The share of the population that is overweight or obese is increasing, especially in the emerging economies of the developing world. This report explores policies to combat obesity.  Specifically, it analyses the effects of relative price changes between different types of foods on consumer behaviour in high-income and emerging economies (Brazil, China, Republic of Korea and Mexico). The researchers look into the causes of increasing obesity and changes to the retail prices of foods and ask if healthy eating is becoming a luxury in emerging markets, as has been the trend in high-income countries.

Premier Foods (manufacturers of brands such as Hovis, Sharwoods, Mr Kipling, Quorn, Ambrosia, Angel Delight, Bisto, Cadbury, etc) is moving forward its target on 100% sourcing of sustainable palm oil. The original target (made in 2008) was to source all its palm oil from sustainable sources by 2011. The target has now been moved forward to the end of 2010.

A life cycle comparison between processed ready meals and their home-made equivalent were published in a special edition of the journal Ambio (Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment, vol. xxxiv number 4-5 June 2005). The conclusions are that there's not a lot to choose between the two. The home cooked meal used slightly less energy but generated slightly more GHG emissions (a result of different waste disposal assumptions).

Better links between urban and rural areas will ensure that farmers in China are seen as equal to city workers and that they can take a greater part in the country’s development than before, Xi said when addressing the communist party’s policy chiefs at a session of the Central Committee’s Political Bureau.

Abstract Food sovereignty is an emerging discourse of empowerment and autonomy in the food system with the development of associated practices in rural and some urban spaces. While literature on food sovereignty has proliferated since the first usage of the term in 1996 at the Rome Food Summit, most has been descriptive rather than explanatory in nature, and often confuses food sovereignty with other movements and objectives such as alternative food networks, food justice, or food self-sufficiency.

Coffee is the most widely traded agricultural commodity of the tropics, and studies have shown that as a crop it is very sensitive to rising temperatures arising from, climate change. Two new studies now look at the implications of warmer temperatures on Arabica coffee production.

This very interesting paper, co-authored by FCRN member Ken Giller, pays serious attention to the question of what a family farm actually is and the assumptions that people make about them. Taking as its starting point for exploration the FAO’s assertion that family farms are important as a means of eradicating poverty, providing food and achieving sustainable development, it explores the characteristics and patterns of family farming in countries as diverse as the United States, Netherlands, China, Brazil, Ethiopia and India.

This paper is by some of the same authors who wrote a paper for Friend of the Earth (see mailing of 23/10/10) which modelled the health impact of a lower meat diet. You can read the FoE report here. The FOE report essentially argues that a lower meat diet would deliver major health improvements largely because it assumes that a reduction in meat intakes will be compensated for by an increase in fruit and vegetables – which of course may or may not be the case.