With the economic crisis in Spain (and Europe as a whole) showing few signs of abating, it shouldn't come as a surprise that robberies are on the rise in the country. This is especially true in Spain's agricultural eastern regions, where the large-scale theft of fruit, garlic, and farm equipment is growing more frequent.

Reuters reports:

In Valencia, whose orange industry has helped Spain become Europe's biggest producer of the fruit, rural thefts rose 20 percent in the first quarter compared to the previous year, according to AVA, the local agricultural association.

AVA forecasts that the robberies could cost the region's farmers, many of whom barely cover their costs from selling oranges, 20 million euros this year, up from 15 million euros in 2012 and 2011, because of lost produce and damage.

To counter the problem, Spain's police have sent in the cavalry, dispatching two squadrons of mounted Civil Guards to the region to help run down thieves.

Though they arrived in late May, as the orange picking season ended, police say the horseback patrols have at least led to a hiatus in crimes, and are effective in startling robbers unable to hear them coming through the fruit trees....

Valencia's Civil Guard - responsible for smaller towns outside the remit of national police - said they had already made 50 arrests related to orange thefts in April, when they began a crackdown. Those charged so far are all Spaniards.

Incidents like these have been common for a few years -- 2011 saw 5,000 more agriculture-related thefts than 2010 -- with criminals operating independently or in gangs to steal produce and equipment for their resale value. More recently, the phenomenon has turned violent, with the death in April of a watchman who was shot while attempting to stop a group of suspected thieves.

The reasons for the thefts range from the obvious to the arcane. It seems hardly worth pointing out that a country with 26.8 percent unemployment will experience a rash of property crime, especially if that unemployment is coupled with cuts to social services on which unemployed people would normally depend. In addition, agriculture is a sector in which defense against theft is difficult, owing to the vast amounts of land that must be policed at all hours -- a problem just as present in California as in Spain -- leaving farmers to fend for themselves with community patrols or hired hands.

On a more local level, Spanish law provides for little more than a slap on the wrist for those convicted of petty theft, which means that robbery could remain lucrative even if you're caught in the act.

The economic crisis and the difficulty of policing vast tracts of land are problems that won't disappear any time soon, and Spain's budget troubles make additional investment in policing or surveillance technologies unlikely. Strengthening the laws for theft could offer the country some relief. But, in the meantime, orange you glad you're not a Spanish farmer?

When it comes to U.S. foreign policy in the Arab world, Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much -- be it arming the Syrian rebels or brokering Israeli-Palestinian peace. But the shwarma -- shaved, spit-roasted meat wrapped in doughy pita and smothered in toppings -- has managed to win the hearts of American politicians from both sides of the aisle.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stopped into a West Bank restaurant to grab one of the tasty sandwiches as part of a trip to the Middle East. The AP reports:

Kerry chomped one of the meat sandwiches after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. 

Asked what toppings he wanted, Kerry said, quote, "I want everything. I'm all in." 

After the first bite, Kerry declared, "Fantastic." 

For those who closely follow the intersection of shwarma and politics, Kerry's ecstatic reaction may have brought to mind an earlier instance of  shwarma consumption by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). On a 2012 trip to Libya, McCain rapturously tweeted:

Had an excellent shawarma in #Tripoli today - #Libya and #Lebanon need to have a shawarma cook-off! lockerz.com/s/223104593

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) July 7, 2012

Not convinced of the shwarma's unique power to straddle America's political divide? Just look to its more contentious cousin: falafel.

During his March trip to the Middle East, you may recall, President Obama whipped up a minor controversy when it was announced that he would be dining on the fried chickpea dish with Israeli President Shimon Peres. One Palestinian chef, angry that the dish was being presented as typical Israeli cuisine, told reporters, "We, a group of Palestinian chefs, are prepared to counter this flagrant Israeli attack on our culture by preparing the official dinner for presidents Obama and Abbas." He offered to make a dinner for the American and Palestinian leaders that would "reveal the fallacious claims of the occupation and its continuous attempts to rob our folklore, this time in the presence of the president of the biggest country in the world."

If only Obama had opted for shwarma.

Restaurant magazine's 2013 list of the world's top 50 restaurants hasn't just made news this week for dropping Danish superstar Noma down a peg after its three-year reign at the top. It also features a restaurant from mainland China for the first time.

The Shanghai-based restaurant Mr & Mrs Bund placed 43rd in the ranking -- a jump from last year when it became the first mainland Chinese restaurant to crack the magazine's less-prestigious top 100, at number 95. This year's top 50 also includes two restaurants from Hong Kong for a grand total of three Chinese restaurants -- the most since 2003, which is as far back as past lists on the magazine's website go (the 51-100 list includes three more restaurants from Hong Kong and another from Shanghai). Is this China's culinary scene finally catching up with the country's newfound great power status?

Well, maybe. But there's something to note about the three Chinese restaurants in the top 50: none of them actually serves Chinese food.

Mr & Mrs Bund's cuisine is described as "High-end contemporary French bistro cooking." As for the Hong Kong-based 8 1/2 Otto E Mezzo Bombana, which ranked 39th on the list? "Classic and contemporary Italian." The restaurant that comes closest to serving Chinese cuisine is Hong Kong's Amber (number 36), which serves "classical French with subtle Hong Kong influences." (Only subtle, though!)

With some exceptions, almost every other country with a restaurant in the top 50 has at least one restaurant specializing in local cuisine, though sometimes with a handful of adjectives tossed in (my favorite description: Mugaritz, in Spain, serves "techno-emotional Spanish."). Exceptions include Switzerland and Belgium, which have large French-speaking populations and restaurants serving French cuisine, along with tiny Singapore (where Restaurant Andre serves French food) and the Netherlands (where Oud Sluis serves "modern seafood with international influences").

What gives? China is a big country with a variety of well-developed regional cuisines that are generally considered delicious. And while we know there are many things China doesn't do well, soft power-wise, the one area where it could be said to have some soft power at its disposal is food. Chinese restaurants can more or less be found anywhere Chinese people can be found, which is many, many places.

My hypothesis: While there have long been many great restaurants in China serving excellent local food, it's only recently that these kinds of establishments have started paying attention to ambiance, service, and the other more subtle niceties that have to be in place before a restaurant can be a candidate for Restaurant magazine's top 50 list. As Chinese restaurateur Zhang Lan, who has sought to take her upscale Sichuan restaurant chain South Beauty international, told China Daily in 2008, "Chinese cuisine offers everything from nutrition to taste. But what it lacks is the packaging. Most people in China didn't know how to present their food."

There are some up-and-comers that could break into the top 50 in the years to come: On Restaurant's list of the 50 best restaurants in Asia, the first Chinese establishment to serve Chinese food is Hong Kong's Lung King Heen, which offers diners Cantonese food. The first mainland restaurant to serve Chinese food is 28 HuBin Road in Hangzhou, which focuses on Hangzhou regional cuisine.

Thoughts on why no Chinese Chinese restaurants made this year's top 50? Leave them in the comments.

In her article for FP today, Laurie Garrett wonders whether thousands of dead pigs washing up in Shanghai's rivers and two Chinese citizens dying of a new flu strain are early symptoms of the next big pandemic. What's more, she writes, the potentially contaminated pork has already entered the Chinese food supply. "On March 25," Garrett notes, "Chinese authorities seized manufactured pork buns that were found to be made from Zhejiang pigs that had died of the mysterious ailment."

The prevalence of dicey food products -- including dead, diseased, or otherwise dodgy pork -- has long been an issue in China. But the recent tide of dead hogs sweeping through Shanghai -- said to partially stem from a crackdown by authorities on the dead-pig trade -- has produced some fascinating reporting that gives us a more detailed look at the economics driving China's market for illegal pig meat.

It's pretty straightforward: farmers who can't send a pig to be butchered once it has died don't want to totally write off their investments -- not when there's a chance to still make some of the money back. But according to recent reports, Chinese authorities have some policies in place that aren't exactly making the problem better.

According to this report, from the Oriental Morning Post, a 100-kilogram (roughly 220-pound) pig sells for about 600 yuan ($100) -- still a hefty sum in rural China. Feed costs total at least 150 yuan ($25).

Since July 2011, the central government has had a policy in place to pay some farms -- those that raise more than 50 pigs a year -- compensation of 80 yuan ($13) for every dead pig, according to the South China Morning Post. But 89 percent of the pigs raised in the city of Jiaxing -- thought to be the main source of the hogs that wound up in Shanghai's Huangpu river -- come from small farms, according to the report, and don't qualify. Even those that do often don't see the money.

To make matters worse, this thorough Shanghai Daily primer on the illegal pig trade says farmers in Zhejiang province were supposed to pay 50 yuan ($8) per carcass to so-called "dead pig collectors" hired by the local government who would then dispose of the carcass. Not surprisingly, most farmers opted not to pay this fee when illegal pig traders were around who were happy to pay 1 yuan per 500 grams of pig flesh. The result? Jiaxing pig collector Lu Gensong told Shanghai Daily he didn't collect a single carcass between 2009 and 2012. ("You Shanghai residents just don't realize how many dead pigs you have eaten before," one restaurant owner told Xinhua.) 

And those illegal pork butchers? They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves -- perhaps well enough to pay even more than they're already shelling out for dead pig flesh if necessary. A CCTV investigation into the dead pig trade found that three butchers -- sentenced to life in prison last November -- had processed 77,000 carcasses, making almost 9 million yuan ($1.5 million) in profit.

If you're wondering why you'd pay to have your pig carcasses disposed of when you can be paid for them instead, well --it seems some farmers in Zhejiang province have been wondering the same thing.

It's tough to stomach, but Ikea is the latest big-name food maker to be felled by the no-it-isn't-beef-it's-horse-meat-scandal that is quickly spreading across Europe. Czech authorities alerted the discount furniture maker that they had found horsemeat in a sample of meatballs, and Ikea subsequently pulled the product from stores in 14 countries.

Ikea is of course outraged and put out a strongly worded statement promising that the company would get to the bottom of how the tainted Swedish staple turned up in stores. "We do not tolerate any other ingredients than the ones stipulated in our recipes or specifications, secured through set standards, certifications and product analysis by accredited laboratories," the company said.

The untold story in all of this is that Swedes love horse meat. Marketed under the name hamburgerkött -- that's right, "hamburger meat" -- Swedes put the stuff on toast, sandwiches, and the like. Consider, for example, Pärsons' (slogan: "Sandwich joy for the whole family!") version of hamburgerkött. They lead with the euphemistic name on the package, but a quick peek at the ingredients tells the real story -- hästkött, or horse meat.

Curious where the horses are sourced from? South America.

When selecting the 2011 best covers of the year,  the Food Issue's "Corn Rocket" was a staff favorite. Turns out, we aren't the only ones enamored by our cosmo-cob. The print version of the cover has been nominated for a "Cover of the Year" award on Amazon.com. Readers can vote until April 21, when voting will enter a second round. FP Creative Director Dennis Brack designed the cover, while Deputy Art Director Erin Chrisinger Aulov directed a shoot with photographer Renée Comet and food stylist Lisa Cherkasky. We think their collaboration became one of our most inspired images -- if you agree, vote for us!

An unexpected source of sweetness has been injected into U.S.-Pakistani relations. Late last month the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that the first shipment of mangoes imported from Pakistan had arrived in the United States. Previously, Pakistani mangoes had been banned in the U.S. because of concerns they might bring pests into the country.

In celebration of this first shipment, the Pakistani consulate in Chicago hosted a "mango party" at which a large assortment of mango-based delicacies and desserts were served. Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani attended the event and has also sent boxes of renowned "Chaunsa" mangoes to U.S. leaders including the president and various senators. Ambassador Haqqani heralded the event as the culmination of "two years of strategic dialogue with the Americans," in an effort that reached to officials at the highest levels of the U.S. foreign policy establishment including Secretary of State Clinton and the late Af-Pak envoy Richard Holbrooke. Ambassador Haqqani declared, "this is something we are very happy about...at a time when U.S. Pakistan relations are being reported as tense, this is finally some sweet news."

With nearly $250 million in mangoes coming in each year, the United States is currently the world's largest mango importer. Pakistan is the world's sixth largest mango producer. Many hope that these mangoes will promote more trade between the U.S. and Pakistan, and mark a transition for Pakistan from aid recipient to equal economic partner.

Across the Pacific, China too has begun to use fruit to further its political and diplomatic aims. The Chinese government has been purchasing large quantities of Taiwanese fruit in an effort to influence the votes of southern Taiwanese farmers. Taiwan has a major fruit overproduction problem. Chinese officials hope that by buying the excess fruit and helping the farmers economically, they may be able to sway them politically and take votes away from the nationalist Democratic People's Party in the 2012 presidential election.

In May 2005, China announced a "zero-tariff" policy on 15 Taiwanese fruits, a move the Taiwanese government considered "an all-out united front campaign to manipulate Taiwan's farmers" and one that is aimed "to temper Taiwan's negative reaction to the passage of the ‘anti-separation law'" (which outlines China's willingness to violently respond to a Taiwanese declaration of independence). Then in 2008, when Taiwan was overproducing oranges, a Chinese company purchased 1,200 tons of oranges. Between 2009 and 2010, fruit exports from Taiwan to China grew nearly 130 percent. This summer, as Taiwanese banana growers have struggled with overproduction, the Chinese government has once again expressed a willingness to help out. The governor of Shandong province alone has pledged to purchase 5,000 tons of bananas.

Of course, when fruit goes bad it can complicate diplomacy. Last month, nearly 100 Americans contracted salmonella from imported Mexican papayas. Currently, officials on both sides of the border are working hard to make sure that relations between the two countries do not sour as a result of the diseased fruit.

The death of 50 percent of Somalia's camels poses a grave question: If camels can't survive, what can? Eastern Africa's drought is proving to be a death sentence for an animal that can normally survive weeks without water. In some areas, over 80 percent of livestock have perished, forcing families to abandon their homes and relocate in overcrowded refugee camps. Ahmed Mohammad, a Somali camel herdsman, told BBC:

"It is a terrible sign when camels start dying because when they start to die, then what chance have sheep, goats and cattle?"

Around two-thirds of Somalia's population depend on their livestock for survival, especially in drought-stricken northern Kenya, Somalia and southern Ethiopia where the majority of people are pastoralists. Without camels, families not only lose milk and meat, but also purchasing power. Oxfam reports that the value of Somali camels has been slashed in half -- many nomadic herders are watching as their livelihood dies off, one by one.

Government buy-back programs have been deemed ineffective by many locals and critics. One program in nothern Kenya only offered compensation for goats and sheep, disregarding the herds of cattle that provide the majority of income for families. Save the Children's Kenya county director, Prasant Naik, noted the significance of the dying camels, saying:

"Pastoralists are used to coping with occasional droughts and dry seasons, but these successive droughts have pushed their resiliency to the limit."

As drought continues to ravage Eastern Africa, livestock have begun to migrate in search of water -- and with mass migration comes widespread crop and pasture destruction. For the first time in nearly twenty years, aid agencies are expected to make a formal declaration of famine. But for now, the Somali government is advising starving families to eat leaves in order to stay alive.

On Monday, the U.S. Senate, followed by the House on Tuesday, passed a groundbreaking shark conservation bill banning the practice of shark finning in the Pacific. The bill closes a loophole in earlier legislation that had banned shark finning off the coast of the Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico. The bill also empowers federal authorities to identify and list which fishing vessels come from countries with different shark conservation rules than the United States.

Shark finning is a brutal practice where sharks are captured, their dorsal fins are sliced off, and they are thrown back into the water to bleed to death. According to some estimates, shark finning alone is responsible for the deaths of up to 73 million sharks annually, resulting in shark populations that have been depleted by as much as 90 percent in the past few decades. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service reports that 1.2 million pounds of sharks were caught in 2009 in the Pacific, although it doesn't specify what portion were fins. Many species of sharks are highly endangered -- there are only about 3,500 great white sharks left in the world.

Shark fins are used in shark fin soup, a (not particularly tasty, in this blogger's opinion) delicacy across much of East Asia, used by upper classes to demonstrate wealth, taste, and prestige at wedding banquets and corporate feasts. With China's growing middle and upper classes eating more and more of this soup each year, activists and scientists worry that shark populations are being depleted beyond sustainable levels.

"Shark finning has fueled massive population declines and irreversible disruption of our oceans," Sen. John Kerry, the bill's author, said in a statement. "Finally we've come through with a tough approach to tackle this serious threat to our marine life."

While any effort to regulate this $1 billion a year industry is laudable, the trade in shark fins is extremely difficult to monitor and much of it happens outside U.S. waters. For example, the World Wildlife Fund estimates that 50 to 80 percent of the global market for shark fins is centered in Hong Kong. While many Americans are aware of the environmental implications of shark finning, that same consciousness has yet to hit the market that really matters -- China. Last year, for example, a Chinese wedding industry group survey found that only about 5 percent of couples choose shark-free menus at their weddings.

If you're someone who's kept up at night by apocalyptic fears, there are certain obvious questions you might worry over as you toss and turn: for example, will Armageddon be the work of malevolent extraterrestrials (think Independence Day) or of an equally nasty monster, global warming (a la Day After Tomorrow)? But of the many things that might trouble a doomsday worry-wart, what to eat at the end of the world probably wouldn't make the list.  But as it turns out, planning for the apocalypse menu is already well underway-- and this isn't just another gourmet gimmick.

In 2008, world leaders gathered together to herald the opening of the so-called, "doomsday vault," a vast cache of seed samples built inside a remote Arctic mountain. The vault -- complete with four sets of locked doors, a 410 ft tunnel, and armed guards (see above) -- was designed with the ambitious goal of eventually housing a seed sample from every species of edible crop in the world. Seeds have been steadily accumulating ever since: already more than half of million of the estimated 4.5 million total have been tucked away in the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard.

The latest addition to the treasure chest arrived this week in the hands of improbable deliverymen: U.S. senators. Led by Benjamin Cardin, Democrat Senator from Maryland, the seven American delegates deposited an assortment of potent North American chili seeds inside the icy vault. The seeds -- which one expert admiringly praised for their "colorful names and histories" -- have long been protected as part of Native American tradition, but many fear that they may become the next victims in the worrisome trend of declining global crop diversity. Among the now-safe species are Wenk's Yellow Hots (a chameleon-like breed that changes color and flavor) and the San Juan Tsile (known for keeping diners on their toes: different peppers can be mild, medium, or hot -- and it's impossible to tell which is which).

So when the flood waters start rising and that nacho craving sets in, just head north.  

I don't think even PETA would make this argument: 

Bolivia's opposition and homosexual groups criticized comments made by Morales at the first "people's conference" on climate change the previous day, in which he said that chicken producers inject birds with female hormones and "when men eat those chickens, they experience deviances in being men."

The Bolivian president also suggested that the European diet made men go bald.

A Greek man has taken umbrage over the use of his face on Swedish containers of Turkish yoghurt. The offended party is not interested in reconciliation, either: he has sued Lindahls, the dairy company that puts out the item, for almost $7 million.

The man only found out his moustachioed face featured on the containers of Turkisk Yoghurt made by Lindahls when a friend living in Stockholm told him.

Athanasios Varzanakos told Swedish Radio his friend "was annoyed and asked how it was possible" when informed.

Lindahls claims to have bought the image legitimately from a photo agency. Hopefully, this won't have too much impact on the ongoing rapprochement between Greek and Turkish Cyprus.

The newest Wired magazine has a great, terrifying article on Ug99, a fungus that is imperiling wheat crops, auguring possible famines and rising food prices. The story focuses on the damage Ug99 has already caused from southern Africa north to Iran, the USDA's race to genetically engineer resistant plants, and the fungus' possible implications for the United States, where wheat is the third-biggest cash crop.

But I wondered about Ug99's possible implications for Afghanistan -- on the fungus' frontline, and where wheat is the chief legal cash crop. On one hand, this is clearly terrible news. About 80 percent of Afghans are involved in farming; millions of livelihoods depend on wheat, particularly in the north and west. Plus, big wheat hauls recently started cutting into poppy production. On the other hand, by virtue of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, the country receives considerable food and seed assistance. The USDA already has an infrastructure in place to help Afghan farmers use higher-yield seeds; NATO and USAID already have an extensive food-aid infrastructure -- that might help mitigate Ug99's effects, if the fungus makes it into Afghanistan this growing season. But here's to hoping it doesn't.

David Roodman of the Center for Global Development has a thoughtful response to my blog post (responding in turn to his initial post) on the growing calls to cancel Haiti's debt.

To summarize, David and I are discussing whether debt relief for Haiti is A) a good thing and B) should be a priority -- we agree on A (yes) and disagree somewhat on B. David argues that debt payments aren't going to be an issue in the foreseeable future, and that countries like Venezuela shouldn't get points for relieving relatively small sums of debt -- particularly if they aren't also providing significant aid, which is more important in the near and medium term. I say there's a short window in which to ask for countries to throw in the kitchen sink, so why not, particularly given debt's historical choke-hold on Haiti and given that three or ten years from now, Haiti will still be poor and in debt. Lots of others have good commentary on the subject, including Daniel Altman and Alex Tabarrok.

Ultimately, I still believe there's room and reason to ask for debt forgiveness -- if not now, then when? But it made me wonder about aid effectiveness -- if you're giving x dollars of aid, what provides the maximum benefit: debt forgiveness, direct governmental grants, funding specific programs, ending agricultural subsidies?

Development economists, of course, research this question, well, exhaustively. And the answer? It's now always clear -- or, there's no general rule. Academically, a dollar of debt relief is worth more than a dollar of granted aid. In reality, the level of indebtedness, degree of governmental corruption, relevant economic fundamentals, and the entities doing the lending all matter considerably.

But there's consensus on what other countries can be doing, should be doing, and are doing now. Haiti needs material support (water, batteries, medical supplies, etc.) and cash aid. But the United States, especially, should also think about remittances and immigration. Here, Michael Clemens and Amanda Taub argue for giving Haitians temporary protected status in the States. In the longer term, the United States might consider taking a close look not just at debt, but also at rice.