Financial crash deepens food crisis

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-17 06:59

A G8 summit in Japan a month later confirmed the resolve of world leaders to address global food security as a top priority and demonstrated a growing political will to reverse disturbing trends in global hunger, he said.

"It is vital that this momentum be maintained," Diouf said.

"Unless political will and donor pledges are turned into real and immediate action, millions more may fall into deeper poverty and chronic hunger.

"The global financial crisis should not make us forget the food crisis. Agriculture needs urgent and sustained attention too to make hunger and rural poverty part of history," he said.

Also yesterday, Oxfam launched an urgent appeal to mark UN World Food Day, saying that the global total of people in hunger had risen to almost 1 billion.

In Double Edged Prices report, launched in London, Oxfam argued that the increase in food costs had seen some international companies quadruple their profits while the world's poor were pushed further into destitution.

Oxfam said it needed an extra $26.2 million to fund its development and humanitarian work on food and agriculture, and to campaign for changes to "flawed trade and agricultural policies" afflicting poor farmers.

"These are tough times for many of us, but huge increases in food prices mean that the world's poorest are being hit hardest," Oxfam chief executive Barbara Stocking, said, adding that anything people could give would make a difference.

Oxfam slammed the international community's response to the food problem, comparing the $12.3 billion pledged in Rome earlier this year - and the $1 billion it said has been disbursed so far - to the vast sums made available in days to bail out Western banks.

The charity said higher food prices meant people were eating less and lower quality food, while children were being pulled out of school and farmers were migrating to city slums.

The Oxfam report said all governments, donors and agencies had to learn lessons from the financial crisis and invest in agriculture, adopt trade policies that ensure food security, and design social security systems that protect the poorest.

"The trend in agriculture, as in international finance, has been toward deregulation and a reduced role for the state," Stocking said.

"This has had devastating effects and innocent lives have been blighted by exposure to market volatility.

"It is time the world woke up to the need for developing country governments to support their poor farmers, and the obligation of developed countries to help them to do so.

"Where there has been unmanaged trade liberalization, underinvestment in agriculture, and little support from government, the effects have been devastating."

Agencies-Xinhua

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