Ahead of the G20, in Bali on 15-16.11.22, Foodwatch urges support for the petition aimed at calling for a halt to food speculation. (1) While investors make money betting on corn and wheat in the stock market, others can no longer afford staple food.
Food speculation, the sprint to war
Since the invasion of Ukraine, speculation on agricultural commodities has grown significantly. In the first days of the war alone, billions of euros and dollars flowed into funds speculating on food products (2).
This phenomenon is driving up food prices dangerously: on the world market, wheat is already about 50 percent more expensive than at the beginning of the year (3).
‘They are really betting on hunger and exacerbating it,’ Olivier de Schutter, former UN rapporteur on the right to food. (4)
Increased risk of hunger
As speculation rages, alarms emerge about the risk of starving the populations of disadvantaged countries. Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen are at the highest level of alert. And the UN warns that 750,000 people are at risk of hunger [5].
There are many causes and some of them are difficult to solve, as also mentioned in the iPES Food report. Climate change, drought, war, and the Covid pandemic are all triggers. However, the deepening of the crisis due to gambling on stock markets can be stopped now.
The petition to say no more speculation on food
The effects of speculation on food prices and the worsening hunger crisis, however, are not yet on the agenda of G20 heads of state and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who are expected at the Bali summit.
For them to become one, Foodwatch urges people to sign the petition launched last June and already signed by 75,000 European citizens.
The initiative calls on politicians to take immediate action on three actions:
- Severely limit the amount of food commodity futures,
- exclude institutional investors and mutual funds from the food commodities sector,
- Increase transparency in markets.
The text of the petition is available at https://www.foodwatch.org/en/signer/restrict-food-speculation-feed-people-not-banks/.
Notes
(1) Welthungerhilfe, ‘Hunger: Verbreitung, Ursachen & Folgen’. https://www.welthungerhilfe.de/hunger
(2) Lighthouse reports, ”The hunger profiteers. https://www.lighthousereports.nl/investigation/the-hunger-profiteers/
(3) Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, ‘Wheat futures prices and the war on regulation’. https://www.iatp.org/wheat-futures-prices-and-war-regulation
(4) The Wire, ‘Betting on Hunger’: Market Speculation Is Contributing to Global Food Insecurity. https://thewire.in/economy/speculation-is-contributing-to-global-food-insecurity-significantly
(5) United Nations, ‘Overlapping crises push millions into ‘extreme levels of acute food insecurity”. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/06/1119752
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
