Right to food threatened globally by runaway prices in 10 years

The country must brace for a huge problem– a food crisis — in 10 years.

This dire warning was raised by Chairwoman Leila M. de Lima of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in a speech delivered during the 4th general assembly of the FoodFirst Information and Action (FIAN) at the Religious of the Good Shepherd Retreat House in Tagaytay City last June 19.

De Lima said a report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showed that:

“over the next ten years, the average prices of wheat and coarse grain will rise from 15 percent to 40 percent. Vegetable oils are projected to rise by more than 40 percent. And dairy prices are expected to increase anywhere from 16 percent to 45 percent.”

This does not augur well for the basic human right to food, the CHR chief stressed, since the total number of undernourished people now is one billion, a sixth of the global population.

Even as food production manages to keep up with growing demand, these agencies said the world is in for a regime of “more hunger and increased food insecurity.”

“One billion people for whom the right to food is a cruel joke or a mere mirage. One billion people whose health will continue to flounder because of poor nutrition. That number includes countless adults who will face significant difficulty carrying out their work, or finding work in the first place. And it includes countless children for whom the day’s lessons fade inevitably into the background, while the emptiness that is their hunger gnaws away at their being,” De Lima noted.

“The report points to a number of reasons for increasing prices, from growing demand for biofuels created using food crops, to increasing consumption of food from emerging nations which are becoming more prosperous, as well as rising production costs, such as the cost of energy,” she added.

Higher food prices would penalize the poor, De Lima explained,

“since they spend a far larger share of the family budget on food. It is clear that at the international level, across continents and countries, the right to food will face significant peril over the coming years. Therefore in response, we must redouble our efforts to help protect and fulfill the right to food.”

She lashed out at the “vested interests have worked to stymie genuine comprehensive land reform, through intimidation, the use of legal action, and acts of violence, including murder. And actions arising from economic, political and other interests have deprived vulnerable groups of their access to food, because of water contamination, home demolition, harvest confiscation and worse.”

De Lima said “one of the primary institutions which has been there and which has continuously stepped up, in order to advocate strenuously, knowledgeably and passionately on behalf of the right to food has been the FoodFirst Information and Action Network or FIAN.”

Source: Right to food threatened globally by runaway prices in 10 years — CHR – mb.com.ph

Date: 23 June 2010