Globally, food prices have soared by 40% in the last nine months. Many poor families spend up to 80% of their income on food so even the slightest increase can have devastating effects. There is little prospect that prices will fall significantly in the short term.

Reports from Concern’s staff on the ground indicate that high food prices are having very negative effects, including:

• Increases in malnutrition
• Reduced expenditure on healthcare and education
• Extremely poor people getting into greater debt
• Sale of important assets such as land, tools and livestock on which people depend to make a living
• Immediate consumption of the seeds poor families were saving to plant this year
• Growing social unrest in fragile countries
  
  

Causes of the crisis
The increases have been caused by many factors, including:

• Increased demand for food due to population growth and increased prosperity
• The high price of oil increasing the cost of agricultural inputs and transportation
• The growing demand for bio-fuels
• The lowest levels of food stocks in decades
  
  

Immediate action needed
The root causes of the current crisis will take time to address, but immediate actions can be taken which will mitigate its impacts on the poorest:

• The poor need emergency supplies of food or cash with which to buy food. The World Food Programme must receive increased funding of $755 million required to provide essential food aid
• Support should be given for cash-based social protection where food aid is considered inappropriate
• Nutritional surveillance in developing countries needs to be given support to achieve the necessary coverage and quality. This is important so that the impacts of the crisis can be identified at a local level, given variations in food access
• Many of the world’s poorest are small farmers so they need access to agricultural inputs to grow food for the coming year
• The US, European Union and other governments should urgently review their policies towards bio-fuels
• In the longer term, there needs to be a serious re-investment in agriculture and in particular in the food security of the most vulnerable populations of the world
  
  

How Concern is responding
Concern is already responding to this crisis. Concern’s nutrition and agricultural programmes on the ground are monitoring the situation and supporting the poorest with projects which enable them to address their short-term needs and increase their income over time.

• Read the full-length version of this position paper