IBM and food miles?

Check out the frozen chicken video posted on IBMs "Smarter Planet" blog:

A Smarter Planet: Food for Thought

as well as their background pages.

Obamas Hire Chef From Chicago - NYTimes.com

The Obama's chef from home focuses on local and healthy food. Does he avoid GMOs?

Obamas Hire Chef From Chicago - NYTimes.com

Guest Column: A Low-Tech Treatment for Bee Plague - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com

Guest Column: A Low-Tech Treatment for Bee Plague - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com

the other side of the food crisis coin.

Ronkh Journal - West African Villagers Stake Their Fortunes on the Future Price of Rice - NYTimes.com

This article comes on a day when world food leaders are meeting in Madrid for a high-level meeting on global food security, following up the June 2008 summit held at the FAO in Rome.

Chuck Hassebrook as Deputy Secretary of USDA? A great idea!

Who Will Vilsack Name Deputy Secretary at USDA? | Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural

Food needs 'fundamental rethink'

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Food needs 'fundamental rethink'

(the following are some short excerpts from the much longer article by Mark Kinver. it's well worth reading the whole article.)

A sustainable global food system in the 21st Century needs to be built on a series of "new fundamentals", according to leading food expert, Professor Tim Lang:

• Oil and energy: "We have an entirely oil-based food economy, and yet oil is running out. The impact of that on agriculture is one of the drivers of the volatility in the world food commodity markets."
• Water scarcity: "One of the key things that I have been pushing is to get the UK government to start auditing food by water," Professor Lang said, adding that 50% of the UK's vegetables are imported, many from water-stressed nations.
• Biodiversity: "Biodiversity must not just be protected, it must be replaced and enhanced; but that is going to require a very different way growing food and using the land."
• Urbanisation: "Probably the most important thing within the social sphere. More people now live in towns than in the countryside. In which case, where do they get their food?"

Professor Lang said that in order to feed a projected nine billion people by 2050, policymakers and scientists face a fundamental challenge: how can food systems work with the planet and biodiversity, rather than raiding and pillaging it?

"We are going to have to get biodiversity into gardens and fields, and then eat it."

"We have to do this rather than saying that biodiversity is what is on the edge of the field or just outside my garden."

Our Good Earth

Just stumbled upon this wonderful homage to the foundation of our agricultural systems: soil. The final line? "We're simply not going to be able to keep treating it like dirt." Highly recommended.

The Good Earth, Charles Mann, National Geographic, September 2008.