Food prices may double in 20 years

PanARMENIAN.Net - The prices of staple foods will more than double in 20 years unless world leaders take action to reform the global food system, BBC said citing Oxfam report..

By 2030, the average cost of key crops will increase by between 120% and 180%, the charity forecasts. Half of that increase will be caused by climate change, Oxfam predicts, in its report Growing a Better Future. It calls on world leaders to improve regulation of food markets and invest in a global climate fund.

In its report, Oxfam highlights four "food insecurity hotspots", areas which are already struggling to feed their citizens.

In Guatemala, 865,000 people are at risk of food insecurity. In India, people spend more than twice the proportion of their income on food than UK residents - paying the equivalent of £10 for a liter of milk and £6 for a kilo of rice. In Azerbaijan, wheat production fell 33% last year due to poor weather, forcing the country to import grains from Russia and Kazakhstan. Food prices were 20% higher in December 2010 than the same month in 2009. In East Africa, eight million people currently face chronic food shortages due to drought, with women and children among the hardest hit.

The World Bank has also warned that rising food prices are pushing millions of people into extreme poverty. In April, it said food prices were 36% above levels of a year ago, driven by problems in the Middle East and North Africa.

Oxfam wants nations to agree new rules to govern food markets, to ensure the poor do not go hungry.

It said world leaders must: increase transparency in commodities markets and regulate futures markets; scale up food reserves; end policies promoting biofuels; invest in smallholder farmers, especially women

Among the many factors driving rising food prices in the coming decades, Oxfam predicts that climate change will have the most serious impact.