Our Unsustainable Table: Another Global Food Crisis?

Making News

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula Soar after North Attacks ()

For the first time since the Korean War, North Korea fired artillery shells on South Korea's civilian territory today, killing two soldiers, wounding residents and setting fire to houses on Yeonpyeong Island. North Korea says it was responding to shells fired at sea during a South Korean military exercise. Mike Chinoy is Senior Fellow at the US-China Institute at the University of Southern California and author of Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis.

Guests:

• Mike Chinoy: Senior Fellow, USC US-China Institute, @mikechinoy

Main Topic

Does the World Face Another Food Crisis? ()

Two years ago, a combination of natural events and economic conditions drove food prices so high that food riots erupted in many parts of the world. While the ravages of 2008 aren't yet over, this year, there's concern that the same thing may be happening again. The UN says: Be Prepared. Drought has led Russia to ban wheat exports; America's corn harvest is down and climate change is helping to drive world prices higher. Meantime, farmers make more by using their land for sugar, cotton, soya and bio-fuels. Is industrialized agriculture at fault? What are the prospects of another global food crisis, and what are the chances of heading it off? 

Guests:

• Raj Patel: former Fellow; Institute for Food and Development Policy
• Nancy Roman: Director of Public Policy, United Nations World Food Program
• Jonathan Bloom: Freelance journalist and food waste expert
• Mark Winne: former Executive Director, Hartford Food System

Links:

• World Food Program on rising food prices, world hunger
• Food and Agriculture Association the state of food insecurity today
• National Institutes of Health study on food waste
• Patel's 'Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System'
• Bloom's 'American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It)'
• Winne's 'Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin' Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture'

Reporter's Notebook

Fake Taliban Leader Exposed in Afghanistan ()

A month ago, General David Petraeus said secret talks with a "senior Taliban leader" showed that the US-led offensive was generating enough pressure that peace might be possible. The man who called himself the Taliban's number-two leader had been flown to Kabul on a NATO plane, ushered into Hamid Karzai's presidential palace and paid enough money to show up three times. Now it turns out he was not Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour after all. Carlotta Gall co-wrote the story for the New York Times.

Guests:

• Carlotta Gall: Correspondent, New York Times