Sound Bites: January 3,2011

NATION / FARMING

 

2010 ended on a high note for U.S. farmers. Though the cost of doing business rose 1.5%, largely through higher feed and fertilizer prices, farmer’s are fetching higher prices overall, up more than 19% from December a year ago.

 

Corn and soybean prices continue to climb. Up 4.94 and 11.70 a bushel respectively. And, livestock products including beef, hogs, chickens and milk continue sell at higher prices than in 2009. Food prices are expected to continue rising in the first quarter.

 

POLICY

  

The U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service recently amended the Federal meat and poultry regulations to require nutritional labeling.

 

The labels will be required to show the caloric, fat, cholesterol and other nutrients are contained in a standard serving of meat or poultry. Though meat packaging currently requires fat to meat ratios in percentages, officials are arguing that current labels don't give consumers enough information about fat content according to different cuts of meat.

 

SB: Elizabeth Hagen, Undersecretary of the USDA

  

 

STUDY

According to a new survey, women think about food more than twice as often as they think about sex.

 

The study, performed Shape Smart, a weight loss service, found that 25% of women think about food every half hour, compared to the 10% of women who think about sex over the same time span.

 

Shape Smart interviewed some 5000 men and women, finding that

·  60% of women in relationships are not happy eating in front of their partner

·  40% of women feel as though they are constantly dieting

and

·  13% of women choose low-calorie meals instead of what they would actually like when eating out 

WORLD / IVORY COAST

 

As the situation in Ivory Coard continues to escalate, thousands of people continue to flee toward neighbouring states. Nearly 20,000 Ivorians have crossed the border to Liberia where the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is providing humanitarian support.

 

Ivorians have been entering Liberia since a day after the November election, when sitting President Laurent Gbagbo refused to cede power to the internationally recognized winner, Alassane Outtara.

 

The majority of the refugees are women, and more than 60 per cent of the new arrivals are under 18 years old.

 

SB: Malek Triki is WFP spokesman for West Africa 

WORLD / PAKISTAN

And on Christmas day, 46 people were killed and 100 wounded at a World Food Programme center in the northwestern tribal region of Bajaur, Pakistan, when a suicide bomber attacked.

 

 

SB: Amjad Jamal is the World Food Programmes spokesman in Pakistan

Interview: Rene McGuffin, WFP Senior Public Information Officer in North America

 

 

 

 

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