farmers

Major European supermarkets have upped their dividend payouts to shareholders by an average of 123 percent during the first eight months of the pandemic. Shockingly, hardly any of these supermarkets paid any substantial COVID-19-related support to the workers and farmers who throughout the crisis kept supply chains going.

Oxfam experts, together with cocoa farmers, will be at the World Cocoa Conference in Brussels (21-24 April), taking place against a backdrop of unprecedented production shortfalls and skyrocketing cocoa prices, which topped $11,000 per metric ton for the first time.

The human cost of the war in Yemen is rising sharply as the conflict enters its eighth year, with the number of civilian deaths increasing sharply, hunger on the rise and three quarters of the population in urgent need of humanitarian support, Oxfam warned today. 

Big food companies have hit a crossroads in their efforts to support a living income for millions of farmers in their global supply chains, and, in many ways, momentum could be slowing.

Using land alone to remove the world’s carbon emissions to achieve ‘net zero’ by 2050 would require at least 1.6 billion hectares of new forests, equivalent to five times the size of India or more than all the farmland on the planet, reveals a new Oxfam report today.

Oxfam’s Emergency Food Security and Vulnerable Livelihoods Advisor, Emily Farr, in response to a new report on Tigray by the IPC Famine Review Committee: "The IPC report by independent food security experts today confirms our fears, that now 400,000 people are experiencing catastrophic hunger in Tigray, Ethiopia. The report’s projections for the future are even more grim, making predictions that there is a high risk of famine."

The areas of Cagayan, Isabela, Kalinga and Apayao seem to be some of the worst hit regions at this point, with significant damage to shelter, infrastructure, and agriculture.  

Oxfam conducted research on government and donor investments in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania. It found that governments and donors are failing to provide women farmers with relevant and adequate support for farming and adapting to climate change.

Farmer seed systems and community seed banks provide an important safety net for cash-strapped, vulnerable people. They also help small-scale farmers manage climate risk. Supporting them is an adaptation opportunity that is currently being missed.

In most of sub-Saharan Africa, maize is a staple food crop. This paper explores some of the reasons why maize markets fail and argues that a major reason is because there is so little trust or cooperation between governments and private traders.