Food

Davos, Switzerland is the meeting place of the World Economic Forum. Food is a big topic at this years forum. Climate change, resource wars, shrinking water reserves, and the price of and growing need for oil are among the reasons why food production is under stress.

Food and water worries are top priorities, say Davos speakers

Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath warned earlier in the week that prices of some foodstuffs had doubled in his country at a time when 25 million people in India were estimated to have moved from taking one to two meals a day.

"What does 25 million people moving from one to two meals a day do for prices?" he asked a room of corporate bigwigs and policymakers who pay thousands of dollars to attend the exclusive get-together here.

Interesting to note that the use of food crops to produce ethanol is becoming more financially desirable than to raise food crops for actual food. One would suspect that this is the beginning of trend.

Brazil is the world's biggest producer of sugar cane, which can be used to make the biofuel ethanol as well as sugar.

"With the price of oil going up it is better to use sugar cane to produce ethanol than to use sugar cane to produce sugar," he told AFP.