Food price spikes around the world are the result of a ‘broken’ food system that is failing the poor and concentrating power and profits in the hands of a few, food experts say.
Rising food prices are causing widespread suffering in developing countries, and even in the rich world, the combination of high food and fuel prices threatens millions of people.
Food prices have risen by around 20% this year and around 345 million people are acutely food insecure, up from 135 million before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Oxfam’s Alex Maitland said the current crisis was “the latest in a long series of failures in the global food system”, which has recently become even more fragile due to extreme weather and the impacts of the climate crisis, of the economy and the pandemic.
He said: “The war in Ukraine has caused massive price volatility and disruption of the global food supply, but this is only the latest blow to an already broken global food system. Global food chains are dominated by a small number of multinational corporations. It’s no surprise that these companies can make such massive profits.”
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Record profits for grain companies
The Guardian revealed this week that ABCD companies (Archer-Daniels-Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus), which control 70-90% of the world’s grain trade, have enjoyed a record windfall as grain prices soared. . of the Ukrainian war. It appears that some have also increased their profit margins, putting further pressure on consumers.
Campaigners fear that seeds and agricultural chemicals are also controlled by a handful of companies, with just three multinationals – Bayer-Monsanto, Dupont-Dow and Chem-China Syngenta – controlling 60% of the trade. Among retailers, there has also been consolidation, with just 10 grocery stores accounting for half of all food sales in the EU.
Expensive food for everyone
Consumers are not the only victims: farmers also struggle to make a living when big corporations abuse their dominance. Maitland said: “The people who produce and buy food are the ones who suffer from a system that puts shareholder profits before people. Half of the undernourished people in the world are small farmers and their families. The poorest spend much more of their income on food than the richest.
Vicki Hird, director of sustainable agriculture at Sustain, a coalition of civil society groups in the UK, said: “Farmers have no control over prices and are getting poorer for it. It is estimated that 25% of agricultural households [en el Reino Unido] They live below the poverty line.
He added: “The current food crisis is not new, it has only been accelerated due to the invasion of Ukraine and unless governments recognize this and act to tackle it. to the real causes – corporate profits at the expense of farmers’ incomes – the wages of workers, consumers and the environment: we will move on from this crisis to the next.
You need to restore a “broken” system
He called on the government to act to end the worst abuses and restore balance to the food system. “Strict supply chain regulation and tackling financial speculation on food crops is key to ensuring everyone has enough food now and in the future.”
Tim Lang, emeritus professor of food policy at the City, University of London, said both developed and developing countries are seeing the effects of years of growing distortion in food markets. “We don’t pay enough attention to food; a lot of attention is paid to energy markets, but not so much to food,” he said.
The concentration of power in the hands of a few secret companies made the market less transparent, which made it difficult to judge whether there was dangerous trading or speculation. But that was just one aspect of a food system that was not working in the interests of consumers or farmers, he said.
“We need to rethink the food system. People can’t afford healthy food, and that’s a very serious problem. A lot of people make a lot of money from food, but food producers make around 8% of the £250billion we spend on food every year,” he said.
By Fiona Harvey. Articles in English