CASFS Director Dr. Patricia Allen on Global Food Policy

As we sit down to our holiday dinners this year, our meals cost more than they did a year ago. For some of us, higher food prices are inconvenient. For others, they require hard choices. For many, they are devastating. Already more people go hungry than at any point in history because they cannot afford food, and there is no end in sight: The United Nations predicts that food prices will increase by 20 to 50 percent over the next decade. Yet, like the financial crisis, skyrocketing food prices have been very good for certain businesses. So far in 2008, companies like Monsanto, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland have reported revenues as much as 59 percent higher than last year. Surging food prices, hunger, and record profits are the result of public policies and business decisions that have benefited the few at the expense of the many. Sound familiar? Think Wall Street or mortgage crisis or record oil-company profits. The same concentration of power that led to the current financial crisis is at work in the food system, where another crisis is erupting. Continue reading here.