London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Over 75 million people worldwide faced under-nutrition when global food prices rose by 75% between January 2006 and July 2008, according to a paper published in today’s BMJ, which argues that their plight has largely been forgotten as the world’s attention has shifted to the global economic crisis.

A team led by Dr Karen Lock of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and colleagues from Oxford University, examined the various factors contributing to rising food prices and analysed their potential consequences for food security and public health.

Large rises in food prices have occurred before, but the recent ones have been unprecedented in their global nature, rapidity, and volatility. Prices of basic commodities have risen by an average 75% in the past three years – plunging an estimated 75-100 million of the world’s poorest people living on less than $2/day into poverty and food insecurity. The most dramatic increase was of rice, an important basic food for much of the world, with its international price more than doubling over the past five years. Rich countries are not immune: in countries such as the UK, high food prices led to a shift to less healthy diets containing cheap, energy dense products such as fizzy drinks, cakes and sweets, now much more affordable that healthier fruits and vegetables.

Although prices have dropped slightly in 2009 as a consequence of the economic crisis, this is likely to be only temporary as increasing trends are already being seen.

While there is no single cause, the researchers point a finger at speculative investment in food commodity markets in 2008.

Dr. Karen Lock, the lead researcher on the study, said, “These price rises did not reflect ‘real’ demand for food, but demand by investors betting on markets.’

Other factors playing a major role include the rising cost of fuel, a shift to meat consumption in emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and the effects of climate change on agriculture. Agricultural trade policies, including biofuel production and an emphasis, by international organisations such as the World Trade Organization, on export-oriented growth in some countries also destabilised some local food systems. This has led many developing countries to become net importers of basic foodstuffs and thus vulnerable when exports fail.

The authors argue for investment in developing countries, so there is greater capacity to develop local food systems that can mitigate adverse short-term market effects.

Dr. Karen Lock, said: “International policy responses have been limited to short-term emergency aid but this is not a long term, sustainable solution. Sustainable food supplies require urgent international action to guarantee food security and global public health. This needs a range of measure including reforms to the World Trade Organisation, investments in agricultural development, improving the earnings of poor rural farmers, and keeping food healthy by improving the regulation of food marketing and labelling, and the composition of processed foods.”

David Stuckler, Research Fellow from Oxford University, commented: “While the world has been dealing with pressing financial matters, we seem to have forgotten the desperate conditions that millions of people have been forced into – struggling to meet their most basic health needs – adequate, healthy food.”

In an independent BMJ commentary of the paper, Tim Lobstein, from the International Association for the Study of Obesity, states that “no-one expects free markets to produce sustainable environments without major government intervention. Only by opening up the political process will we have a chance to implement a rational food policy, and thereby design a food supply that allows us all to eat a healthy diet”.

• Potential causes and health effects of rising global food prices: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmj.b2403 Karen Lock, David Stuckler, Kate Charlesworth, Martin McKee.