Tom Marcinko @ 26-06-2008
The Mars candy company, the U.S. Agricultural Research Service, and the world’s second-fastest supercomputer, IBM’s Blue Gene, are working to sequence the genome of the cocoa tree. The project will identify cocoa plants that are better able to withstand the effects of global warming, including fungal strains and insects. The same tools might be applied to other food staples. There’s no genomic cure for political unrest, which also threatens the world’s cocoa supply.
[Story tip: fark.com. Chocolate portrait inspired by Roy Lichtenstein by emilywjones]
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Paul Raven @ 11-05-2008
Nothing kick-starts my Monday like some over-the-top provocative contrarian thinking. So, how fortunate to come across this report on conservation scientist Paul Nabhan, who suggests that the best thing we could do to prevent rare species going extinct is to start eating them.
First thing to note is that he’s not talking about snow leopards or pandas or anything like that. He’s talking about what he calls “heritage foods” - animals and plants that were once staples of regional diets but which have fallen out of favour in the kitchen, and are near to extinction as a result. [image by Arno & Louise]
Second thing to note is that Nabhan has a new book on the market.
Now, while Nabhan’s point is interesting in its own right, I find myself more interested in the results of the rhetorical approach. Look at the MetaFilter comments thread about this article, and see how many of the commenters have simply extrapolated the worst possible scenario from the headline without bothering to read the article. Is it worth using contrarian tactics to stimulate debate, or is it just another way of making a noise about a new product?
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Paul Raven @ 15-04-2008
Here’s another item to add to the list of science fictional ideas that are edging close to becoming a reality - in-vitro (or “vat-grown”) meat could be sat on supermarket shelves within ten years.
The technology is already tried and tested, it’s just a case of waiting for the economic cost to become competitive … which, given the sharp (and probably continuing) rise in global food prices, may come sooner than anyone would like to think. [image by Yandle]
I’ve spoken to friends about in-vitro meat and their reaction has usually been disgust. I’m guessing that the economics will change that attitude more effectively than any amount of rational discussion - principles tend to be the first thing that gets eaten when someone’s stomach is empty, and we’re already consuming meat from cloned livestock.
And after all, it’s not quite the same as Soylent Green. Would you move to eating in-vitro meat right now if it cost less than the real thing?
[And we're back to song lyric references in headlines ... 
]
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Tomas Martin @ 11-04-2008
Food prices are at historic highs, thanks to a number of factors including increased biofuel use. Rice prices are causing shortages and inflation problems in India, Bangladesh and the rest of Asia, with prices of many grains double what they were this time last year.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown today called for action about the price rises at the next G8 meeting, with the incentives for making biofuel having unforeseen consequences leading to the shortages.
“For the first time in decades, the number of people facing hunger is growing. Food prices have risen sharply leading to food riots in several countries,” Brown wrote.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the Telegraph reports that farmers who had been producing opium for the illicit trade of heroin have begun to switch from the poppy to wheat because the grain fetches higher prices than the drug. Unforeseen consequences, indeed!
[via Russ Winter and Paul Krugman, image of rice at Colaba Market, Mumbai by Dey]
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Tomas Martin @ 31-03-2008
Although PetroSun have picked the worst possible day for beginning production, their algae to biofuel processor plant is ready to begin working tomorrow, April 1st. 1080 acres of the site in Rio Hondo Texas will be devoted the process, with an additional 20 acres making experimental jet fuel . I’d question their choice of launching on April Fool’s Day but if this is a real development it’s potentially very exciting.
“Our business model has been focused on proving the commercial feasibility of the firms’ algae-to-biofuels technology during the past eighteen months.” said PetroSun CEO Gordon LeBlanc, Jr “Whether we have arrived at this point in time by a superior technological approach, sheer luck or a redneck can-do attitude, the fact remains that microalgae can outperform the current feedstocks utilized for conversion to biodiesel and ethanol, yet do not impact the consumable food markets or fresh water resources.”
Algae conversion to biofuel is much more efficient than other techniques. It provides as much as 30 times more energy per acre than corn or soy . In addition, it doesn’t impact on the growing of human fuel - food stocks in grains are low and shortages threatening because of farmland switching from food to biofuel production. Algae promises a good compromise to stop a Downward Spiral.
[story and picture via TreeHugger ]
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Tomas Martin @ 21-02-2008
For a number of years now biologists and farmers alike have been concerned about levels of honeybees around the world, with many hives collapsing due to what’s known as CCD - Colony Collapse Disorder. It leads people to find strangely abandoned hives with a few dead bees but most gone elsewhere. The causes are unknown - it could be a number of fungal or viral diseases, or interference from cell phone towers messing up their ability to find home. It could also be mites, global warming, GM crops, pretty much anything. As honeybees are used massively in pollinating commercial fruit and vegetables, this is a real concern not just for a species of insect, but also for us.
Happily a certain gourmet Ice Cream company is on the case. Haagen Dazs has already donated money to some of the researchers trying to find what’s going on with the bees. Now it’s also making a bee-themed honey Ice Cream, with profits going towards our stripy friends. Coincidentally, did you know Haagen Dazs is not actually Scandanavian? The name was created by its founders in America and both words are actually made up. The closest translation in any language is an Iranian phrase meaning ‘garbage can’.
[via Daily Galaxy, image by BugMan50]
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Edward Willett @ 08-01-2008
Philips has come up with a design for a tiny food analyzer, something that small food companies could afford: and something that raises the distinct possibility the day may not be far off when you’ll be able to carry your own personal food analyzer around with you to make sure you really are eating steak and not soy, or drinking Guinness and not somebody’s backyard brew with a load of food coloring in it (although if you can’t tell if you’re drinking real Guinness, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to drink it, anyway).
It’s all being made possible by “lab-on-a-chip” technology which puts the components for this kind of analysis on a single computer chip–just like in a Star Trek tricorder. (Via New Scientist, which made the Star Trek comparison first, so don’t blame me!)
Read the complete patent application.
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons.)
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Tomas Martin @ 05-11-2007
Currently for every 1 calorie of food, some 10 calories of energy are used to make it. As George Monbiot said in the Guardian last week, it is increasingly unclear where future supplies of water and phosphates will come from. After world war two the world population was around 3 Billion. Using newer techniques and fertilisers we have increased the amount of food an acre produces. The population has risen to match. Fertilisers are almost entirely all oil-based on large scale, however. With biofuels taking away land and oil prices rising as well as increased transportation costs, the current system of food from around the world is becoming a danger to supply. If the recent survey of 155 oil experts saying peak oil will come before 2010 turns out to be true, we will have to downscale very quickly indeed.
Two ways to combat this would also reverse many of the social changes of the last thirty or so years. Firstly, the reduction of food miles by producing stuff closer to home will bring down fuel needed to transport the food, often a massive contribution to the energy cost. The second involves fertilisers and other fuel-intensive techniques. As the amount of machinery and fertiliser brought into farms decreases due to prices, manual labour becomes increasingly important again. Eating less meat, particularly red meat, will reduce the amount of calories an acre of land can produce, as well as boosting our health. Large farms currently operating with few employees will need to split into smaller units and introduce nitrogen fixing vegetables between grain crops. On a social level this could increase the number of people making a small living for themselves off a plot of land, selling most of their produce locally. Using more varied crops, utilising the seasons and even vertical farming mean we could have good food even without shipping it in from abroad.
[photo by Chris Jacobs for The Vertical Farm Project]
Note: edited to attribute the photo to Chris Jacobs, who says: ‘For all of you out there…this illustration is NOT how a real vertical farm would be…it would be 100% hydroponic. This was just created to “show” growing food.’ - thanks for keeping us informed Chris!
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Tomas Martin @ 29-10-2007
With the organic food market growing and growing, it’s easy to wonder just how much difference it makes. Are just paying more for the same input to our bodies? A group of food scientists grew a number of different crops and animal produce, one lot entirely organic, the other non-organic. They found that organic fruit, vegetables and especially milk had more antioxidants and healthy fatty acids. It’s interesting to note that the most technologically advanced option isn’t always the best one - future agriculture will have to combine new inventions with older techniques if it wants to hit the sweet spot of good food. Now I’m glad I got that subscription to Abel and Cole veg boxes.
[via the guardian, image by nevermind her]
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Philips
