World Food Day was marked last Tuesday; a day to remember that nearly a billion people in the world are hungry, despite the fact that there is enough food to feed the earth’s population of seven billion people.
Repeated food crises are no coincidence but solutions are within reach- Martin Galea De Giovanni
Food has been turned into a mere commodity to be exported, traded and speculated upon rather than a basic human right.
This year’s World Food Day took place against the backdrop of a looming food crisis, the third in five years.
Droughts in the US and Eastern Europe this summer have sparked sharp peaks in global food prices, which rose by 10 per cent in July compared to a year earlier. Staple commodities hit record highs in August and September (maize and wheat were up 25 per cent, and soybean oil up 17 per cent). But these deadly fluctuations cannot be blamed only on bad weather.
Policy choices have created the conditions for a ‘perfect storm’ of increasing demand in tight and more volatile food markets.
Financial speculation on food, diversion of food crops to biofuels for cars and rising demand for animal feeds for meat mean that higher and increasingly unstable food prices are fast becoming the new norm.
When global prices rise suddenly, more people go hungry. An estimated 44 million people were pushed into poverty when high prices last struck in 2010, with women and children hit hardest.
Sudden food price rises in 2008 sparked riots in dozens of countries, a scenario that the UN warns could be repeated if the price for staple foods, such as maize and wheat, spike again.
Agriculture experts and leaders met in Rome during the week at the same time as the European Commission announced reforms that, although one could see them as the first step, will not stop biofuels pushing up food prices and accelerating climate change in the future.
The Commission proposals include a five per cent cap on crop-based biofuels, which goes some way to controlling the quantity of crops that will be used for fuel.
However, this limit is still above current consumption levels and will not prevent biofuels competing with crops for food or pressurising food prices in tight markets.
Commissioners have also caved in on measures to make sure biofuels are not worse for the climate than fossil fuels. By failing to propose ‘carbon accounting’ measures – the original purpose of this legislative exercise – biofuels will continue to contribute to deforestation and climate change.
The Commission policy reforms were also meant to address so-called “indirect land use change” (ILUC) where agriculture has to expand to accommodate biofuels demand.
This happens at the expense of forests and natural habitats and causes significant carbon emissions. The emissions from ILUC mean that many biofuels in Europe’s cars, including soy, rapeseed and palm oil, have a worse carbon footprint than normal fossil fuels.
Repeated food crises are no coincidence but solutions are within reach and now is the time for European governments to grasp the opportunity.
The proposed action to limit future EU demand for biofuels is a step in the right direction, yet, the fact remains that these reforms would maintain the status quo and make climate change and hunger worse.
With a new food crisis looming and nearly a billion people on the planet going hungry, we need to stop burning food altogether.
Combating global hunger must come ahead of the narrow interests of the big farming lobby and biofuels industry.
The European Commission proposals still need to be agreed by EU politicians in the coming year.
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The author is chairman of Friends of the Earth Malta.