WaPo Digs Deep

Washington Post launched a new multimedia series this week about “the world’s worst food crisis since the 1970s.” Sunday’s piece, “The New Economics of Hunger,” looked at the role of globalization in the current food shortage. Globe-spanning food supply chains mean a multiyear drought in Australia (and the relatively tiny rice harvest that results) has contributed to higher wheat prices on international markets.

Now the cleantech connection: Swapping energy crops for food has also tipped the balance of supply and demand. (Did you know that between one fifth and one quarter of the U.S. corn crop will go into ethanol this year?) In order to “capitalize on the biofuel frenzy,” Anthony Faiola writes, U.S. farmers have not only cut back on the amount of wheat being planted, but they’ve demoted what they do plant to less fertile fields.

On tomorrow’s lineup: a closer look at how U.S. mandates for corn-based ethanol have created problems for farmers and consumers.

In the meantime, check out business columnist Allan Sloan’s opinion piece on ethanol’s unintended consequences. The crux of it is this:

Turning biological waste like wood chips into fuel makes a lot of sense. But devoting vast acreage of America’s breadbasket to fuel is a really terrible idea, as we’re now seeing. Supposedly miraculous and painless cures have a nasty tendency to backfire.

It could be dry stuff, but Sloan manages to weave in sci-fi and scary movies (he uses the same “I am Legend” analogy he mentioned on Marketplace a couple weeks ago). It’s a column not to be missed.

A few words on media: Both Washington Post and New York Times have put together some slick video for their food/fuel coverage. WaPo’s profile of two families struggling to buy food in Mauritania, for example, and NYT’s explanatory piece on the Australian drought and global food prices. San Jose Mercury News has started to tell the biofuels story in multiple media, too. But the packages don’t seem quite cohesive as yet–the video and text largely echo one another. Have you spotted examples of more complementary use of media on the cleantech beat?

Photo: Ethanol Factory January 2007 (cc) PeterBaker via Flickr