8 News & Press Releases found
Earth Policy Institute News
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Can the World Feed China?
By Lester R. Brown Overnight, China has become a leading world grain importer, set to buy a staggering 22 million tons in the 2013–14 trade year, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture projections. As recently as ...
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Many Countries Reaching Diminishing Returns in Fertilizer Use
By Lester R. Brown When German chemist Justus von Liebig demonstrated in 1847 that the major nutrients that plants removed from the soil could be applied in mineral form, he set the stage for the development of the fertilizer industry and a huge ...
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Overfishing Threatens Critical Link in the Food Chain
The fish near the bottom of the aquatic food chain are often overlooked, but they are vital to healthy oceans and estuaries. Collectively known as forage fish, these species—including sardines, anchovies, herrings, and shrimp-like ...
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Book Byte: We Can Reforest the Earth
Protecting the 10 billion acres of remaining forests on earth and replanting many of those already lost are both essential for restoring the earth’s health. Since 2000, the earth’s forest cover has shrunk by 13 million acres each year, ...
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Data Highlight: Arab Grain Imports Rising Rapidly
The Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa make up only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet they take in more than 20 percent of the world’s grain exports. Imports to the region have jumped from 30 million tons of ...
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Peak Meat
By Janet Larsen U.S. meat consumption has peaked. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that meat eating across the country fell from the 2004 high point of 184 pounds (83 kilograms) per person to 171 pounds in 2011. Early estimates ...
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Rising Meat Consumption Takes Big Bite out of Grain Harvest
http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights22 World consumption of animal protein is everywhere on the rise. Meat consumption increased from 44 million tons in 1950 to 284 million tons in 2009, more than doubling annual consumption ...
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Data highlights - U.S. feeds one quarter of its grain to cars while hunger is on the rise
The 107 million tons of grain that went to U.S. ethanol distilleries in 2009 was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels. More than a quarter of the total U.S. grain crop was turned into ethanol to fuel ...