food system

Today, EU leaders met in Brussels to discuss the implications of the Ukraine war on food security. In response, Hanna Saarinen, Oxfam EU food expert said:  “EU leaders must learn from this moment. Only by taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture, can they avoid copy-pasting the same policies which led to the food price crisis of 2007-2008, and which have led to the one the world faces today.  

In reaction to the UN's 2024 edition of the SOFI report, Eric Munoz, Oxfam’s food policy expert, said: “Global hunger remains stuck at shamefully high levels, driven by many reasons that together become convenient excuses for our governments to avoid decisive action. 

The global food system is broken. It is unsustainable for people and planet. The combination of extreme inequality and poverty, human rights violations, conflict and the climate crisis has left hundreds of millions of people struggling to find their next meal. More recently, the sharp food price inflation accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have added fuel to the fire

Amongst the over 20 targets being discussed at the COP15 Biodiversity Summit is to set aside 30 percent of the world's lands and oceans for nature to protect biodiversity by 2030. However, states have so far failed to commit to protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and those of local communities living in these areas.

In reaction to today’s "Global Report on Food Crises” which says that more than 193 million people across 53 countries are experiencing acute hunger and require urgent food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance, Oxfam Global Food Security and Livelihoods expert, Emily Farr, said: “It is deeply concerning to find extreme hunger increasing to a magnitude never seen before. 40 million more people have been pushed to extreme hunger, nearly a 25% surge since last year, and 80% since 2016."

While inequality was already deeply unfair before the pandemic, it has now reached shocking proportions. COVID-19 has cost global workers $3.7 trillion in lost income, and women and young workers have been hardest hit. Few places reveal this trend more clearly than supermarket supply chains.

Commenting on the publication of a new UN Report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, which highlights that 60 million more people are hungry today than they were five years ago, and three billion men, women and children – over a third of humanity – cannot afford enough healthy food to eat, Rashmi Mistry, head of Oxfam's Grow Campaign, said: "The UN report is highly alarming. It shows our global food system is unravelling at the seams."

COVID-19 is deepening the hunger crisis in the world’s hunger hotspots and creating new epicentres of hunger across the globe. While governments must act to contain the spread of this deadly disease, Oxfam is also calling for urgent action to end this hunger crisis and build fairer, more robust, and sustainable food systems.

A year and a half since Covid-19, deaths from hunger are outpacing the virus. Ongoing conflict, combined with the economic disruptions of the pandemic and an escalating climate crisis, have pushed millions people into extreme levels of food insecurity, some to the brink of starvation. Join us in helping communities overcome the #HungerVirus.

Food workers throughout global supply chains are on the frontline of the coronavirus. The epidemic adds another crisis onto the almost permanent state of economic crisis in their lives. Now more than ever supermarkets and their suppliers must protect the rights of all the workers and producers who are risking their lives to keep food on our tables.