The Gary Null Blog

Published on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 by the Irish Times

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0531/1224298145343.html

by Mark Hennessy

Prices of staple foods will more than double over the next two decades unless urgent action is taken to change the rules of world agriculture, Oxfam has warned, raising fears that hundreds of millions more could face hunger.

Maize, one of the main foods of the world’s poor, will cost between 120 per cent and 180 per cent more by 2030, with up to half of the price hike coming from the impact of climate change, said the London-based charity.

“Depleting natural resources, a scramble for fertile land and water, and the gathering pace of climate change is already making the situation worse,” it said, in a report titled Growing a Better Future. The dangers, caused by demand outstripping production, threaten to erase much of the “steady progress in the fight against hunger” made over recent decades, said Oxfam.