By Peter John Meiklem, Oxfam Scotland
Few will have missed the effect of the rising price of food on their own pockets. Whether it’s the cost of whole wheat bread, steak or potatoes, most people across the country will have recently shaken their head in the supermarket, irked by the rocketing price of a once affordable favourite.
In a new Oxfam Scotland survey, almost three-quarters of Scots said they no longer ate all of the same types of foods as they did two years ago. Many said they simply couldn’t afford them anymore.
Scotland is exhibiting a trend that is playing out on a far greater and more disturbing scale right across the world. Rising food prices are taking some foods off the menu across the planet. The type of food depends on the country, of course. Here it might be chicken or steak that is vanishing from the dinner table; in parts of India it is onions that are suddenly unaffordable to the huge number of poor; in Malawi, it is a glass of milk that is sometimes talked of in wistful tones.
Oxfam has long campaigned against hunger – it’s there in the name Ox-Fam (short for famine) – but now the organisation is starting to do something different with that work. The charity launched its new campaign Grow this month, which will campaign to ensure that people don’t just have enough to eat now, but for the next day and for every single one after that.
Which brings us back to the question of rising prices. According to the same Oxfam study, which polled people in 17 different countries, more than half have abandoned some foods, with a whopping 79 per cent blaming that decision on cost.
Rising world food prices, which have become increasingly volatile since the turn of the century, are having real-life effects. These are annoying and upsetting in some countries, disastrous and crippling in others. In India, for example, some households spend as much as 80 per cent of their income on food. Any price increase in those circumstances means less food, never mind leaving any money left over to pay a doctor, or to buy some school books. With statistics like that, it’s easy to see what a substantial role hunger plays in the successful outcome of many different types of development work.
Some view price increases such as these in a passive way. This is a dangerous line to take. Research conducted by the Institute of Development Studies has shown that the price of the key staples keeping billions of people alive – such as wheat, maize or oats – will more than double in the next 20 years if action is not taken. And those figures don’t even consider climate change, which is liable to reduce the amount of agricultural land on the planet, while threatening farmers' harvests through increased numbers of droughts and floods.
One key phrase stands out in the above paragraph: “If action is not taken”. Oxfam believes that the world's food system is broken, but also that there are steps that can be taken to repair it. Firstly, we are calling for money to be spent on supporting small farmers across the developing world: these women (and most of them are women) offer the world’s biggest and best chance to immediately boost food production. The proportion of development money spent on small farmers has dwindled away. We need to reverse that trend.
Oxfam also wants to see greater controls on the food markets. An increase in speculation is driving up prices, leading to huge profits for multinational food traders. International governments can curb excessive speculation while still allowing futures markets to do what they do: help establish price, and hedge against risk.
Biofuels are a third and pressing cause of distortion in international food markets. Thanks to government subsidies and other incentives, large amounts of crops are now being steered towards the petrol tank rather than the dinner table. Dismantling this support and getting rid of this false market will have a beneficial effect on food prices.
Lastly, climate change still affects food production and distribution hugely. Oxfam will continue to call for internationally agreed carbon emission targets, and will encourage world leaders to implement already agreed plans to get a new fund for climate adaption up and running.
The challenge is huge, and that is why the campaign – the biggest in Oxfam’s history – will run for at least four years. The prize, though, is equally large – and once reached it is one that will be felt in every country in the world, from something as small as the price of a loaf of bread, to something as monumental as millions of people going to bed no longer hungry.
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