Israeli innovations for feeding the (Rich) world
Tel Aviv, Israel (TML) – The wave of demonstrations rippling across the Middle East has been partly driven by escalating food prices.
Millions live on the edge of poverty and just seeing what happened in Egypt and Tunisia shows how those on the brink can get motivate in a hurry to demand change. In Cairo they shouted, “Bread, Liberty and Dignity.”
It’s not that the world is producing less food; the irony is that technology has boosted yields. But eating habits have shifted and that’s stoking global instability. As living standards rise in the developing world, people want more meat and quality food, which takes more land and energy resources per calorie to produce.
“We are before a catastrophe; wars over water and food,” says Haim Aloush chief executive officer, Agro-Mashov. “The world population has grown over the past 70 years from two billion to seven billion people. More than 60% of the world is modifying their diets to eat food made from livestock and that requires five times as much farm land and water than food from crops.”
The latest international survey on food prices says 44 million people have been forced to the brink of poverty due to soaring food prices. Earlier in March, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned that a food crisis was eminent as prices have risen to their highest levels in 20 years.
The FAO’s director-general, Jacques Diouf, said countries in North Africa and the Middle East have made large grain purchases to head off unrest, which has toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and threatened Yemen and Libya. He added that South Korea and Mexico, too, had started major stockpiles of grain and corn.
Ironically, as the world grows hungrier, people in the world’s wealthiest countries are growing fatter and their demands for higher-protein foods is driving farmers to devote resources to cater to them at the expense of social and political instability in poorer countries and irreparable environmental damage.
Israel has emerged as a pioneer in agricultural technology. Experts have been working to increase agriculture output with less or brackish water. At a recent agriculture conference and exhibition in Tel Aviv called the Agro-Mashov, thousands of farmers and researchers from around the world came to see what Israel had to offer.
The self-proclaimed “World Cup of Agriculture” had glitzy Israeli stalls pushing everything from high tech fruit sorters, genetically modified fruit flies and sophisticated milking sensors. It is easy to see that innovation is driven not so much by the desire to feed the hungry, but to reach the growing lucrative markets.
“Every farmer that grows products and wants to export it to the European or North American market has to bring a perfect product to the market,” says Menashe Tamir, general manger of Eshet Eilon Industries. Tamir’s company produces sensitive fruit sorters that pack crates of nearly identical unbruised fruit for top price markets.
“The food that goes through this machine is either going to the European market or the American market or high class market in the developing countries. There is a big niche in the Chinese market. There are many rich people over there. In every country in the world there are rich people,” Tamir says.
Israel is the world leader in per cow milk yield. Semen from prize Israeli bulls is sought after across the globe. The Afimilk dairy farm management consultants have helped set up dairy farms in countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and China.
“In the world today there is a growing number of middle class and their demand for protein out of livestock is increasing. That is why there is a lot of demand for meat products and milk products,” says Baruch Fine, who is responsible for overseas development for Afimilk. “Also, because of the reduction of fish in the world there is a big focus on milk products.”
Ronnie Friedman, head of The Hebrew University’s Faculty of Agriculture, warns that just keeping up with food supplies is damaging the earth in unparalleled ways.
“Our goals are to increase productivity and protect the environment. With modern agriculture, we cannot continue to exploit the environment as we once did,” Friedman says. “Food production is not keeping up with global growth. In the next 20 to 30 years there won’t be enough food because there is a limited amount of arable land.”
According to Friedman, in the 1950s there were 2.5 billion people on earth and one hectare of arable land for every 1.7 people. Today one hectare needs to feed 4.2 people and by the middle of the century when world population will reach and estimated 10 billion one hectare will need to support seven people.
“This is a dramatic increase,” Friedman says.
Rising oil prices also have an indirect affect on food due to increased transportation costs and agriculture inputs like fertilizers. Ironically, the quest for oil alternatives such as biofuels have diverted 120 million tons of cereals away from human consumption and developed countries had even paid $13 billion in annual subsidies to encourage this, according to the UN’s Diouf.
In the United States, corn stocks have dipped to a 15-year low as more is being diverted to make ethanol, according to the UN’s WFO.
Bob Calala, president of the Ohio Aquaculture Association, who was visiting the Agro-Mashov conference, says the oceans were being overfished and fish farming was suffering due to a lack of grains and other feeds used in aquaculture.
“There is really not enough feed,” says “[The world] is using the grains once used for fish food and turning them into biofuels and other areas that are not feeding the people.”
He says he hopes the global food crisis would spare American shores.
“We’re kind of a land of plenty and people have really not experienced the lack of basics as they have in other places in the world. We want to head that off before it gets to that point. And we hope that we can use some of the Israeli technology to do that,” Calala says.
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Hop ( *** )
United States (AHN Entertainment) – 95 minutes
In theaters April 1, 2011
Rating: PG, Comedy
Hop to it, kids. This one’s for you.
No matter how much or how little in the way of Easter candy you consume, the holiday attraction, Hop, should land you on what feels like a sugar high.
Whether that’s a good or a bad thing will be decided, you can be sure, by your elders.
E. B., voiced by Russell Crowe, is the son of the Easter bunny. His dad (voiced by Hugh Laurie) wants him to be next in line for his prestigous title and to take over the family business, but E.B. wants to be a drummer in a rock-’n'-roll band. Needless to say, this doesn’t please his pop, who wants to keep the job in the family, but it’s absolutely fine with the ambitious head Easter chick (Hank Azaria), who is interested in the position himself, his species notwithstanding, as part of his plan for chicks to replace bunnies in taking over the holiday.
But E.B. has made up his mind, so he leaves Easter Island and heads for the hills of Hollywood, intent on turning musical pro.
No sooner does he hit Los Angeles than a car hits him. He survives intact, but he milks the extent of his injury so that the driver, one Fred O’Hare, a slacker played by James Marsden — who shares with E.B. the predicament of being a disappointment in the eyes of his father — will take him in as a houseguest at the mansion where he is housesitting, a gig that his sister (Kaley Cuoco) has gotten for him.
Experienced kidflick director Tim Hill (Alvin and the Chipmunks, Muppets from Space, Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties) smoothly meshes live action sequences with scenes that mix live actors and computer-generated imagery.
And in his youngster-pleasing arsenal are Marsden, who proves a naturally charming lead and a good sport; a colorful array of vivid animated characters; lively and knowing voiceovers by old pros Azaria and Laurie; and a parade of spiffy sight gags that don’t feel or look like retreads.
What surprises and actually stands out is the script by Cinco Hall, Ken Daurio, and Brian Lynch based on a story by Hall and Daurio, which — respecting the intelligence of their young audience and not wanting to put all their Easter eggs in one basket — covers all its narrative bases. The trio of screenwriters has ignored the expected tendency in live-action-and-computer-animation hybrid projects to play to the small fry by going icky-cutesy.
Instead, they maintain a higher level of wit and creativity than grownups are used to in movie projects aimed at young children. Oh, the scenarists know what makes kids laugh, but they don’t overdo the childishly gross stuff, as so many other kidflicks do. Rather, this movie is legitimately funny. Not oh-you-know-kids-they’ll-laugh-at-anything funny. Just funny.
And rather than running out of steam in its late reels, the way so many one-dimensional children’s movies do, this one gains momentum as it proceeds and generates laughs all the way through.
Hop just might become a seasonal perennial, and a deserved one at that. I think your kids will be dazzled. This kid was.
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Ontario prohibits strike by Toronto Transit Commission workers
Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – The Ontario government approved Wednesday a law that banned Toronto Transit Commission works from striking by declaring the firm as an essential service.
The province’s legislature approved the request of Toronto by a vote of 68 to 9.
The law’s passage came at the time that the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113′s contract with the TTC lapses Thursday midnight.
ATC Local 113 President Bob Kinnear warned Toronto not to bully their workers while the union and TTC sit down to negotiate a new collective contract. Talks are going on between the two sides, but the union and the transit have yet to place their offers on the negotiating table.
Toronto pushed for the strike ban because previous job walk offs have cost the city’s economy $50 million daily, while making life difficult for 1.5 million TTC riders.
At the same time, Ontario will allow Toronto to push through with a $12.4-billion project that would fund the construction of two extensions to Toronto’s Sheppard subway.
Upon construction, the LRT under Eglinton Avenue would be the longest all-new subterranean transit lit built in Canada since the 1960s which would connect the city’s midtown district with distant suburb neighborhoods in the east and west.
The $12.4-billion cost is broken down into $8.2-billion for Eglinton line and the cost of replacing the aging Scarborough Rapid Transit elevated train with LRT technology, and $4.2-billion for the expansion of the Sheppard subway.
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Australia shares flat as banks, miners contrast
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Australian shares traded flat on Thursday, with the S&P/ASX 200 index trading at 4,820.90. Losses for financials, including Commonwealth Bank of Australia , down 0.7%, and QBE Insurance Group Ltd. , down 1.1%, were offset by gains in the mining sector. Shares of diversified mineral giants were higher, with BHP Billition Ltd. up 1.1% and Rio Tinto Ltd. shares up 0.3%.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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A Handbook of World Trade
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Futures Fund Management
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Revised estimate shows economy grew faster than thought during end of 2010
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Economic growth was slightly better toward the end of 2010 than officials had previously estimated, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Friday.
In its third estimate of the nation’s gross domestic product for the fourth quarter of 2010, the BEA said the economy grew by 3.1 percent from the end of Q3 to the end of Q4.
GDP is a measure of the output of all goods and services produced by labor and property located in the nation.
BEA’s third estimate is based on more complete data than was available when the BEA issued its second estimate of 2.8 percent growth.
“The fourth-quarter acceleration in real GDP primarily reflected a sharp downturn in imports, an
acceleration in PCE, an upturn in residential fixed investment, and an acceleration in exports that were
partly offset by downturns in private inventory investment, in federal government spending, and in state
and local government spending, and a deceleration in nonresidential fixed investment,” BEA officials said in a statement.
“Final sales of computers added 0.35 percentage point to the fourth-quarter change in real GDP
after adding 0.29 percentage point to the third-quarter change. Motor vehicle output subtracted 0.27
percentage point from the fourth-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.49 percentage point to the
third-quarter change,” the agency concluded.
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Cotton rally not finished yet despite sowing hopes
Macquarie sees “no collapse” in cotton prices despite Pakistan joining China, India and the US in voicing upbeat planting hopes
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Michigan cuts maximum time for jobless benefits
Lansing, MI, United States (AHN) – Michigan has joined a growing list of states cutting unemployment benefits.
Late Monday night Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill into law that cuts extended benefits from 26 to 20 weeks.
Michigan is one of 32 states that have had to borrow money from the federal government to continue paying unemployment claims. With its own state fund wiped out, Michigan has borrowed $3.96 billion from the federal government.
The Republican-led legislature passed the bill to help to minimize the amount of a tax increase the state needs to impose on businesses to continue paying jobless benefits.
State officials in Michigan and elsewhere worry that tax hikes on businesses now might further hamper hiring.
The cut in the maximum number of weeks workers can collect state unemployment benefits in Michigan takes effect next year.
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The Handbook of Managed Futures and Hedge Funds: Performance, Evaluation, and Analysis
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The Handbook of Managed Futures and Hedge Funds: Performance, Evaluation, and Analysis
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