Food prices could double within 20 years, warns Oxfam

May 31, 2011

ears-warns-Oxfam.html

Food prices could double in the next 20 years as climate change and rising

global populations inflate the cost of key crops, Oxfam has warned.

2:35PM BST 31 May 2011

Within twenty years, the charity has predicted that the cost of crops could

increase by up to 180 per cent.

" The food system is pretty well bust in the world, " Oxfam Chief Executive

Barbara Stocking told reporters, announcing the launch of the Grow campaign as

925 million people go hungry every day.

" All the signs are that the number of people going hungry is going up, " Stocking

said

" The food system must be overhauled if we are to overcome the increasingly

pressing challenges of climate change, spiralling food prices and the scarcity

of land, water and energy. "

Hunger was increasing due to rising food price inflation and oil price hikes

fuelled by speculators, scrambles for land and water, and creeping climate

change, Oxfam said.

The charity warned that food prices will increase by something in the range of

70 to 90 percent in real terms by 2030 before taking into account the effects of

climate change, which would roughly double price rises again.

Although wheat prices have remained stable in 2011 they are 70 per cent higher

than a year ago after rising sharply last summer as the worst drought in decades

devastated crops in the Black Sea region.

Prices for corn have more than doubled in the last 12 months with global

production unable to keep pace with record demand.

The report said the failure of the food system flowed from failures of

government to regulate and to invest, which meant that companies, interest

groups and elites had been able to plunder resources.

" Now the major powers, the old and the new, must cooperate, not compete, to

share resources, build resilience, and tackle climate change, " it said.

" The economic crisis means that we have moved decisively beyond the era of the

G8, when a few rich country governments tried to craft global solutions by and

for themselves.

" The governments of poorer nations must also have a seat at the table, for they

are on the front lines of climate change, where many of the battles -- over

land, water, and food -- are being fought. "

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