High Food Price Crisis

Depuis l’invasion russe en février 2022, la guerre en Ukraine est au centre des questions de politique étrangère et des médias. Cependant, peu d’attention a été accordée à une question majeure qui est au cœur du conflit : qui contrôle les terres agricoles dans le pays connu comme le « grenier de l’Europe » ?

The report from the Oakland Institute exposes the financial interests and the dynamics at play in Ukraine leading to further concentration of land and finance.

Frederic Mousseau, OI Policy Director, is the author of the Chapter III of the new World Disaster Report published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). This new report warns that the world's poorest people are at serious risk from rocketing food prices and volatile global markets.

Achieving Regional Integration: The Key to Win the Fight Against Hunger in West Africa assesses the relevance and potential of regional institutions and mechanisms in reducing hunger and undernutrition in West Africa - where chronic hunger remains pervasive - decades after the devastating droughts of the 1970s. The report analyzes the role regional institutions have in the fight against hunger and argues that, despite weaknesses, the existence and commitment of regional institutions is key.

High food prices in 2007-2008 threatened the livelihoods and food security of billions of people worldwide for whom getting enough food to eat was already a daily struggle. All over the world, individuals, civil society groups, governments and international organizations took action to cope with the crisis triggered by skyrocketing food prices.

La hausse des prix alimentaires en 2007-2008 a menacé la sécurité alimentaire voire la survie de milliards d’individus pour qui, se procurer assez de nourriture était déjà un combat quotidien. Dans le monde entier, des hommes et des femmes, des groupes de la société civile, des gouvernements et des organisations internationales ont agi pour faire face à la crise déclenchée par la hausse exceptionnelle des prix alimentaires. Ce rapport analyse l’adéquation et l’efficacité des réponses ainsi que les changements dans les politiques alimentaires et agricoles provoqués par cette hausse des prix.

The 2008 Food Price Crisis: Rethinking Food Security Policies, the latest in the G-24 Discussion Paper Series, is a timely report as member states of the United Nations come together 16-18 November, 2009 at the World Summit on Food Security in Rome, in an effort to find lasting solutions to world hunger. Intended to inform current policy discussions on how to address ever-growing food insecurity, the report contends that it is essential to examine the structural causes of growing food insecurity and to understand the dynamics that have propelled the food crisis.

Even though world commodity prices have somewhat stabilized since October 2008, the alarming increase in global food prices over the past thirty-six months continues to warrant immediate measures to address the failures in the global food system.

World prices for basic staples have skyrocketed―up 83 percent compared to three years ago―while hunger and destitution reaches record levels. Corn registered a 31 percent increase between March 2007-2008, rice 74 percent, soya 87 percent and wheat a whopping 130 percent. Policy makers and media continue to place blame for skyrocketing prices on a variety of factors, including high fuel costs, bad weather in key food producing countries, and the diversion of land to biofuels. Increased emphasis, however, has been placed on a surge in demand from emerging economies―for instance, from the middle classes of India.

Food prices have been increasing sharply since 2005. According to the World Bank, global food prices have climbed by 83% over the last three years. The real price of rice rose to a 19-year high in March 2008―an increase of 50% in two weeks alone―while the real price of wheat hit a 28-year high, triggering an international crisis.

In October 2005, the Oakland Institute published its report, Food Aid or Food Sovereignty? Ending World Hunger in our Time. Since then the issue of food aid has taken center stage in foreign aid, global hunger, and development discourse, sparking interest and debate amongst policy makers, media, and civil society internationally.

While Brazil's leadership on biofuels - particularly sugarcane-based ethanol - has been held as a global model for sustainable biomass production, a new report from the Oakland Institute and Terra de Direitos, Food & Energy Sovereignty Now: Brazilian Grassroots Position on Agroenergy, describes the opposition that biofuels face from the Brazilian social movements and civil society, as formulated at the First National Agroenergy Conference, held in Curitiba, Brazil in October, 2007.