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Dire Report Predicts Doubling Of Food Prices, And Billions Living With A Shortage Of Water

Food prices
Oxfam

In Oxfam's new report, Growing A Better Future, the non-profit paints a dire picture of the world's impending food shortage.

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With price increases up to 180 percent on staple items by 2030, the group predicts a "wholesale reversal in human development" throughout afflicted areas.

The report maintains that half the 180 percent increase in price will be the result of climate change.

Other factors will include depleting natural resources, a scarcity of land and water, the rush to turn food into biofuels, growing population, and an increase in severe poverty.

By 2050 more than four billion will live in areas short of water, and by 2030 demand for water is expected to increase by 30 percent.

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The non-profit agrees that increasing production by 70 percent within 40 years, to meet food requirements, will be difficult, but possible. Small farm's, it says, will be the key to success.

The Oxfam report comes just weeks after the UN's warning that food prices are likely to hit new highs in the next month. Grain has increased more than 70 percent from last year and drought this year is expected to force prices higher still.

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