Group items tagged

Systemic causes for the worldwide increases in food prices continue to be the subject of debate.

Systemic causes for the worldwide increases in food prices continue to be the subject of debate. Initial causes of the late 2006 price rises included unseasonable droughts in grain producing nations and rising oil prices. Oil prices further heightened the costs of fertilizers, food transport, and industrial agriculture. Other causes of the food crisis may be the increasing use of biofuels in developed countries, and an increasing demand for a more varied diet, meat in particular, across the expanding middle-class populations of Asia. These factors, coupled with falling world food stockpiles have all contributed to the dramatic worldwide rise in food prices. Long-term causes of the food crisis remain a topic of debate. These may include structural changes in trade and agricultural production, agricultural price supports and subsidies in developed nations, diversions of food commodities to high input foods and fuel, commodity market speculation, and climate change.

136%, maize by 125% and soybeans by 107%. In late April 2008, rice prices hit 24

“Farmers must not be disempowered labourers on their own land,” – UN right to food expert [24 October 2011] New York – “For too long farmers have been forced to eke out a living from subsistence agriculture or, once they've fallen in debt, to cede their land and labour to work in exploitative conditions on plantations. Our failure to help small-scale farmers to access markets – and to live decently from farming – is a key cause of hunger,”