In a recent study by the London based non-profit, Oxfam, focusing on food supply around the world in the future, it noted that we are not addressing the food supply sustainability model very well. Oxfam said that the world is “sleepwalking” as it relates to food.
Rising food prices could escalate tensions around different regions of the world. The Arab Spring was precipitated among other factors by food shortage and its prices. Oxfam in a paper titled, “Growing a Better Future” noted that prices of staples may rise up to 120% -180% of their present costs by 2030.
The key contributing factors are climate change, population, market price speculations, poor distribution channels and we add, lack of technology for preservation of food. Tekedia thinks that lack of technology to preserve harvested produce in Africa is a major concern for all policy makers.
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Oxfam concludes that this trend can be revered if government enforces the right regulations, especially in the commodity market where Wall Street speculates the prices out of reckless abandon, and addresses the problems of the small farmers. One of those will surely include helping them to preserve their produce better by coming up with better tools and technologies that will make it affordable and not relying on electricity which they do not readily have.
Without any intervention, about 239 Africans will be affected even as prices of maize, rice , wheat and other produce rise in some cases by three digit percentages. For example, while accounting for the impact of climate change while destroys the land nutrients, maize can see its price go up by at much as 126% in the next two decades.
You can read the full report by vsiting Oxfam website.
Oxfam is an international confederation of 15 organizations working together in 98 countries and with partners and allies around the world to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice.
We work directly with communities and we seek to influence the powerful to ensure that poor people can improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that affect them.