Food Prices “Will Double By 2030”

[tommy]

Oxfam has warned that prices of staple foods will more than double in 20 years unless all leaders in the world take action to reform the global food system. The charity forecasts that prices of key crops will have increased by 120% to 180%.

Oxfam predicts that 50% of that increase will be caused by climate change.

The firm has called on leaders to improve regulation of food markets and invest in a global climate fund.

In the report, Oxfam identifies four insecurity hotspots areas which are already struggling to feed the citizens.
• More than 8 million people in East Africa face chronic food shortages with women and children being the most affected.
• People in India spend more than twice the proportion of their income on food than UK residents.
• In Guatemala, 865,000 people are on the verge of food insecurity because of lack of state investment in smallholder farmers, who mainly depend on imported food.
The World Bank has also warned that the increasing prices of food are pushing people into extreme poverty.

Oxfam says that world leaders must:
• End policies promoting bio fuels.
• Scale up food reserves.
• Increase transparency in commodities markets and regulate futures markets.a
• Invest in smallholder farmers.

What do you think should be done to prevent such high prices of food in the future?

[MistressoftheNight]

This is terrible! People should just start on sustainable living. We can plant vegetables in our backyards and not spend money on these things. It's really doable.

[Joshua]

Land is a crucial issue. I have been wondering how the portioning of lands has affected farming as far as food production is concerned. This culture of inheriting lands should be revised by families. Governments should also come up with a policy that will regulate the minimum hectares of land to be passed to sons as inheritance.

Let me give you a picture of what happens,

Let's say a father had 20 hectares of land and he has five sons. When they inherit the land, then the 20 hectares will be subdivided among five sons equally. So each son will own 4 hectares. Assuming each son sires three sons, so in total we have fifteen sons. When they grow up and if they don't have money to purchase their own piece of land then definitely they'll demand to be apportioned land from their fathers.

Each father has now to subdivide the 4 hectares among his three sons and each will get 1.3 hectares. Remember each son will be putting up structures on the land which again makes the land not to be all that much available for food production. If this circle continues then there will be less land committed for farming.

In aggregate, there will be food shortage and the imbalance of demand and supply occur (high demand for food while there is far less food supply) thus pushing the prices for food stuffs to be high.

The solution is for families to agree on a way of subdividing the land so as they're left with a big portion of land for growing food crops. If they can, they should construct a flat where each will have a room to live, which of course, doesn't take a big piece of land but a huge amount of money.