The Next Big Thing
A report from the Fairtrade Foundation reveals that in places like Uganda, Malawi, Nicaragua, India, Sri Lanka and parts of the Caribbean, poor families are spending up to 80% of their entire household budget on food items.
The cost of fuel and fertiliser means that in some cases families are missing meals, cutting the amount they plant or selling off their land.
If farmers in Europe and America are reducing plantings because the economics don't stack up, imagine what it must be like in some of these places.
With the global recession forecast to last well into 2010, food production, or lack of it, could well be a very serious problem sometime in the next 18 months.
Throw in a serious crop failure or two and we could be looking at a massive humanitarian disaster.
I hope I'm wrong.
The cost of fuel and fertiliser means that in some cases families are missing meals, cutting the amount they plant or selling off their land.
If farmers in Europe and America are reducing plantings because the economics don't stack up, imagine what it must be like in some of these places.
With the global recession forecast to last well into 2010, food production, or lack of it, could well be a very serious problem sometime in the next 18 months.
Throw in a serious crop failure or two and we could be looking at a massive humanitarian disaster.
I hope I'm wrong.
