We believe that the urban garden is one of the solutions in the face of rising cost of living. By applying permaculture principles in the design and lifestyle, we seek to maximize onsite resources to meet most of our needs with minimal impact on the land.

Monday, 21 April 2008

Food price crisis

This is a timely reminder for me to keep up the motivation to grow as much food in my urban garden as possible, and to eat locally and not depend on imported food.

 

For a start, I should think of providing carbohydrate through locally produced staples such as potatoes, pumpkins, yams, kumura etc. Eat seasonal fruits and vegetables. Most of these could be grown in our backyard

 

Also, I’m working on building networks to find out where I can buy directly from the farmers locally. I love the PYO concept where the middle man is removed from the picture; people can harvest the produces themselves. The farmer doesn’t get ripped off by the supermarket but be paid for their effort and be compensated fairly.  It also reduces their cost, thus the price can be kept low and affordable.

 

I’m thinking

local = sustainable

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4490471a12.html

Food price crisis may hit world growth, security - UN

Reuters | Monday, 21 April 2008

The surge in global food prices risks setting back the world's anti-poverty efforts and, if not properly handled, could hurt global growth and security, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

Opening a UN trade and development conference in Accra, Ghana, Ban said the huge increases in prices of food staples like cereals since last year could erase progress made towards UN-set goals of halving world poverty by 2015.

"The problem of global food prices could mean seven lost years. . . for the Millennium Development Goals," he said.

"We risk being set back to square one," Ban told the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) meeting.

The food price surge has sharply increased the risk of hunger and poverty in developing countries and has already sparked food riots in parts of Asia and Africa.

The UN chief noted that several countries had moved to try to offset the food squeeze by barring exports of rice and wheat, or introducing incentives for easier imports of foodstuffs.

"This threatens to distort international trade and exacerbate shortages," he said.

"If not handled properly, this crisis could result in a cascade of others . . . and become a multidimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world," Ban told the conference.