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Hungry Again
Rana Foroohar, Newsweek
Job losses and plunging incomes are pushing millions into poverty—and creating another food crisis.
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. . . food prices are likely to begin spiking again toward the end of this year or early next. Agricultural goods, unlike other commodities, are still more expensive now than they were 12 months ago, before the first food crisis began.
A Chatham House report released last week notes that even the recent fall from peak prices is only temporary, as future supplies are likely to be constrained in part by a continuing lack of investment in agriculture. The economic downturn means small farmers can’t afford to plant to full capacity, and there are early signs that the credit crisis has dried up some of the private investment that was supposed to spark a second Green Revolution. As always, it will be the poorest that suffer first.
(30 January 2009)
Britain ‘must revive farms’ to avoid grave food crisis
Jamie Doward, Observer
Top thinktank issues stark warning of unrest over prices and says GM crops could offer a solution
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Britain faces a major food crisis unless urgent steps are taken to revive its flagging agricultural sector, warns one of the world’s most influential thinktanks.
Following a week in which world leaders and the United Nations expressed deep concern about the prospect of global food shortages, Chatham House suggests there needs to be a major shake-up in the UK’s supply chain if the country is to continue feeding itself.
… The stark assessment is contained in a new report, Food Futures: Rethinking UK Strategy, published tomorrow. It carries a chilling warning that the UK cannot consider itself immune to what is happening in the global food system, and that recent spikes in commodity prices, which have caused misery for many consumers as the cost of living has soared, should not be considered as freak events.
(1 February 2009)
Gaza desperately short of food after Israel destroys farmland
Peter Beaumont, Observer
Gaza’s 1.5 million people are facing a food crisis as a result of the destruction of great areas of farmland during the Israeli invasion.
According to the World Food Programme, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation and Palestinian officials, between 35% and 60% of the agriculture industry has been wrecked by the three-week Israeli attack, which followed two years of economic siege.
(1 February 2009)
