Oxfam International released a new report predicting that food prices would double over the next twenty years

A new report by Oxfam International warns of rising
food prices over the next 20 years.
(Photo credit: Oxfam International)

Oxfam International released a new report predicting that food prices would double over the next twenty years, leading to more suffering among the world’s poor. For example, in India, the number of hungry people grew to 65 million people between 1990 and 2005, and high food prices will only add to the country’s food insecurity.

Click here for more information and for a copy of the report.

But there are solutions. Oxfam highlights the need for a multilateral system of food reserves, ending the policies that promote biofuels, and investing in smallholder farmers in a global climate fund, as ways to address this crisis.

"Perfect storm" looms for world's food supplies: Oxfam
Posted: 31 May 2011

PARIS: Oxfam called on Tuesday 31/05 for an overhaul of the world's food system, warning that in a couple of decades, millions more people would be gripped by hunger due to population growth and climate-hit harvests.


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George Alagiah investigates a future food crisis triggered by rising populations, changing diets, fuel and water shortages and climate change

In the past year, we have seen food riots on three continents, food inflation has rocketed and experts predict that by 2050, if things don't change, we will see mass starvation across the world. This film sees George Alagiah travel the world in search of solutions to the growing global food crisis.

PART 1
George joins a Masai chief among the skeletons of hundreds of cattle he has lost to climate change, and the English farmer who tells him why food production in the UK is also hit. He spends a day eating with a family in Cuba to find out how a future oil shock could lead to dramatic adjustments to diets. He visits the breadbasket of India to meet the farmer who now struggles to irrigate his land as water tables drop, and finds out why obesity is spiralling out of control in Mexico.

Back in Britain, George investigates what is wrong with people's diets, and discovers that the UK imports an average of 3000 litres of water per capita every day. He talks to top nutritionist Susan Jebb, DEFRA minister Hilary Benn and Nobel laureate Rajendra Pachauri to uncover what the future holds for our food.












PART 2
George heads out to India to discover how a changing diet in the developing world is putting pressure on the world's limited food resources. He finds out how using crops to produce fuel is impacting on food supplies across the continents. George then meets a farmer in Kent, who is struggling to sell his fruit at a profit, and a British farmer in Kenya who is shipping out tonnes of vegetables for our supermarket shelves. He also examines why so many people are still dying of hunger after decades of food aid.

Back in the UK, George challenges the decision-makers with the facts he has uncovered - from Oxfam head of research Duncan Green to Sainsbury's boss Justin King. He finds out why British beef may offer a model for future meat production and how our appetite for fish is stripping the world's seas bare.












PART 3
From the two women working to make their Yorkshire market town self-sufficient to the academic who claims it could be better for the environment to ship in lamb from New Zealand, George Alagiah meets the people who believe they know how we should feed the world as demand doubles by the middle of the century.

He heads out to Havana to find out how they are growing half of their fruit and vegetables right in the heart of the city, investigates the 'land-grabs' trend - where rich countries lease or buy up the land used by poor farmers in Africa - and meets the Indian agriculturalists who have almost trebled their yields over the course of a decade.

George finds out how we in this country are using cutting-edge science to extend the seasons, recycle our food waste and even grow lettuce in fish tanks to guarantee the food on our plates.

He hears the arguments about genetically modified food and examines even more futuristic schemes to get the food on to our plates.