Food issues:

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COLOMBIA:Food Prices Rise after Record Rains

BOGOTA, Jan 26, 2011 (IPS) - Food prices are set to rise in Colombia, due to the combined effects of soaring international prices and local crop losses after nine months of devastating rains. The government expects food prices to rise three percent in February, while independent analysts forecast an increase twice as high.MORE

FOOD:The Rats Have It

BANGKOK, Jan 18, 2011 (IPS) - While floods and droughts are often highlighted in the media for devastating the world’s rice production, a lesser-known culprit has been able to scurry away without being fingered for causing damage - rats.

The rodents reportedly devour "millions of tons of rice each year" in pre- harvest losses across Asia. MORE

SRI LANKA:Extreme Weather Changes Could Follow Floods

COLOMBO, Jan 18, 2011 (IPS) - Weather experts warned Sri Lankan to be prepared for extreme weather changes with hardly any notice following devastating floods here that have affected over one million people.

"Global weather patterns are changing, we should be prepared for extreme changes," Gunavi Samarasinghe, the head of Meteorological Department, said as the country battled floods in the east as temperatures island-wide dropped to sixty year lows.
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GUATEMALA:High Staple Food Prices Drive Up Hunger

GUATEMALA CITY, Jan 25, 2011 (IPS) - The rise in prices of corn, beans and other staple foods, driven up by damages to crops caused by extreme weather events, is making it even harder for the poor to afford a basic diet in Guatemala, which has the highest rate of child malnutrition in Latin America.

And although the government of social democratic President Álvaro Colom recently decreed a new rise in the minimum wage despite resistance from businesses, which threatened to lay off thousands of workers, the minimum wage still falls short of covering the cost of the basic basket of goods and services. MORE

Mexico Tempted to Shift From Tortillas to Ethanol

MEXICO CITY, Jan 22, 2011 (Tierramérica) - Farmers' protests and the rise in corn tortilla prices in late December put temporary brakes on the Mexican Senate, which was preparing to lift the national ban on utilising maize to make fuel alcohol, or ethanol.

The policy shift is included in the bio-energy bill that former senator Mario López Valdez had pushed for two years. He is now governor of the northwestern state of Sinaloa. The bill was approved in committee by all political parties and presented to the Senate on Dec.9.

The non-governmental campaign "Sin Maíz No Hay País" (roughly, "without maize, there is no Mexico") issued an alert against the legislation, which ultimately was put on hold, while in the last days of 2010 the price of the corn tortilla -- a staple in the Mexican diet -- shot up 50 percent.
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