Britain’s aid secretary has urged the global community to help people in drought-hit east Africa avoid a “catastrophe”.
It comes as the UK pledged $80 million in emergency aid to help millions of people affected by the disaster.
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ZHUJI, China, Jun (Reuters) – Torrential rain across southern and eastern China which has killed more than 100 people and triggered the evacuation of half a million has left large areas of farmland devastated as food prices surge, state media said on Sunday.
Weeks of rainstorms in the stricken province of Zhejiang in the Yangtze delta have caused nearly 5 billion yuan ($772 million) of damage, reducing vegetable production by 20 percent and pushing prices in the provincial capital of Hangzhou up by as much as 40 percent, Xinhua said.
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Oxfam called on Tuesday for an overhaul of the world’s food system, warning that in a couple of decades, millions more people would be gripped by hunger due to population growth and climate-hit harvests.
A “broken food system” means that the price of some staples will more than double by 2030, battering the world’s poorest people, who spend up to 80 percent of their income on food, the British-based aid group predicted.
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The United Nations says the world’s population is growing faster than expected and predicts it will hit seven billion by the end of this year.
It warns there are particular risks for Africa, where the population is expected to triple by the end of the century, exacerbating problems of access to food and clean water.
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Yu Ruicheng’s weathered face creases with worry as she stands on her dry wheat field in eastern China, where a record drought is threatening to send soaring global food prices even higher.
“If it doesn’t rain next month, we won’t harvest anything,” the 62-year-old farmer says, crouching down and sifting parched soil through her fingers, pointing to dried-up wheat shoots scattered across her plot of land.
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Five American aid agencies report the food shortage in North Korea has become severe. They are appealing for quick assistance to feed the isolated country’s most vulnerable people. There are hurdles, however, to resuming aid to North Korea.
The five aid groups say many North Koreans are foraging for wild grasses and herbs because of widespread food shortages.
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Global food prices have hit “dangerous levels” that could contribute to further political instability by pushing millions more people into poverty, the World Bank warned in a report released on Tuesday.
It found that global food prices had jumped 29 per cent in the past year and are just 3 per cent below the all-time peak hit in 2008.
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Freezing temperatures across a wide swath of Mexico the night of Feb. 3-4 could have a huge effect on supplies of tomatoes, peppers and other winter vegetables.
The freeze reached fields as far south as southern Sinaloa. Crops in the border state of Sonora could be devastated.
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Already, 1.6 million Kenyans are receiving food aid to compensate for drought and poor harvests. Government however warns the number could skyrocket to 5 million within a few months, as rains have kept failing.
According to UN humanitarian sources, the La Niña climate phenomenon has also caused the October to December rains in Kenya to fall short, in particular in the already arid and semi-arid north-eastern part of the country. This was “currently interfering with livestock and agricultural production in most parts of the country.”
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China is running out of arable farmland and water resources necessary to feed its massive population. The nation has one of the lowest ratios of arable land relative to population, and the situation has been exacerbated as industries consume scarce water resources necessary for farming.
This problem has been out in the market for awhile, but government officials are warning that that situation is getting worse, not better.
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Some people in flood-devastated Ipswich, west of Brisbane, have reported being heavily overcharged for basic food essentials.
Fair Trading Minister Peter Lawlor says shoppers in Ipswich and Rockhampton, in central Queensland, have reported that some traders are charging $10 for bread or milk.
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ALGIERS, Algeria – Riots over rising food prices and chronic unemployment spiraled out from Algeria’s capital on Thursday, with youths torching government buildings and shouting “Bring us Sugar!”
Police helicopters circled over Algiers, and stores closed early. Security officers blocked off streets in the tense working-class neighborhood of Bab el-Oued, near the capital’s ancient Casbah, and areas outside the city were swept up in the rampages.
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Global food prices rose to a fresh high in December, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
Its Food Price Index went above the previous record of 2008 that saw prices spark riots in several countries.
Soaring sugar, cereal and oil prices had driven the rise, the report said.
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Rising food prices and shortages could cause instability in many countries as the cost of staple foods and vegetables reached their highest levels in two years, with scientists predicting further widespread droughts and floods.
Although food stocks are generally good despite much of this year’s harvests being wiped out in Pakistan and Russia, sugar and rice remain at a record price.
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UNITED NATIONS: An area larger than the Netherlands – 50,000 square kilometers- has been ravaged by the devastating floods in Pakistan, with over 2.2 million hectares of crops lost, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Wednesday.
In giving its latest estimates, OCHA said 20.2 million people have been affected by the floods in Pakistan, with 14 million in need of immediate humanitarian aid.
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Agricultural crops in Britain may need to be moved to new areas as the threat of both drought and flooding rises in the coming decades, a report commissioned by the Royal Agricultural Society of England said on Monday.
The report said climate change was expected to produce higher temperatures, drier summers and wetter winters across much of England.
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