who is profiting from the high price of commodities? Monsanto.

Global commodity prices hit record highs this year. You might think rural America would get some benefit from higher prices for their crops, a respite from years of commodity prices far below a farmer's cost of production, but think again. Agribusiness companies know how to grab their share and more of that extra revenue -- raise prices. Monsanto is bragging to its shareholders that it's going to raise prices of its corn seed 35%. As they control a huge amount of the corn seed market, here and around the world, they can do what they want with corn seed prices.

Read this story from the Organization for Competitive Markets to see how the 35% price increase -- or about $100 a bag -- will fatten Monsanto's bottom line. Clearly genetic engineering isn't about feeding people, it's about feeding your stock price.

why are dead zones so popular these days?

It seems every summer there is more and more media coverage of ocean dead zones, those regions of our seas that become so polluted with algae that grow on fertilizer run-off that there's no oxygen left for other species. This summer the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico was predicted to be the largest one yet, although it didn't quite break the record.

This blog post from the Huffington Post gives a little deeper analysis of why dead zones and why the story won't go away, at least until we put serious effort into changing agricultural production practices.

A new era for agriculture?

The latest backgrounder of Food First! has some excellent analysis of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge for Science, Technology and Development (UN IAASTD). Read it here.