Category: RT Newswire

International Herald Tribune

China farms the world to feed a ravenous economy

The Associated Press
Sunday, May 4, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/04/asia/AS-FEA-GEN-China-Farming-the-World.php

CHALEUNSOUK, Laos: The rice fields that blanketed
this remote mountain village for generations are
gone. In their place rise neat rows of young
rubber trees – their sap destined for China.

All 60 families in this dirt-poor, mud-caked
village of gaunt men and hunched women are now
growing rubber, like thousands of others across
the rugged mountains of northern Laos. They hope
in coming years to reap huge profits from the
tremendous demand for rubber just across the
frontier in China.

As Beijing scrambles to feed its galloping
economy, it has already scoured the world for
mining and logging concessions. Now it is turning
to crops to feed its people and industries.
Chinese enterprises are snapping up vast tracts
of land abroad and forging contract farming deals.

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Farmers face climate challenge in quest for more food
Sun May 4, 2008 4:10am EDT  By David Fogarty

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – If farmers think they have a tough time producing enough rice, wheat and other grain crops, global warming is going to present a whole new world of challenges in the race to produce more food, scientists say.

In a warmer world beset by greater extremes of droughts and floods, farmers will have to change crop management practices, grow tougher plant varieties and be prepared for constant change in the way they operate, scientists say.

“There certainly are going to be lots of challenges in the future. Temperature is one of them, water is another,” said Lisa Ainsworth, a molecular biologist with the United States Department of Agriculture.

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-Over 350 dead as cyclone pounds Myanmar
Sun May 4, 2008 4:00pm EDT 
Cyclone devastates Myanmar

Myanmar damage will take days to assess: U.N.
3:48am EDT By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) – A cyclone killed more than 350 people in military-ruled Myanmar, ripping through Yangon and the Irrawaddy delta where it flattened at least two towns, officials and state media said on Sunday.

The death toll is likely to climb as the authorities manage to contact outlying islands and villages that felt the full force of Cyclone Nagris, a Category 3 storm packing winds of 120 miles per hour when it hit early on Saturday.

State television, which was still off air in Yangon more than 36 hours after Nagris slammed into the city of 5 million, reported 20,000 homes destroyed on one island alone, a government official in the remote capital, Naypyidaw, said.

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Small ethanol plants key to efficiency: Canada
Fri May 2, 2008 5:48pm EDT By Randall Palmer

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Building more and smaller ethanol plants could help overcome concerns that production of the biofuel consumes more in energy than it provides, Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said on Friday.

One of the reasons so much energy is used to make ethanol is that trucks travel long distances carrying corn, chaff or other plant material to ethanol plants.

“Smaller and locally owned I think are the right way to go,” Ritz said as he kicked off debate in the House of Commons on the final stage of a bill that would ensure that gasoline contains 5 percent ethanol by 2010.

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