In a word: Food
Continuing with selecting news posts with a common theme out of last week's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday, I am posting three news items about Food. I'm planning on passing them out to my Global Politics of Food class tomorrow as current events and research to discuss. Why not get double duty out of them? After all, I was able to convince my department chair that compiling these articles was a form of professional development. :-)
Michigan State University: Mapping food deserts
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Maps are great for showing where things are. They're also good for showing where things aren't.
Two Michigan State University professors have developed interactive maps that offer a visual perspective of urban food deserts. By using GIS (geographic information systems) technology, they are showing, rather than simply telling, how urban residents are losing access to fresh produce and balanced nutrition.
Phil Howard, assistant professor of community, agriculture, recreation and resource studies, and Kirk Goldsberry, assistant professor of geography, conducted their research in Lansing. They found that many supermarkets have closed their stores that serve urban areas and have moved to the suburbs. They also showed that Michigan's state capital is a model for what's happening to food environments around the country.
"The change in food environments is recurring all over the nation," said Howard, whose research is supported by MSU's AgBioResearch. "The best selection of produce and the lowest prices have moved to the suburbs. So if you want lettuce in Lansing, or in most U.S. cities, you're going to have to drive to get it."
Food deserts are a big deal here in Michigan. Lansing has nothing on Detroit as a food desert, as there are no chain supermarkets inside the city limits. It's far easier to get fast food in Detroit than it is to get fresh fruit and vegetables!
Purdue University: Trio of factors pushing food prices higher, economist says
March 11, 2011
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Grain shortages, Middle East turmoil and extreme weather in critical crop-producing regions have combined to send retail food prices higher this year, said a Purdue University agricultural economist. Prices could climb further if commodities markets continue their upward march.
American consumers can expect to spend about 4 percent more for food this year than in 2010, said Corinne Alexander. Beef, pork and poultry products likely will see even greater price hikes, she said.
U.S. food price inflation reached 7.5 percent in September 2008 before falling 10.5 percent by November 2009. It's been moving back up ever since.
"We're returning to a period of food price inflation after coming off a period where we saw food price deflation," Alexander said. "We don't expect this to be a long-term, permanent higher food price period. We'll see these higher food prices until we rebuild global stocks of the primary crops."
The class has already discussed the effects of the last spike in food prices associated with the previous run-up in oil prices. A follow-up wouldn't hurt them one bit.
EAST LANSING, Mich. - When growing corn crops for ethanol, more means less.
A team of researchers from Michigan State University and Rice University shows how farmers can save money on fertilizer while they improve their production of feedstock for ethanol and alleviate damage to the environment. The results are featured in the current issue of American Chemical Society's journal Environmental Science and Technology.
The research has implications for an industry that has grown dramatically in recent years to satisfy America's need for energy while trying to cut the nation's reliance on fossil fuels, according to Sieglinde Snapp, a crop and soil scientist at MSU's Kellogg Biological Station.
...
The team discovered that corn grain, one source of ethanol, and the stalks and leaves, the source of cellulosic ethanol, respond differently to nitrogen fertilization. The researchers found that liberal use of nitrogen fertilizer to maximize grain yields from corn crops results in only marginally more usable cellulose from leaves and stems. And when the grain is used for food and the cellulose is processed for biofuel, pumping up the rate of nitrogen fertilization actually makes it more difficult to extract ethanol from corn leaves and stems.
The class also discussed the effect of growing corn for ethanol on the price of food. This article is actually good news; at least that ethanol corn will be competing less for fertilizer.
I have at most a week on my free paid user trial on LJ. I'd better load up that "all your bouillabaise are belong to us" icon that I'm using here on Dreamwidth there before it runs out. I could use a food icon, there, too.
Originally crossposted to neonvincent on Dreamwidth. Comment here or there, whichever you prefer. http://neonvincent.dreamwidth.org/7146.html