Infographic of the Day: How the Global Food Market Starves the Poor. To understand the complexities of the international food market--and how traders in Chicago can cause Africans to starve--you could get a ph.D. in economics, or read a 400-page report from the World Bank. Or you watch this superb nine minute video, directed by Denis van Waerebeke. Though ostensibly created for a science show in Paris for 12 year olds, it's actually probably waaaay over a kid's head. Just watch--it's excellent, and very well illustrated: The video begins with a basic question: How is it that the first world has an oversupply of food, while 1 in 7 in the world go malnourished?
That can have disastrous effects. The solutions will involve everyone, the world over. Still hungry for more infographics videos? [Via Infosthetics] The College Sustainability Report Card. Major Crops Grown in the United States | Ag 101 | Agriculture. In round numbers, U.S. farmers produce about $ 143 billion worth of crops and about $153 billion worth of livestock each year. Production data from the year 2011 for major agricultural crops grown in this country are highlighted in the following table: Source: U.S. USDA. National Agricultural Statistics Service. Crop Production. March 8, 2013. Corn: The United States is, by far, the largest producer of corn in the world, producing 32 percent of the world's corn crop in the early 2010s. According to the National Corn Growers Association, about eighty percent of all corn grown in the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas livestock, poultry, and fish production.
Sources:National Corn Grower's Association 2013 Report. U.S. Soybeans: Approximately 3.06 billion bushels of soybeans were harvested from 73.6 million acres of cropland in the U.S. in 2011. Soybeans are used to create a variety of products, the most basic of which are soybean oil, meal, and hulls. Sources: U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. Greener Gender. Hemp versus cotton: Which is better for the environment? - By Brian Palmer. I keep hearing about how beneficial hemp is for the environment, and what a shame it is that U.S. farmers aren't allowed to grow it.
Is hemp really that eco-friendly? With the possible exception of soy, no plant has managed to spawn so many different products, and as much controversy, as hemp. You can buy hemp clothing, hemp paper, hemp milk, hemp oil ... the list goes on. A Canadian company has even built an electric car out of hemp. Advocates talk about the leafy plant like it's going to reverse global climate change. Opponents think it's merely a Trojan horse packed with potheads hoping to get your children stoned. The legal problem for hemp is that it's visually and taxonomically identical to marijuana. The plant is a Schedule 1 controlled substance in the United States, which means you need special permission to grow it regardless of THC content. Hemp is so versatile in part because it can be grown for either seed or fiber. So where does all this leave us? Chewing gum: environmentally friendly or not? - By Brian Palmer. Gum is a blight on civilized society. It's always hiding on the underside of tables, or flattened on the pavement, or sticking to my shoes.
Is it bad for the environment, too? Unfortunately, there's not a lot of environmental data on the chewing-gum industry. But given how useless gum is, at least for most people, the Lantern isn't prepared to cut Big Chew much slack. And yet, gum-chewing has a long history, going back to the ancient Greeks, who chewed a gumlike product derived from the resin of the mastic tree. Twenty years later, in 1869, a Mexican exile named General Antonio de Santa Anna and American photographer Thomas Adams introduced chicle, a resin, from the sapodilla tree to the American palate. Decades after chewing gum became an American obsession, most manufacturers ditched chicle, replacing the natural resin with a synthetic polymer known as polyisobutene. While the new base produces a supremely soft and chewable gum, it's not biodegradable.