NAIROBI,  Kenya — While much has been said about what’s driving the current global food price upward another issue is worrying experts in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) — the worldwide decline of honeybee populations.

According to a recent UNEP report titled Global Bee Colony Disorders and Other Threats to Insect Pollinators, experts speculate declining bee numbers could have disastrous consequences on the global food supply unless some agricultural reforms are made.

“The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century,” Achim Steiner, UN Environment Programme executive director said in a UN News Centre press release. “The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 per cent of the world’s food, more than 70 are pollinated by bees.”

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – When the 2010 Fifa World Cup comes to South Africa next summer, bringing with it an influx of some 500,000 visitors, chefs will be working overtime to keep up.

An article appearing on Johannesburg’s Times Live website describes how South Africa is short the more than 20,000 skilled chefs needed to cover foodservice for the big event, scheduled to run from June 11 to July 11. “Will there be people to prepare food? The answer is, yes,” said Brett Dungan, chief executive of the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa. “Will they have the necessary skills or be qualified chefs? That is going to be debatable. [The shortage] is going to compromise standards.”