While there is continued emphasis on developing "Carbon Capture and Sequestration" to ensure a continued life for Somewhat Less Dirty Coal (euphemistically called "Clean Coal"), there are win-win-win options for geoengineering and carbon capture, like biochar, that merit far greater attention and active pursuit.  Le Monde reportedseveral days ago on yet another potential path for adapting agricultural practices to capture and sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

When agricultural subsidies were institutionalized during the New Deal era they kept the country fed and farmers solvent in the face of overlapping economic and environmental disasters. Subsidies were first offered in exchange for not growing major commodities after a decade of oversupply and declining crop values. The policy allowed production to be reduced while the farmer’s income remained constant. A three-part system of subsidies was introduced in the 1934 farm bill with the intent of regulating supply and stabilizing income for farmers regardless of market conditions (Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933). While the details and names of the programs have changed over time, the overall policy of subsidizing commodity production to guarantee an ample supply of food has not (USDA, a).

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Food Outlook report published a couple of days ago confirms that wheat prices should decline in the new season. I thought to myself: Wow! That's great news! I promptly logged onto the FAO site (I'm a regular there) and I got this:

International prices of most agricultural commodities have started to decline, but they are unlikely to return to the low price levels of previous years, Food Outlook reports. The FAO food price index has remained stable since February 2008, but the average of the first four months of 2008 is still 53 percent higher when compared to the same period a year ago.

And this:

Increased hunger likely in some poor countries

I smell a rat! Some financial entities (read speculators), like the oil producers, are making a killing. Somewhere.

Researchers at the University of California Davis, have identified the genes responsible for providing frost tolerance for wheat, giving plant breeders hope that damage resulting from wheat frost could soon become a thing of the past. That, in my book, is good news!

The team of US and European scientists aimed to identify genetic factors associated with cold tolerance in wheat. The study results, reported in the March issue of the journal Plant Molecular Biology, suggest that the genes that regulate frost-tolerance are activated at milder temperatures (12 to 15 Celsius, 53 to 59 Fahrenheit) in frost-tolerant wheat varieties than in frost-susceptible varieties.

At Stephen Fleishman's busy Bethesda shop, the era of the 95-cent bagel is coming to an end.

Breaking the dollar barrier "scares me," said the Bronx-born owner of Bethesda Bagels. But with 100-pound bags of North Dakota flour now above $50 -- more than double what they were a few months ago -- he sees no alternative to a hefty increase in the price of his signature product, a bagel made by hand in the back of the store.

"I've never seen anything like this in 20 years," he said. "It's a nightmare."

IT seems like a small thing, the price of a bagel breaking a dollar.  But it is symbolic, and good fresh bagels are important in the Washington Jewish community.  So perhaps it is appropriate that this is how the third of the Washington Post's series on the Global food crisis begins.  Today's article in this important series is entitled Emptying the Breadbasket, and subtitled "For decades, wheat was king on the Great Plains and prices were low everywhere. Those days are over."  This brings the crisis home to the U. S. and our role in helping to create it.

A major study out of Kansas has now dispelled the myth (lie? charade?  PR scam?  boondoggle?)  that Monsanto has been using for years to promote its GMO crops - that GM crops produce greater yields.  It then slathers that manure ... no, manure is too real and valuable to work as an analogy ... that synthetic crap, with an even more synthetic concern for the world's poor and starving.  And thus evil disguised as goodness, worms its way in where it should never have gotten.

Something to think about on this tax day... where will more than a quarter trillion dollars go over the next few years?

^{Answer: The [Food &] Farm Bill.}

The corn kernels you eat, whether on the cob, frozen or canned is sweet corn and is less than 2/10th of 1% of the corn grown.

Independent Lens will be showing the documentary film, King Corn (lots of really good stuff to explore at that link) which was released last October. About a couple guys who buy an acre to see what it takes to grow corn. This is an important film (and pretty fun) since the [Food &] Farm Bill is currently in Congress being reconciled (not too late to call).

 THE PROFIT DRIVEN INDUSTRIAL FOOD COMPLEX
There's actually a huge deficit in nutrition since corn has been tampered with. It's bred for energy (starch) but not actual food value. It gets cows and other animals fat in a hurry which is good for other food industries on the bottom line (though they too are nutritionally deficient in comparison to their more humanely raised counterparts)

So, what do we really think industrial corn does for us whether eaten directly or indirectly via a factory farmed animal? We end up fat yet still hungry. Why? We need to eat more to meet our bodies vitamin and mineral needs.

I've been calling that, Starving Obesity.

~~~~

The following is slightly reworked from another comment I made several weeks ago and have recycled several times threatening each time to turn it into a diary. One thing I've learned in life is don't make empty threats so here goes:

Sure, they are rioting for food in Haiti.  Yes, the melting glaciers are threatening fresh water supply.  But, did you know that the eternal Twinkie may soon be on the endangered list?

The Interstate Bakeries Corporation, based in Kansas City, Missouri, makes the Hostess products, including Wonder bread,  Ho-Ho’s, Ding-Dongs, Twinkies, and Cupcakes.  The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004 with the high price of flour cited as one of the reasons the company was struggling. The price of flour in 2004 was $4 a bushel.  As the company tries to get itself back on track, flour prices have soared to as high as $12 a bushel. More after the fold.

In 1948 George Kennan, who at the time was a senior US State Department planning official, wrote:

We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.

To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

Later on, in April of 1974 President Gerald Ford, who had replaced Nixon, issued National Security Study Memorandum 200. The title was Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests. President Ford signed an Executive Order making NSSM 200 official US Government Policy. It dealt with food policy, population growth and strategic raw materials. The NSSM was the work of Henry Kissinger and was secret at the time it was issued.

The world is in a deepening food crisis.

A new and virulent wheat fungus, previously found in East Africa and Yemen, has moved to major wheat growing areas in Iran, as reported from the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization. The fungus is capable of wreaking havoc to wheat production by destroying entire fields. Bad news seem to be coming at us from every angle. The wheat fungus first emerged in Uganda in 1999 and is therefore called Ug99. The wind-borne transboundary pest subsequently spread to Kenya and Ethiopia. If it reaches eastern Europe, North America and Australia, it's curtains.

I've been searching high and wide for a drought & pest resistant wheat and although CSIRO of Australia are coming close to produce toughened, water use efficiency crops, the end result is nevertheless genetic engineering coupled with old fashioned know-how of breeding salt-tolerant wheat varieties techniques.

  This is just a quick summary of a couple of articles in the April 1, 2008 Times Union out of Albany, NY.  As oil prices shoot higher and corn/ethanol gets to be more of a commodity for energy than food, it's having effects in places one might not expect, and a larger impact than might be expected.
Port Aims for Ethanol Project

ALBANY -- An ethanol production plant costing up to $350 million and capable of producing 165 million gallons of the corn-based fuel annually is planned for 18 mostly vacant acres at the Port of Albany.

Corn Costs to Drive Other Prices Up

Corn prices have skyrocketed in recent years, helped by the burgeoning ethanol industry, which turns the crop into fuel, and rising worldwide demand for food. The higher prices have affected poultry, beef and pork companies, who use corn to feed their animals.

(more)

The credit crunch has hit the US economy hard. From Wall Street to Main Street, investors’ confidence has been shaken, prompting unusual interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The US dollar has fallen against world currencies and oil prices are touching record highs..

Although some Arab economies are booming, proceeds from these skyrocketing oil prices are not filtering down to the  poorer Arab countries.

To travel through the Arab world right now is to experience a mood of disgruntlement and doubt especially amongst those under 30. One of the countries hit the hardest is Egypt where, according to the World Bank, twenty percent of the population of 78 million lives under the poverty line of two dollars a day.

Rising food and oil costs have prompted a wave of discontent across Egypt in recent weeks. Textile workers, teachers, doctors and accountants have all threatened to strike as many foods, such as meat, have become too expensive for ordinary Egyptians.

To make matters worse, there’s bread shortage in the Land of the Nile River.

Watch Video http://www.youtube.com/...

 Last week the country of Burkina Faso was brought to the edge of chaos by food riots. You probably didn't notice.
  In Morocco, 34 were sentenced to prison for participating in food riots. In Yemen at least a dozen have died in violent food riots.
  A month ago, Indonesia had to call out federal troops in order to quell protests against the rising cost of basic food items. Last November food riots in Mauritania claimed the life of an 18-year old boy. The Indian state of Bengal also saw massive food riots. In Italy, residents are protesting the rising cost of pasta.

A few months ago wheat passed the all time high around $8 per bushel.

For the last week, the market has been essentially shut down. It has a 30 cent limit - every day, it opend up 30 cents, and just sat there. Tonight, they raised the limit to 60 cents.

It opened limit up and is just sitting there. What's happening?

The news are not good. We're heading into higher food prices fast, with little relief in sight. In fact I don't see any in the distant and the not too distant future. There are a number of reasons. One is increasing wealth in China and India which fuels a huge demand for meat and in turn boosts the demand for cereals to feed the animals.

The other is less obvious, some call it a knee-jerk reaction by the politicians to our ever rising oil prices: it is driven mainly by surging prices of corn, wheat and soybean as some of the crops are being used in developing biofuels, most notably ethanol.

The poor, as usual, will be hurt more by rises in prices of basic foods.

After 35 years, Limits to Growth, the Club of Rome report is, more than ever, defining the state of the world we live in.

Because of three simultaneous crises. Overuse of land leads to erosion, and food production drops. Resources are severly depleted by a prosperous world population (but not as prosperous as the present US population). Pollution rises, drops, and then rises again dramatically, causing a further decrease in food production and a sudden rise in the death rate. The application of technological solutions alone has prolonged the period of population and industrial growth, but it has not removed the ultimate limits to that growth.

The timeframe is narrowing. They projected (best case) that we'd start hitting limits in the first half of this century, and population would peak by 2100. Last night I read a a new report by someone who put the world population peak at 2020, with a reduction to 1 billion by 2100.