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‘Europe Worsening Hunger Worldwide’
By Timothy Spence
BRUSSELS, May 31, 2011 (IPS) – With spiralling food prices threatening to leave millions more people hungry every year, European countries must abandon subsidies and higher production targets for biofuels, the anti-poverty group Oxfam warns.
Announcing a new campaign to ease global hunger, Oxfam is also urging the European Union to more closely regulate commodities trading and boost support for small-scale farming in developing countries.
Phil Bloomer, campaign director for Oxfam in Britain, says promoting fuel production at the expense of food output is an “obscene scandal” that has contributed to the spiralling cost of maize and other commodities. Food costs have risen steadily in recent months after hitting a 30-year peak in 2008.
“We’re calling on the European Union to end its mandate on biofuels, to make sure it is reorienting its development aid towards a greater level of concentration, and we’re asking them to really lead the world in addressing food price volatility and the transparency and regulation (of) the food market,” Bloomer told IPS at the launch of Oxfam’s “Grow” campaign.
European leaders are already under pressure to rethink food and fuel policies. The European Commission, the EU’s executive, is weighing a review of the environmental effects of biofuels, and the European Parliament is expected this summer to consider rules that would strengthen financial oversight of commodities and derivatives trading. Commodity index funds grew in value from 11 billion euros in 2003 to 204 billion euros in 2008, according to Oxfam.
In a report accompanying its new campaign on food security, Oxfam urges the EU to revise its 2009 Renewable Energy Directive that calls for 10 percent of transport fuels to be derived from plants by 2020, doubling current consumption. The policy also sets targets of 20 percent renewable energy and, by mid-century, cutting domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from their 1990 levels.
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