Endless Appetites How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest

by Bjerga, Alan

• ISBN13: 9781118043233
• ISBN10: 1118043235
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-10-11
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press

Summary

Food security, the availability of food and reasonable access to it, has become one of the hottest topics of the year, growing in importance with every spike in agricultural commodity prices, of which there have been many since 2007. While 2010 prices rises have not been as severe as 2007 and 2008, they are still up double-digits with grain up 33% and fruits up an absurd 62%. These increases have led to hunger, starvation, and often civil unrest. Why is this happening just when such huge progress has been made in productivity? Could it be that the very markets first established in Chicago in the 1800s to help stabilize agricultural commodity prices have become a hedge funders casino where the rich really are taking food out of the mouths of the poor?

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

Author's Note	p. viii
Prologue	p. xi
Floors, Fields, and Famines	p. 1
Chicago Makes a Market	p. 13
Elephants in the Kiddie Pool	p. 25
A Recipe for Famine	p. 39
The View from Rome	p. 51
Hot Air	p. 65
Promise	p. 79
The Price of a Cup of Coffee	p. 97
A Better Banana	p. 113
Thai Quality	p. 131
Steps Up	p. 147
Harvest of Hope	p. 159
Notes	p. 169
Acknowledgments	p. 189
About the Author	p. 191
Index	p. 193
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