Category:Business And Politics

Corn

Corn is an important dietary staple all over the world. Corn has many uses throughout the food chain as feed for animals and as an ingredient on its own. Corn syrup, one of several natural sweeteners derived from corn starch, is used in a wide variety of food products including cookies, crackers, cereals, flavored yogurts, ice cream, preserved meats, canned fruits and vegetables, soups, beers, and many others.

In the recent years corn has been under global focus because it is being used to make ethanol. The US has been subsidizing corn production for years to promote conversion to ethanol. Since ethanol will not be derived from fossil fuels, it should considerably reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More...

Food Security

The threat to the world's food security has again brought hunger at the top of the humanitarian agenda. Food stocks worldwide are at a frighteningly low level. The UN World Food Programme has called the present Food Crisis a “silent tsunami”. More...

The section Business And Politics evaluates the impact of prevailing practices in these fields on the life of the people, the place and the environment and offers conscious alternatives to reach the same goal.

Every small and large business decision or the decision to not do anything has a huge impact on the environment and society. Articles in this section aim to create awareness about prevailing practices, outcomes and the cost of such small and large decisions. They highlight the choices available to political and the corporate leaders and also to people. They make us aware about how we as an individuals can have a say on such issues.

It also makes us realise that we cannot excuse our own inaction and we as individual can imact the decision of these larger than life entities.

The Bio Fuels Debate

• Demand for biofuels is expected to soar as industrialized nations which signed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol look for new ways to reduce carbon emissions to abide by treaty commitments.
• The New York Times has dubbed Bio Fuels as the ‘modern day gold rush.’
• The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world's total corn production and over half of all corn exports. The country's thrust into using corn to produce ethanol is sending shock waves through the world food system.
• Environmentalists say that plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen back into the atmosphere, and the burning of the bio-fuels produced from them just reverses that process... More...