Global food system

Oxfam launched yesterday a new campaing ‘Growing a better future’ based on a report which highlights the pressure on food resources. It presents new research forecasting price rises for staple grains in the range of 120–180 per cent within the next two decades…

Food scarcity

Food prices are up again…Nothing extraordinary when reading the interesting report of the OECD/FAO (Agricultural outlook 2010-2019) published last June: it warns that the average wheat and coarse grain prices will be between 15-40% higher in real terms (adjusted for inflation) over the next ten years compared to their average levels during the 1997-2006 period. The real prices for vegetable oils are projected to be more than 40% higher and dairy prices have soared by an average of 16-45%…

The title of the latest newsletter of the Earth Policy Institute says that ‘World One Poor Harvest Away From Chaos‘ which seems something likely, unfortunately. And food prices have certainly contributed, event though not predominantly, to the revolutions in Tunisia (read here) and Egypt…

The bad news is that investments into ‘biofuels’ go on and even worse, the argument of food scarcity will be used by all those who want to promote GMOs and an even more industrial and productive agriculture with increased use of fertilizers and pesticides…The strategy of Monsanto, BASF & alikes is clear: in a first stage destroy sustainable agriculture (including the soils, water, biodiversity & some of the farmes themselves) and in a second stage jump in as a hero that has the solution (GMOs) to the problem they largely created…The worst is that all this was supported directly or indirectly by many States and governments and it continues like that…business first, at the expense of everybody…until the explosion of the system (see the financial crises). An excellent movie on all that is ‘Think Global, Act Rural’