Perspectives on crop research: food vs fuel

Perspectives on Food Crop Production for Combating Famine in Ethiopia

Feeding the ever-growing Ethiopian population with the continuously shrinking land holdings and nutrient depleted soils is going to be very difficult to say the least. The realistic option under the current Ethiopian scenario is to increase the food productivity per unit of land. The science and the technological options available to realize higher productivity than what the average Ethiopian f...

The Agricultural Ethics of Biofuels: The Food vs. Fuel Debate

Plant-based transportation fuels were the focus of extended criticism in the press, especially during 2008 when a portion of the blame for a spike in global food prices was associated with growth of the United States’ corn ethanol industry. The critique is based on an unsophisticated portrayal of the ethical issues at stake in the food security implications of biofuel. Three ethical critiques c...

Food vs. Fuel: Diversion of Crops Could Cause More Hunger

Trading carbon for food: global comparison of carbon stocks vs. crop yields on agricultural land.

Expanding croplands to meet the needs of a growing population, changing diets, and biofuel production comes at the cost of reduced carbon stocks in natural vegetation and soils. Here, we present a spatially explicit global analysis of tradeoffs between carbon stocks and current crop yields. The difference among regions is striking. For example, for each unit of land cleared, the tropics lose ne...

Consumer perspectives on food labels.

The symposium "Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) for Food Labeling" explored the scientific debate about the most appropriate DRI values to use in establishing Daily Values on food labels. An important goal of nutrition and ingredient information is to help consumers make healthful dietary choices. This summary provides highlights from recent quantitative and qualitative research on consumers' u...