Blog – the burgeoning food crisis

This comment is free article in the Guardian has had us talking in the office today. In it, professor Tim Lang, of City University, describes the challenges we will face over the next 20 years to produce and distribute food, at prices that won’t decimate the incomes of the world’s poor. He comments on the bizarre and disquietening contrast between the obesity crises of rich nations, and the continuing famines hitting poorer nations. At both ends of the scale, our attitude to food distribution is unhealthy. And coupled with the global disagreements over farming subsidisation, it is clear that far from having reached a sustainable consensus, ‘food modernity’ is heading for a crisis. Policy-makers will need to wake up. Whether that happens now or when, as Oxfam predict, food prices double by 2030 is a moot point.

Whilst it’s not the sort of evidence 2020 would generally deploy, the article certainly intersects with some of our usual themes. cites a study by Ernst and Young commissioned for the Trust that predicts that by 2030, public spending will have to rise to 50% of GDP to meet current welfare commitments. It seems that 2030 could prove to be a very challenging future indeed if we don’t make some difficult decisions in the meantime.