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	Urgent Actions needed to prevent recurring Food Crises by Dr Shenggen Fan International Food Policy Research Institute   Apr 2011   Just three years after the 2007-08 food crisis, the food security of poor people and vulnerable groups, especially women and children, is under threat as the prices of basic food items skyrocket. Expanding biofuel production, rising oil prices, U.S. dollar depreciation, export restrictions, and panic purchasing are again driving up food prices—to the particular detriment of the world’s poorest consumers, who spend some 50-70 percent of their incomes on food.   Although a number of factors are different this time around, the situation calls for decisive action, according to a new IFPRI policy brief by Director General Shenggen Fan, Markets, Trade and Institutions Division Director Maximo Torero, and Research Fellow Derek Headey.   Authors of the brief urge:   1. Curtailing subsidies and reforming policies, particularly in the United States and Europe, to minimize biofuels’ contribution to volatility in food markets.   2. Creating or strengthening social protection for women, young children, and other especially vulnerable groups—something few countries have done during or since the 2007-08 crisis.   3. Improving the transparency, fairness, and openness of international trade to enhance the efficiency of global agricultural markets.   4. Setting up a global emergency grain reserve to handle food price crises.   5. Pursuing policies and investments to promote agricultural growth, in particular smallholder productivity, in the face of climate change.   6. Investment by national governments in climate change adaptation and mitigation using the full potential that agriculture offers.   7. Establishing an international working group to monitor the world food situation and trigger action to prevent excessive price volatility.   “Timely research has presented important lessons gleaned from the last crisis—lessons that should be used to inform current actions,” the authors conclude. Visit the related web page
	Real lives affected by Biofuels by ActionAid   Apr 2011   "Biofuels are economically illiterate, environmentally destructive, politically short-sighted and ideologically unsound." -Ian Goldin, a former vice president of the World Bank.   Biofuels were once touted as the miraculous answer to our energy shortages and fears around climate change. But mounting evidence has exposed this supposedly ‘green fuel’ as the ultimate red herring.   Huge government-set biofuel targets in rich countries are providing an incentive for foreign biofuel companies to oust farmers in poor countries from their fertile land.   In just five African countries alone, 1.1 million hectares have been given over to biofuels – an area the size of Belgium. This global land grab is leaving local communities in poor countries stranded, unable to grow their own food or afford the food in their local market. Foreign biofuel companies are routinely breaking promises they make to communities to provide local improvements and jobs.   Burning huge amounts of food in our cars has reduced the amount available to eat and subsequently caused global food prices to rocket.   In 2008, food prices rose so dramatically that people rioted in more than 30 countries. Biofuels were widely touted as one of the main causes. ActionAid estimates that an extra 30 million people were pushed into hunger as a result of biofuels during this crisis.   With almost 1 billion people already living in hunger, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation is predicting another looming food crisis which will hit developing countries even harder.   And if that wasn’t all catastrophic enough, evidence shows that most biofuels release more greenhouse gasses than the fossil fuels they were designed to replace. This means that increasing the target for the amount of biofuel that must be in our petrol and diesel will actually make climate change worse.   Despite the rising human and environmental costs of biofuels, governments are still spending billions promoting and subsidising their production. In doing so, they are exacerbating hunger and land grabbing and diverting much needed political attention and financial support away from genuine solutions to tackling climate change.   * Visit the link below to read stories from real people affected. Visit the related web page
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