Title: World Food Crisis: What's Behind It What We Can Do -World Hunger News
Headings: The world food crisis: what is behind it and what we can do
The world food crisis: what is behind it and what we can do
The root causes
The population factor
Regional free trade agreements and the World Trade Organization
The United States: growing the crisis at home
The grocery bill
Food banks: canaries in the mineshaft
Are Farmers Benefiting?
Food, finance and speculation: bailing our way out of crises?
Solving the food crisis—fixing the food system
Localize food power!
1) Support domestic food production internationally based on social, ecological, and economic justice and the right to healthy food.
2) Stabilize and guarantee fair prices to farmers, workers, and consumers by re-establishing floor prices and publicly-owned national grain reserves at home and abroad.
3) Halt agrofuels expansion.
4) Re-regulate finance sector investment in food commodities.
5) Promote a return to smallholder farming.
6) Support Agro-ecological and locally-based approaches to food production and food system management.
7) Food sovereignty: democratize the food system!

Content: Climate change will continue to impact food production in unpredictable ways
Low grain reserves —national grain reserve systems were dismantled in the late 1990s. Because nations now depend on the global market for their grains, global reserves are down from 115 to 54 days worldwide. This provokes price volatility
High oil prices —increasing twofold over the last year pushes up prices of fertilizers (3X), transport (2X) in the food system
Increasing meat consumption worldwide —the result of explosive growth in industrial feedlots. Apart from high consumption in the industrial North, there has been a doubling of meat production and consumption in developing countries—mostly from grain-fed feedlots that displace small producers and consume seven lbs. of grain for every pound of meat produced
Agrofuels —the diversion of 5% of the world’s cereals to agrofuels has increased grain prices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture claims agrofuels are responsible for anywhere from 5-20% of grain price increases. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has put it at 30%. A leaked World Bank report claimed it was 75%. Speculation —deregulation and poor oversight have contributed to the speculative bubbles in the futures markets. Following the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, investors searched for places to put their money.