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When Peter Brabeck-Letmathe speaks, you listen. He is the highly respected Chairman of Nestle. In his weekend interview with The Wall Street Journal published here, he speaks of the increasing danger of food insecurity in the world. Food prices shooting up, the world over, is a serious cause of concern. This blogger has moaned about it here , here and here . The traditional activist response is to bleat about the evils of globalisation. But here is a world leader giving a simple way forward for what should be done. His prescription is three fold and simple - Stop using land for growing corn for biofuel - Do not maniacally oppose technology in food cultivation, especially genetically modified crops - Let the market price water for industrial use I had no idea that this year American farmers would harvest more corn for fuel rather than for feed. This is the outcome of a subsidy policy that has encouraged bio fuel use to get away from the human addiction to petroleum. But look at the ...

Norman Borlaug , one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century died on Saturday in the US. He was 95. He was the inventor of the high yielding, disease resistant, varieties of wheat which enabled the Green revolution of the 1960s. While his work benefitted the world – three countries gained the most from his work – Mexico, India and Pakistan. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. India awarded him its second highest civilian honour, Padma Vibushan. Its quite likely, that unless you are an agricultural scientist yourself, you have never heard of the man. But he would rank right up there with the greatest scientists of the 20th century. It would be hard to find another scientist, even Einstein, whose work directly improved the lives of so many millions of people. For he helped purge the scourge of famine from India and Pakistan. He started his work in Mexico in the early 60s. Between 1965 and 70, his work was mainly in India and Pakistan. During this period wheat yields dou...

The greatest crisis, in my view, of 2008 was not the financial crisis. It was the food crisis that hit the world in the early part of the year. Global food prices rose by 75% as compared to 2000. Food riots broke out in many countries. About 73 million people, in 78 countries, who depend on food aid from the United Nations have had their rations cut. The crisis got diffused, because other events overtook it and food prices fell back. But unlike the financial crisis, there is no solution in sight and its going to come back with a vengeance next year, or the year after, with certainty. The problem is deep. A combination of high oil prices, climate change (both in terms of global warming and in terms of diversion of land for growing corn for fuel) and shrinking land for agriculture affects the supply of food. On the other hand global demand is expected to double by 2030 as population increases and economic development increases the demand for nutrition. End result is that food prices will...