Broken global food system needs climate for change

The Irish Times

JIM CLARKEN

OPINION : We need to address climate change to fix the damage to the world's food supply

A DROUGHT in the US is not just an American problem. It's our problem too.

World food prices surged in July as an extended drought across the corn-growing heartland of the US midwest destroyed much of this year's crop.

Global futures corn prices have increased by 45 per cent, soya beans by 30 per cent and wheat by 50 per cent since June, according to the World Bank, as the US, which is the world's largest food exporter, struggles to harvest enough food for itself.

Thankfully, in Ireland just 7 per cent of household incomes goes on the weekly shop.

But in many poorer countries, where up to 70 per cent of household incomes is spent on food, it will mean hunger, soaring food prices and riots, similar to those that spread across 60 countries in 2008 and, arguably, sparked the Arab spring a year and a half ago.

In Yemen, which imports 90 per cent of its wheat, 267,000 children are at risk of death from malnutrition already. In Cambodia, where people get 60 per cent of their nutrition from rice, the staple has risen in price by 50 per cent in six months.

Is this really where we should be, one year on from the worst food crisis so far this century, when a famine was declared in Somalia? Hardly, given that there is currently enough food in the world to feed everyone.

But then the global food system, as it is, is broken.

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