Book description
How to understand the twenty-first century food crisis
Since 2007, farm-product prices have rocketed and plunged, causing
hunger, malnutrition, and social and political upheaval around the
world. Endless Appetites explores how "food
security," the availability of food and the reasonable ability to
buy it, has become one of the most challenging topics of our time.
With every jump in grocery-store prices, the issue becomes more and
more pressing, proven by this year's record increase in food prices,
which has already topped the spike of 2008.
- Award-winning commodities reporter Alan Bjerga explains the food
crisis and why it is happening in an accessible, articulate manner
- Why is this happening when more food is being grown than ever?
- Why are crop markets?first established in the 1800's to help
stabilize agricultural commodity prices?acting like an investors'
casino, with prices absorbed by rich nations taking food from the
mouths of the poor?
- From college campuses to emergency UN meetings, "food
security" is one of the hottest topics of the day, with no
shortage of interest in how to stabilize food prices worldwide to
close the hunger gap
To understand the growing international food crisis, readers need an
expert they can rely on. One of the most widely acclaimed journalists
on food security, Alan Bjerga is up to the task, taking readers from
the trading floor of Chicago to the highlands of East Africa to the
rice paddies of Thailand on a global trek to find the causes of the
food-price crisis?and the solutions.
Alan Bjerga has covered food and agricultural issues for more than a
decade for Knight-Ridder Newspapers and Bloomberg News. He won the
Glenn Cunningham Agricultural Journalist of the Year Award from the
North American Agricultural Journalists in 2005. In 2009, he was
recognized for covering U. S. food aid and famine in Ethiopia by the
Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the North American
Agricultural Journalists, the New York Press Club, and the Overseas
Press Club. In 2010, Bjerga was President of the National Press Club
and the North American Agricultural Journalists.
