Food prices could double within 20 years, warns Oxfam

Food prices could double in the next 20 years as climate change and rising global populations inflate the cost of key crops, Oxfam has warned.

The Telegraph
31 May 2011

Within twenty years, the charity has predicted that the cost of crops could increase by up to 180 per cent.

"The food system is pretty well bust in the world," Oxfam Chief Executive Barbara Stocking told reporters, announcing the launch of the Grow campaign as 925 million people go hungry every day.

"All the signs are that the number of people going hungry is going up," Stocking said.

"The food system must be overhauled if we are to overcome the increasingly pressing challenges of climate change, spiralling food prices and the scarcity of land, water and energy."

Hunger was increasing due to rising food price inflation and oil price hikes fuelled by speculators, scrambles for land and water, and creeping climate change, Oxfam said.

The charity warned that food prices will increase by something in the range of 70 to 90 percent in real terms by 2030 before taking into account the effects of climate change, which would roughly double price rises again.

(More here.)