Two years ago anti-waste campaigners fed 5,000 people in London from food that was otherwise going to be thrown away. On friday they’re repeating the stunt – and you’re invited. If you can get down to Trafalgar Square on Friday, 18th of November, between 12 and 2:00, lunch will be served. Better make that 12:00, [...]
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The EU is subsidising illegal fishing
That’s the straight-forward message of this latest campaign video from Greenpeace, which highlights the fact that EU subsidy monies have found their way to fishing companies with a history of illegal activity. In one incidence, a Spanish company received €15 million between 20o2 and 2009, despite several of their crews being convicted for fishing without [...]
Video: Food speculation explained
Second in today’s double-bill of short videos on commodity speculation, this animation is from German NGO World Economy, Ecology and Development. (Here’s the first video if you missed it)
Video: speculation and the price of tortillas
It’s always worth watching the short video investigations from The Ecologist, and Tom Levitt’s report from Mexico is no exception. The price of corn has tripled in the last couple of years, due in part to speculation in the commodities markets. The first video of two about food speculation I’, posting today – here’s the [...]
Let’s hear it for the uglies
Here’s a little sample of the carrot crop out of my back garden – aren’t they magnificent? Okay, I’ve not prepared the ground properly and left my carrots to dodge the pebbles on their way south. And I could have been more diligent in thinning them out. Still, they’re more interesting this way, in my [...]
Can you help Make Lunch?
A few weeks ago the BBC screened a documentary called Poor Kids, about children growing up in poverty in the UK. It profiles the lives of several children, letting them tell their own stories to camera. It’s an eye opening programme, showing the realities of a childhood without heating in winter, without holidays, and where [...]
Why are there still famines in Africa?
According to the Disasters Emergency Committee, donations towards aid for Africa’s current famine are far below the totals raised for the Asian Tsunami, Haiti, or Pakistan, even though more people are affected. I wonder why. Is it bad timing, a disaster in the middle of an economic crisis, with people holding onto their cash? Is [...]
How self-sufficient is Britain?
Interesting graph from the Climate Safety website this morning, showing Britain’s declining ability to feed itself. It’s not a disaster as long as we’re able to trade, but it is a clear vulnerability in a world of rising oil prices. We’ve been stung by this vulnerability before, albeit under exceptional circumstances, during the war. In [...]
Where does your supermarket shop?
We all get to choose where we do our shopping, and for most of us that basically means choosing from one of the big supermarket chains. But supermarkets have to go shopping too, filling those shelves in the first place. Suppliers in turn need to buy in their ingredients, and so on back through processors [...]
Let’s get serious about food speculation
Today, G20 agricultural ministers are meeting in Paris, and food speculation is on the agenda. Will this be the week we finally see some political action on commodities speculation? The hosts are serious about the issue. “Speculation, panic and lack of transparency have seen prices soaring,” said president Sarcozy recently. “Is that the world we [...]
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