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	‘Broken’ markets driving up food prices by World Development Movement   13 September 2011   Broken’ financial markets are driving up food prices, reveals a new report released today, as inflation figures show UK consumers are now paying over seven per cent more for bread than a year ago.   The report from anti-poverty group the World Development Movement shows how financial speculation on basic foods is driving spiralling prices around the world, which reached record levels earlier this year. The organisation claims the UK government risks condemning millions of the world’s poorest people to hunger by failing to back European regulation to curb excessive speculation.   In the last six months of 2010 alone, rising food prices pushed 44 million more people worldwide into extreme poverty.   Financial players including banks like Goldman Sachs and Barclays have taken over food markets, says the World Development Movement’s report, with the total assets of financial speculators in these markets nearly doubling from $65 billion to $126 billion in the last five years. Not a single penny of this has been invested in agriculture.   The report, ‘Broken Markets’, finds that:   • Financial speculators now hold over 60 per cent of some markets for basic foods, compared to just 12 per cent 15 years ago   • The total amount of money speculated on commodities is 20 times more than the total amount of aid money given globally for agriculture   The huge influx of speculation has forced prices up, resulting in increasing hunger. The price of food in developing countries as a whole has risen by 55 per cent since 2007, while in Sub-Saharan Africa one third of the population do not have enough food.   The report’s author Murray Worthy said today:   Financial speculators have flooded food commodity markets, creating massive inflation and sudden price spikes. These broken markets are bad news for people in the UK, whose average annual food billscontinue to increased. But for people in poverty in developing countries, who already have to spend a huge proportion of their income on food just to survive, price rises are disastrous.   Millions more people are going hungry because reckless investment banks are using food prices to make massive profits.   The US has already passed legislation aimed at limiting speculation on food prices, and similar European proposals are due to be announced this autumn. It’s disgraceful that the UK government is trying to block European regulation, when a billion people don’t have enough food. It should instead make sure that hard, clear rules are set, to stop this financial game-playing driving up hunger.” Visit the related web page
	Five ways to tackle disastrous diets by Food First / Yale News & agencies   “Our food systems are making people sick,” warned Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food. “One in seven people globally are undernourished, and many more suffer from the "hidden hunger" of micronutrient deficiency, while 1.3 billion are overweight or obese.”   “Faced with this public health crisis, we continue to prescribe medical remedies: nutrition pills and early-life nutrition strategies for those lacking in calories; slimming pills, lifestyle advice and calorie counting for the overweight. But we must tackle the systemic problems that generate poor nutrition in all its forms,” the independent expert said as he presented his report* on nutrition to the UN Human Rights Council.   “The right to food means not only access to an adequate quantity of food, but also the ability to have a balanced and nutritious diet,” Mr. De Schutter underlined. “Governments must not abstain from their responsibility to secure this right.”   Mr. De Schutter identified five priority actions for placing nutrition at the heart of food systems in the developed and developing world:   1) taxing unhealthy products;   2) regulating foods high in saturated fats, salt and sugar;   3) cracking down on junk food advertising;   4) overhauling misguided agricultural subsidies that make certain ingredients cheaper than others; and   5) supporting local food production so that consumers have access to healthy, fresh and nutritious foods.   “Urbanization, supermarketization and the global spread of modern lifestyles have shaken up traditional food habits. The result is a public health disaster,” the Special Rapporteur said. “Governments have been focusing on increasing calorie availability, but they have often been indifferent to what kind of calories are on offer, at what price, to whom they are accessible, and how they are marketed.”   The Special Rapporteur highlighted, for example, that in 2010 U.S. companies spent $8.5 billion advertising food, candy and non-alcoholic beverages, while $44 million was budgeted for the U.S. Government’s primary standing healthy eating program.   “We have deferred to food companies the responsibility for ensuring that a good nutritional balance emerges. Voluntary guidelines and piecemeal nutrition initiatives have failed to create a system with the right signals, and the odds remain stacked against the achievement of a healthy, balanced diet,” he said.   The Special Rapporteur also identified the abundance of processed food as a major threat to improving nutrition. “Heavy processing thrives in our global food system, and is a win-win for multinational agri-food companies. Processed items can be produced and distributed on a huge scale, thanks to cheap subsidized ingredients and their increased shelf life.”   “But for the people, it is a lose-lose,” he stressed. “Heavily processed foods lead to diets richer in saturated and trans-fatty acids, salt and sugars. Children become hooked on the junk foods targeted at them. In better-off countries, the poorest population groups are most affected because foods high in fats, sugar and salt are often cheaper than healthy diets as a result of misguided subsidies whose health impacts have been wholly ignored.”   The UN expert noted that the West is now exporting diabetes and heart disease to developing countries, along with the processed foods that line the shelves of global supermarkets. By 2030, more than 5 million people will die each year before the age of 60 from non-communicable diseases linked to diets.   “We should not simply invest our hopes in medicalizing our diets with enriched products, or changing people’s choices through health warnings. We need ambitious, targeted nutrition strategies to protect the right to adequate food, and such strategies will only work if the food systems underpinning them are put right,” the Special Rapporteur said.   USA: Report slams makers of sugary drinks for targeting children. (Yale News)   Young people are being exposed to a massive amount of marketing for sugary drinks, such as full-calorie soda, sports drinks, energy drinks, and fruit drinks, according to a new study from the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. The study is the most comprehensive and science-based assessment of sugary drink nutrition and marketing ever conducted.   The data show that companies marketing sugary drinks target young people, especially black and Hispanic youth.   The report’s authors studied marketing by 14 beverage companies and examined the nutritional quality of nearly 600 products including full-calorie soda, energy drinks, fruit drinks, flavored water, sports drinks, and iced teas, as well as diet energy drinks and diet children’s fruit drinks.   “Beverage companies have pledged to improve child-directed advertising,” said lead researcher Jennifer Harris, director of marketing initiatives at the Rudd Center.   “But we are not seeing a true decrease in marketing exposure. Instead companies have shifted from traditional media to newer forms that engage youth through rewards for purchasing sugary drinks, community events, cause-related marketing, promotions, product placements, social media, and smartphones."   Marlene Schwartz, co-author and deputy director of the Rudd Center, said “The beverage industry needs to clean up their youth-directed products: reduce the added sugar, take out the artificial sweeteners, and stop marketing products high in caffeine and sugar to young people. We also need the nutrition facts, including caffeine content, for all beverages, especially energy drinks.”   “Our results clearly show that the beverage industry’s self-regulatory pledges are not working,” concluded co-author Kelly Brownell, director and co-founder of the Rudd Center.   “Children are seeing more, not less marketing, for drinks that increase the risk for serious diseases. If the beverage companies want to be considered public health partners, they need to do better.” Visit the related web page
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