The new face of hunger

Brief notes taken from the article "The new face of hunger" appeared on The Economist Magazine:

1. Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%. This year, rice prices have soared 141%.
2. The prices mainly reflect changes in demand, not problems of supply. China and India population are eating more grain and meat due to their economic growth. The use of this products for obtaining biofuel also increase the global demand.
3. The shortage of food not only affects regions under war where the harvest fails.
4. Where does the world get more food from? From large farmers in America, Europe and other big corporations with the risk of depending of this small numbers of suppliers. Or from smallholders in developing countries reducing the poverty of those regions and minimizing the environmental impact thus they produce the food in existing lands.
5. To increase food production, smallholders need more fertilizers and this is not affordable due to the oil price.
6. The quickest way to increase the crop is to plant more, invest in better machinery and irrigation technology and invest in researching new varieties of seeds.
   
7. When creating a new seed it's needed to update it constantly, otherwise pests and diseases will kill it. When the rice variety IR8 was introduced in 1996 it produced almost 10 Tn/ha, now it yields barely 7 Tn/ha.
8. Small farmers have greater difficult to compete with large retailers: the land available for small farms is less cheap, they have disadvantages in getting loans or buy seeds and fertilisers.
9. The spread of mobile phones relays market information more widely between farmers and traders.

A potential niche available for permaculture? Maybe the solution could be the creation of CSA ...