Director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, Dan Sumner, indicated that declining agricultural research is contributing to a hike in global food prices, according to an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

There has been a decline in investments in agricultural research and development at the federal and state levels and worldwide, with more resources diverted to improving efficiency, the story paraphrased Sumner.

"It's a long-running phenomenon I think we ought to pay a lot more attention to," he was quoted.

The Chronicle story, by George Raine, also attributed the spike in food prices to:

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Bloomberg.com ran a story this week on a problem the devaluing dollar poses for African cotton farmers.

According to to the article, cotton prices have risen, but the dollar's slide against CFA francs (the euro-pegged local currency of 14 western and central African countries) has offset the increase.

For the story, reporters Kim-Mai Cutler and Rose Skelton spoke to Dan Sumner, the director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center. He said a shift in the exchange rate can eliminate a month's food for the poorest families.

Fifty dollars can be "enough to feed a child for a year," Sumner is quoted....

The director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, Dan Sumner, has become something of a regular in the news. When media call me for an ag expert, I frequently refer them to Sumner, since he is readily available and willing to supply informed comment.

Here are some examples of recent Sumner quotes:

In an AP story just this week, Sumner commented about California growers who are cashing in on China's increasing wealth and growing hunger for table grapes, almonds and other high-quality fruits and nuts that don't grow as well in the Asian nation. "There's a big enough group of people...

In yesterday's Fresno Bee, reporter Dennis Pollock opened a story about aging farmers with a vignette of Shigeo Yokota, who at 89 years old and suffering from arthritis still climbs on a tractor to till orchards and vineyards around his home. Yokota's son, Glenn Yokota, is a staff research associate in Kent Daane's lab at the UC Kearney Agricultural Center.

The article says that a fourth of American farmers are 65 or older. Half are 55 or older. The average age of California farmers went from 53.2 years old in 1974 to 56.8 in 2002, the last year the federal government conducted an agricultural census, according to the story.

For his story, Pollack...