population and a rapidly expanding American ethanol industry; and as global prices soared, a number of countries implemented beggar-thy-neighbor export curbs, driving up prices even further.

Global leaders cannot do much about the weather. But the remaining factors in the food crisis are manmade. Heads of state have the ability, and the forum, to address the problems. The question is - do they have the will?

Punjab paddy acreage seen up 2.3 pc to 2.7 hectares

MUMBAI: Paddy acreage in the northern state of Punjab may rise about 2.3 per cent to 2.67 million hectares (6.6 million acres) this year, a state farm department official said on Thursday. "We expect an increase in the total area under paddy. Transplanting of basmati and other late varieties like PUSA 1121 is underway and should be completed by end of July," said Gurdial Singh, joint director with the state's farm department. As on July 16 the crop covered about 2.5 million hactares, the state farm department said. The farm department estimates paddy and rice output of 15.85 million tonnes and 10.6 million tonnes respectively, up from 15.63 million tonnes paddy and 10.49 million tonnes of rice in the previous year. Punjab is India's fourth biggest rice producer, behind West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Beta-carotene helps to protect against sunburn

If "an apple a day keeps the doctor away", a carrot a day might help to keep the sun burn away. That is the conclusion of a recently published analysis by Professors Wolfgang Köpcke and Jean Krutmann, of Münster University Hospital and the Institut für Umweltmedizinische Forschung in Düsseldorf, Germany, respectively.

In a paper published in Photochemistry and Photobiology, 2008, 84, Köpcke and Krutmann analyzed seven reports on clinical trials exploring the relationship between the consumption of Beta-Carotene and skin resistance to the ultraviolet (UV) radiation present in the sun's rays. Beta-Carotene is an orange natural pigment important for photosynthesis in plants. It is also responsible for the characteristic red-to-orange colors of carrots, tomatoes, and many other green leafy vegetables and fruits.

"We found that a diet rich in Beta-Carotene significantly protects the skin against sunburn if it is consumed for a long period of time," explains Professor Köpcke. "It does not offer the same powerful and almost immediate protection against UV radiation offered by modern sunscreens, but it can provide a basis of protection which should be 'topped up' with sunscreen when intensive exposure to the sun is planned." "This form of 'nutritional' protection against UV has two important advantages," continues Professor Krutmann. "It is permanently present in people who have enjoyed a diet rich in Beta-Carotene for many years, and it also benefits every part of the skin.

"While Beta-Carotene occurs naturally, it can also be synthesized. Nature-identical synthetic Beta-Carotene has an important role to play in many fortified foods and beverages as well as in dietary supplements. Manfred Eggersdorfer, Head of R&D at DSM Nutritional Products, a leading producer of Beta-Carotene, comments: "These findings show the importance of a nutritionally rich and balanced diet. We are quite literally what we eat, and a healthy portion of Beta-Carotene should certainly be on our daily menu."

US Strawberries: Do growers sacrifice taste for size?

When American Greetings introduced the rag-doll style character Strawberry Shortcake in 1980, she generated $500 million in sales for the company over the next two years, according to the company's Web site.

If that character hadn't been introduced at that time, and someone had the idea of creating a similar character today, I don't think the marketing people would approve.

Why, you ask? Because strawberries aren't cute anymore. Commercial strawberries that you get in the grocery store look more like goblin noses or deformed animal hooves. I can hardly look at them.

Some googling of how these monstrous strawberries came to be is revealed in an informative piece in The Boston Globe from 2006, where members of the California Strawberry Commission said they've gotten bigger because they've been bred to be bigger, because that's what people supposedly want.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also pointed out that with bigger berries, a smaller amount can fill a pint, meaning fewer individual berries need to be picked, saving labor time.

They say larger strawberries don't taste different, but I wonder. Often varieties of produce bred to suit the producer - easier to pick, better for withstanding travel, etc. - lose their taste genes.

So what can we do? Support local berries. Apparently 88 percent of berries sold in America come from the West Coast. But handfuls of orchards and family farms still grow their own strawberries, and they're worth seeking out.

Strawberry festivals should be popping up at local churches during the next few weeks. Check them out, and ask where the strawberries came from. See if you can taste the difference.

Indian banana sets sail for Saudi Arabia

India's banana exports crossed a new milestone Friday when a container load of the fruit bound for Jeddah left this industrial town in Gujarat's Bharuch district. About a thousand farmers, who produced the fruit on a contract basis for Desai Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd (DFV), cheered as the 18-tonne special reefer container moved out from the company's cold storage complex. The consignment is being sent as part of a multi million-dollar contract signed with Saudi Arabia's Mohammed Adallah Sharbatly Co. Ltd.'

This is in effect the 51st container which is going. The previous 50 containers were sent on a trial basis,' said P.K. Khandelwal, CEO of DFV. Bananas were till now exported through merchant exporters and this is the first time a container load is being shipped away. The company is planning to dispatch container loads of fruits to seven more countries within a month. With this, India will join Latin American countries and the Philippines in the Far East as a global supplier of bananas.

A large retailer in India has approached DFV for the supply of premium quality bananas at a good price. This will be finalised in the next two months. India is the largest producer of bananas in the world with 23 percent of the global production, which is estimated at 72.5 million tonnes a year. Brazil, China, Ecuador and Philippines are the other major producers. Export bananas are the developing world's fourth most important commodity and rank first as a commonly eaten fruit.

DFV, founded in 2001 by Ajit Desai, a Gujarat farmer, pioneered banana exports from India. With earnings of $750,000 in 2006-07, the company has become India's largest banana exporter. Desai has created India's first multi-fruit integrated infrastructure and his DFV has now become one of the largest fruit logistics firms in India and works with close to 2,500 farmers spread across 23 villages in Gujarat and 16 villages in Maharashtra. This has made DFV one of the largest contract farming exporters in India.

DFV has a model farm where a tree yields 35 kg per plant compared to the normal output of 17 kg in others. Desai said: 'DFV assures a promise of a minimum price and underwrites initial investment in seeds. Then there is a central labour bank for specific harvesting and post-harvesting of banana cultivation. Any of our contract farmers can ask for skilled labour from this bank.'

Apart from assured income, the Desai farm-certified farmers are getting a taste of hi-tech and best practices. Desai has converted migrating tribal villagers in Surat district to farmers producing fruits and vegetables. He offers cold-chain logistics at the grass root level in various villages.

The company operates at international best practice benchmarks and has cultivated for itself a good customer base including supermarkets as well as leading importers, distributors in Europe, the US, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. DFV's 2007 turnover was close to $8 million. The company's equity holding is in the nature of 80:20. While 80 percent is owned by Contract Farming India, a firm based in Zug, Switzerland, Desai owns 20 percent.