Drouth, ethanol & world hunger

[shock]

THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
July 22, 2012

"***
The price of corn hit an all-time record high on Thursday. So did the price of soybeans.
The price of corn is up about 50 percent since the middle of last month, and the price of wheat has risen by about 50 percent over the past five weeks.
On Thursday, corn for September delivery reached $8.166 per bushel, and many analysts believe that it could hit $10 a bushel before this crisis is over.
The worst drought in the United States in more than 50 years is projected to continue well into August, and more than 1,300 counties in the United States have been declared to be official natural disaster areas.
So how is this crisis going to affect the average person on the street? Well, most Americans and most Europeans are going to notice their grocery bills go up significantly over the coming months. That will not be pleasant.
But in other areas of the world this crisis could mean the difference between life and death for some people.
***"
(sentences spaced)
==========================================================

Given your financial resources, your geographic location, and your pecking position,
who cares if our inefficient transportation means, methods and system
wastes irreplaceable energy

and starves human beings and other forms of earthlife?
Really cares?

You?
,

 

[waltky]

Fighting global hunger...

Business Model Aids Hunger Relief
January 14, 2013 - For every snack sold, Two Degrees donates a nutritious meal to a malnourished child

At an age when most Americans begin thinking about retirement, Lauren Walters founded a company aimed at feeding the world's hungry children. The idea came to the lifelong political activist and entrepreneur after a visit to Rwanda. He'd made a significant donation to an international health care organization and wanted to see first-hand where his contributions were going. “What I learned was that, for malnutrition in children, we know exactly what to do," Walters says. "We know how to bring them back from the brink.”

What it takes, he learned, is a nutrient-rich protein packet. “These are packets, little sachets, that are 500 calories, that are medically formulated," Walters says. "It’s basically sweet peanut butter with vitamins. Those sachets, given over four to six weeks, several a day, can bring a kid back from the edge and can give them the chance, if they get adequate nutrition going forward, of developing in a normal way.”

However, relief agencies and humanitarian groups were unable to distribute enough packets to satisfy the growing need. So Walters came up with a concept to help meet the demand: a food company based on a one-to-one model. For every item sold, a nutritious meal would be donated to a malnourished child. “This one-to-one idea is a unique way to engage millions of Americans, Europeans, and others who will be buyers one day with the notion that they could do something for themselves and something good for another person," Walters says. "If we can give people easy ways of helping other people, I think that really changes the world.”

MORE

 

[jwoodie]

Marching towards disaster one vote at a time...

 

[waltky]

Parasites `causin' malnutrition in Africa...

Study in Malawi Links Microbes to Malnutrition Deaths
January 31, 2013 - A new study finds giving malnourished children antibiotics along with the usual nutritional treatment could save tens of thousands of lives each year.

The study of children in Malawi found some stayed healthy or responded favorably to a nutrient treatment after becoming malnourished while their brother or sister did not. The researchers then discovered intestinal microbes in children were affecting how they were able to stay healthy or respond to nutritional treatment.

They found a week of medicine raised the survival and recovery rates of children treated for malnutrition.

The findings were further bolstered when the researchers conducted a second study that implanted microbes from the healthy and malnourished twins into mice. The mice with microbes from malnourished children lost weight and developed an abnormal metabolism.

Source

See also:

Thailand Rewards Nigerian Doctor for Work on River Blindness
January 31, 2013 — A pioneering doctor in the fight against the river blindness disease in sub-Saharan Africa has received a prestigious award in Thailand - the Prince Mahidol Award for outstanding contributions in public health. Doctor Uche Amazigo says she is upbeat about efforts to combat the disease, despite political instability that has set back outreach efforts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says as many 18 million people, largely in Africa and Yemen, are infected by river blindness, a parasitic disease that has left 500,000 people visually impaired and a further 270,000 blinded. The WHO says long-term treatment for as long as 20 years is crucial to ensure victims are free from the parasite. The long duration of treatment means that disruptions in care, especially from conflict or political instability that displaces populations, set back efforts to contain the disease.

Amazigo, former director of WHO’s African Program on Onchocerciasis, points to past conflicts in Southern Sudan as a challenge for medical workers to deliver treatment and necessary drugs. “It disrupts the ability of people to even distribute health commodities among themselves like ivermeticin, treated bed nets and vitamin ‘A’. We had huge challenges in Southern Sudan. We started the program in 1999 - it collapsed because of conflict. We went back in 2001, it collapsed because of conflict and we’re back again in 2010 - Now we cross our fingers that it’s going to continue," she said. The Nigerian-born Amazigo successfully introduced locally-directed treatment to communities. The networks now cover 117,000 communities within 19 African governments, backed by civil societies and donors.

In 1987, U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck and Co. launched a program donating the drug ‘ivermectin’ to all those affected by the disease as long as necessary, based on the community directed program. Amazigo says the disease is especially harsh on women who are often stigmatized when they begin showing the disease’s first signs as skin rashes. “More, more towards women because we found that it increased the age of marriage. Girls would not marry at the right age and would also reduce the period of breast feeding [due to rashes] and there was divorce also. But men too were affected by that," she explained.

But Amazigo says she is "satisfied" with progress being made with the acceptance of partners, health providers and governments recognizing community participation as critical to reaching more than 120 million people at risk. River blindness is recognized as one of the neglected tropical disease contributing to poverty and under-development in Africa. WHO has estimated $1.5 billion funding to combat these diseases in Africa until 2017. Amazigo was in Thailand to receive the prestigious Prince Mahidol Award for outstanding contributions in public health. Britain’s Sir Michael Rawlings, chairman of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, was also recognized for his work in medicine.

Source

 

[Redfish]

brazil tried ethanol and it was a financial disaster, now they are drilling for offshore oil with money loaned to them by the USA (obama/soros/petrobas)

 

[waltky]

New test for river blindness...

Researchers Develop Simple Test for River Blindness
February 28, 2013 - Diagnosing the tropical parasitic illness Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, might soon be as easy as testing a urine sample. Such a simple test would permit more effective diagnosis and treatment of a disease that now afflicts nearly 18 million people around the world.

People call Onchocerciasis "river blindness" because it’s caused by the bite of a parasitic-worm-infected black fly that lives near rivers. The illness is most common in sub-Saharan Africa, although it also exists in parts of Yemen and in Central and South America. The river blindness parasite has an active and inactive phase, making it difficult to treat the disease. During its active phase, the female worm produces millions of microscopic eggs that migrate to different tissues throughout the body. Infection of the eyes can lead to blindness. The disease is usually treated with the antiparasitic agent Ivermectin, which lowers the number of eggs produced by the worm, and an antibiotic, doxycycline, which sterilizes it.

But according to Daniel Globisch, a researcher at Scripps Research Institute in California, it is difficult to determine when the worm is active. That information would help health care providers know whether their treatment is effective or not. It would also reduce the risk that wasteful use of antibiotics might promote drug resistance in the river blindness parasite. Currently, Globisch says, the only way is to be certain that the worm is active is to do a skin biopsy to look for signs of the parasite. “This is very invasive and also painful and really uncomfortable for the people. And that’s why a non-invasive diagnostic is as important,” Globisch said.

Globisch and colleagues think they found one. They have identified a single biomarker produced by the worm - a chemical that sends signals from one nerve cell to another - that is present in the patient's urine during the active phase. “The single marker is linked to the worm’s lifecycle. And that is why we believe this is the perfect marker to get a test,” Globisch said.

Globisch says the test would be inexpensive and portable. Infected individuals also suffer severe itching and the Scripps scientists are investigating treatments to ease that symptom for as long as patients with river blindness harbor the parasite. An article on a urine test for river blindness is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers Develop Simple Test for River Blindness

 

[KissMy]

High food prices are due to large corporations & government price supports.


"The U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering buying 400,000 tons of sugar - Enough for 142 billion Hershey's HSY -0.08%Kisses—to stave off a wave of defaults by sugar processors that borrowed $862 million under a government price-support program. The action aims to prop up tumbling U.S. sugar prices, which have fallen 18% since the USDA made the nine-month operations-financing loans beginning in October."

 

[waltky]

Hunger across the globe costs billions...

Report: Child Malnutrition Costs Global Economy Billions
May 28, 2013 — A report by a Britain-based charity says one-quarter of the world's children may underperform at school because of chronic malnutrition. Save the Children says tackling malnutrition should be a priority for G8 leaders meeting next month in Northern Ireland.

The report published on Tuesday says a stunted eight-year-old is almost 20 percent more likely to find it hard to read basic sentences than someone of the same age who has a good diet. David McNair, head of growth, equity and livelihoods at Save the Children UK, said, "Those who are malnourished have consistently scored lower on math tests and found it more difficult to read a simple sentence at age eight. And as they go through life that effects their confidence, career aspirations and ultimately their ability to earn money." The report was based on an international study, Young Lives, which is led by a team from the University of Oxford. Thousands of children were involved in the research, which covered Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam.

It says the period from when a woman becomes pregnant until a child is two is a critical time for brain development. If the pregnant or breast-feeding woman and the infant don't have access to the right nutrients, both brain development and cognitive performance can be compromised. McNair said the impact of malnutrition, however, goes beyond the biology of the brain. "There is interesting evidence on the stimulus they receive. Because children who are malnourished look smaller, their parents and their caregivers tend to treat them as if they were younger than they are. And that means they do not get the right stimulus and their brains are not developing as a result of that stimulus," he said.

According to the UN, in 2012 47% of children under five in southern Asia and 39% in sub-Saharan Africa were stunted – too short for their age due to poor nutrition.

Tuesday's report says the impact of childhood malnutrition poses a major threat to the long-term economic growth of many developing countries. U.N. figures suggest that last year nearly 50 percent of children under five in southern Asia and 40 percent of under-five in sub-Saharan Africa were stunted - too short for their age due to poor nutrition. Save the Children predicts that malnourished children may, as adults, earn 20 percent less than their nourished peers, costing the global economy more than $100 billion a year. Therefore, said McNair, targeting malnutrition now will have major long-term effects. But despite being one of the most cost-effective forms of development, nutrition programs get only slightly more than 0.3 percent of global development spending.

Early next month the British and Brazilian governments are hosting the first-ever nutrition pledging conference. Save the Children wants spending on nutrition to more than double to $1 billion a year. And it aims to encourage middle-income countries to put nutrition at the top of their spending agenda. "We want developing country governments also to make their own commitments. Because some of these countries where malnutrition is a major problem, countries like India and Nigeria, are actually middle-income countries and have resources themselves; they just need to invest in them in the right way," said McNair. According to Save the Children, 10.9 million children under five in Nigeria are stunted. In India, the figure is 61.4 million.

Source

 

[waltky]

AI can help in fight against global hunger...

Global Hunger Is Rising, Artificial Intelligence Can Help
April 08, 2018 — Despite a global abundance of food, a United Nations report says 815 million people, 11 percent of the world’s population, went hungry in 2016. That number seems to be rising.

Poverty is not the only reason, however, people are experiencing food insecurity. “Increasingly we’re also seeing hunger caused by the displacement related to conflict, natural disaster as well, but particularly there’s been an uptick in the number of people displaced in the world,” said Robert Opp, director of Innovation and Change Management at the United Nations World Food Program. Humanitarian organizations are turning to new technologies such as AI, or artificial intelligence, to fight global food insecurity. “What AI offers us right now, is an ability to augment human capacity. So, we’re not talking about replacing human beings and things. We’re talking about doing more things and doing them better than we could by just human capacity alone,” Opp said.

Analyze data, get it to farmers

Artificial intelligence can analyze large amounts of data to locate areas affected by conflict and natural disasters and assist farmers in developing countries. The data can then be accessed by farmers from their smartphones. “The average smartphone that exists in the world today is more powerful than the entire Apollo space program 50 years ago. So just imagine a farmer in Africa who has a smartphone has much more computing power than the entire Apollo space program,” said Pranav Khaitan, engineering lead at Google AI.

Subsistence farmer Joice Chimedza harvests maize on her small plot in Norton, a farming area outside Zimbabwe's capital, Harare​

“When you take your special data and soil mapping data and use AI to do the analysis, you can send me the information. So in a nutshell, you can help me [know] when to plant, what to plant, how to plant,” said Uyi Stewart, director of Strategy Data and Analytics in Global Development of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “When you start combining technologies, AI, robotics, sensors, that’s when we see magic start to happen on farms for production, to increase crop yields,” said Zenia Tata, vice president for Global Impact Strategy at XPRIZE, an organization that creates incentivized competitions so innovative ideas and technologies can be developed to benefit humanity. “It all comes down to developing these techniques and making it available to these farmers and people on the ground,” Khaitan said.

Breaking down barriers

See also:

Scientists Harvest First Vegetables in Antarctic Greenhouse
April 08, 2018 — Scientists in Antarctica have harvested their first crop of vegetables grown without earth, daylight or pesticides as part of a project designed to help astronauts cultivate fresh food on other planets.

Researchers at Germany's Neumayer Station III say they've picked 3.6 kilograms (8 pounds) of salad greens, 18 cucumbers and 70 radishes grown inside a high-tech greenhouse as temperatures outside dropped below -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit).

Vegetables are seen growing on the Eden ISS, German Aerospace Center DLR, Antarctica.​

The German Aerospace Center DLR, which coordinates the project, said Thursday that by May scientists hope to harvest 4-5 kilograms of fruit and vegetables a week.

While NASA has successfully grown greens on the International Space Station, DLR's Daniel Schubert says the Antarctic project aims to produce a wider range of vegetables that might one day be grown on Mars or the Moon.

Scientists Harvest First Vegetables in Antarctic Greenhouse

 

[fncceo]

I grow my own corn and hate soy. World hunger only affects me when it happens in countries that make my favourite porn. So far, the Japanese seem to have plenty to eat.

 

[waltky]

821M people, 121M children worldwide are 'food insecure'...

Experts: 821M people, 121M children worldwide are 'food insecure'
Sept. 14, 2018 -- The number of undernourished people in the world has increased to one in nine, a new analysis Friday showed

In a reversal of a years-long trend, at least 821 million people -- including 151 million children -- are undernourished, a 202-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations said. Researchers studied hunger in 134 counties and concluded just 13 percent of children under the age of five are classified as obese. The study uses the term "food insecurity" to denote those with unreliable or inadequate sources of food and situations that lead to both overweight and underweight conditions.

Palestinian farmers collect wheat stalks during the annual harvest at a farm near the Deir Al-Balah refugee camp, in central Gaza. A new report Friday said the number of people worldwide who don't have consistent access to food is growing.​

A Food Insecurity Experience Scale of eight questions from the Gallup World Poll tracks respondents. Friday's report linked five characteristics with greater food insecurity -- low education levels, less social capitalism, weak social networks, low income and unemployment. Gallup said the characteristics are constant across all countries' rankings of economic development.

The FAO report said conflict that leads to economic instability and climate change are major factors that also contribute to food insecurity. Experts recommended disaster-mitigating risk reduction in economies and proper planning for the near and long term.

Experts: 821M people, 121M children worldwide are 'food insecure'

 

[fncceo]

I'm very food insecure ... but, I'm getting over it by facing my fears.

 

[McRocket]

821M people, 121M children worldwide are 'food insecure'...

Experts: 821M people, 121M children worldwide are 'food insecure'
Sept. 14, 2018 -- The number of undernourished people in the world has increased to one in nine, a new analysis Friday showed

In a reversal of a years-long trend, at least 821 million people -- including 151 million children -- are undernourished, a 202-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations said. Researchers studied hunger in 134 counties and concluded just 13 percent of children under the age of five are classified as obese. The study uses the term "food insecurity" to denote those with unreliable or inadequate sources of food and situations that lead to both overweight and underweight conditions.

Palestinian farmers collect wheat stalks during the annual harvest at a farm near the Deir Al-Balah refugee camp, in central Gaza. A new report Friday said the number of people worldwide who don't have consistent access to food is growing.​

A Food Insecurity Experience Scale of eight questions from the Gallup World Poll tracks respondents. Friday's report linked five characteristics with greater food insecurity -- low education levels, less social capitalism, weak social networks, low income and unemployment. Gallup said the characteristics are constant across all countries' rankings of economic development.

The FAO report said conflict that leads to economic instability and climate change are major factors that also contribute to food insecurity. Experts recommended disaster-mitigating risk reduction in economies and proper planning for the near and long term.

Experts: 821M people, 121M children worldwide are 'food insecure'

There is one way to help things...have humans stop eating red meat.

I love the taste of meat, but it is INCREDIBLY wasteful to produce compared to most other sources of food. It takes many times as many calories of feed/grain to product just one calorie of beef and pork.

Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment | The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition | Oxford Academic

These foods are a luxury that the long term health of the planet cannot afford (assuming the population keeps growing).


And save the nonsense about 'we need red meat for protein'. Nope. Most people consume FAR more protein than they need. Most people could get more than enough protein just from whole grains and vegetables.
Heck, I used to pump iron fairly heavily - and I got enough protein even for that without having to consume meat (from Soy Protein - for one...Whey gave me headaches).

 

[fncceo]

have humans stop eating red meat.

When you pry the hot, juicy meat from my cold, dead hands.