A food crisis could overtake the world in 2011, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, an agency of the United Nations.

Climate change, speculation, competing uses such as biofuels and soaring demand from emerging markets in East Asia are the factors that will push global food prices sharply higher next year, claims the FAO.

The FAO warns the world to ‘be prepared’ for more price hikes and volatility if production and stocks do not respond. Price hikes of 41 per cent in wheat, 47 per cent in maize and a third in sugar are foreseen by the FAO. The last time that happened it sparked riots from Mexico to Indonesia.

In its latest Food Outlook the FAO says that the prices of many staple crops will rise by up to half next year, with many returning to the peaks seen during the food crisis of 2008, or even exceeding them in some cases. Apart from driving inflation higher in Britain and the rest of the Western world, another bout of food price hyperinflation has grim implications for the poorest people on the planet, even now hardly able to afford to feed themselves.

The FAO’s broad global index of food prices has risen to […]

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After months of hang-ups, the Senate unanimously approved Friday two multibillion-dollar settlements that will rectify long-standing claims against the federal government for discrimination and mismanagement.

The vote essentially brings closure to the two cases, which have each been litigated for more than a decade.

The House, which has twice endorsed the deals, must still do so one more time, an action that is expected after Thanksgiving. Senate approval, however, has been a huge hurdle for Native Americans, who sued the government over poorly handled individual Indians’ trust accounts, and black farmers, who were for years unfairly refused loans by the Agriculture Department.

‘Black farmers and Native American trust account holders have had to wait a long time for justice, but now it will finally be served,’ Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement after the vote. ‘I am heartened that Democrats and Republicans were able to come together to deliver the settlement that these men and women deserve for the discrimination and mismanagement they faced in the past.’

Native Americans involved in the land trust lawsuit will get access to a $3.4 billion fund. Black farmers who are a part of a class-action lawsuit against the USDA will receive a […]

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Being poor for even a short period of time can have lasting health implications for children, according to a new report by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 15.5 million children are living in poverty in the United States, that’s one in five children according to the Census Bureau.

Researchers looked at data surrounding four topics: Health, food security, housing stability and maltreatment. They examined each in relation to past and present recessions. During childhood, the body is growing quickly and researchers say even a brief period of poor nutrition could lead to lifelong issues.

21 percent of all households with children were estimated to be ‘food insecure,’ according to the report data. ‘Food insecure’ is when a family doesn’t have access to enough nutritionally adequate food to meet proper dietary needs. ‘The numbers illustrate that even a one-time recession can have lasting consequences,’ says Dr. David Rubin a co-senior author of the study.

Enrollment in programs such as food stamps has increased. ‘We had counties in the United States where 70 percent of all children in that county were receiving food stamps. It’s shocking to me that we are at those numbers,’ says Rubin, who’s also director of the PolicyLab […]

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Senate Republicans voted unanimously Wednesday against a bill that would work to ensure fair pay for women, the Paycheck Fairness Act. The vote was 58-41.

Despite the Senate having majority support, Democrats couldn’t muster the 60 votes they needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

Several Republicans who voted for another women’s rights bill last year, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, opposed this iteration.

Those senators included Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republicans from Maine. The bill would have expanded enforcement of equal pay laws.

Collins argued that the bill would place undue burden on small business, and ‘impose increased costs and restrictions on small businesses in an already difficult economic climate.’

Her statement echoes rhetoric from the US Chamber of Commerce, which has routinely used small business as a defense for opposing all manner of progressive legislation. In fact, Collins even cited the Chamber’s opposition to the bill in her statement.

‘Many business groups oppose this legislation, including the National Federation of Independent Businesses, our nation’s largest small business advocacy group, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,’ Collins said.

Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine also declined to back the expansion of enforcing equal pay for women, even though she’d been supportive of a similar […]

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Scientists at CERN, the research facility that’s home to the Large Hadron Collider, claim to have successfully created and stored antimatter in greater quantities and for longer times than ever before.

Researchers created 38 atoms of antihydrogen – more than ever has been produced at one time before and were able to keep the atoms stable enough to last one tenth of a second before they annihilated themselves (antimatter and matter destroy each other the moment they come into contact with each other). Since those first experiments, the team claims to have held antiatoms for even longer, though they weren’t specific of the duration.

While scientists have been able to create particles of antimatter for decades, they had previously only been able to produce a few particles that would almost instantly destroy themselves.

‘This is the first major step in a long journey,’ Michio Kaku, physicist and author of Physics of the Impossible, told PCMag. ‘Eventually, we may go to the stars.’

For now, scientists are interested in producing antimatter in these relatively large quantities because it could lend insight into fundamental physical laws. It’s generally believed in the scientific community that at the universe’s creation, both matter and antimatter existed but not in […]

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