Rapidly increasing prices for staple foods from 2006 to 2008 culminated into a worldwide food crisis: inflation soared, food shortages were prevalent, and a lack of purchasing power among millions of the world's poor led to widespread hunger and desperation. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that higher prices pushed another 40 million people into hunger in 2008, bringing the overall number of undernourished people in the world to 963 million (compared to 923 million in 2007). The Food Crisis and Latin America, a new policy brief from the Oakland Institute examines the impact of the 2008 food price crisis on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Skyrocketing prices increased the number of hungry and malnourished Latin Americans; boycotts and protests became rampant which caused widespread social unrest; and governments were tried to control food prices through emergency policy measures. While several factors are cited as causes of the dramatic rise in food prices, the new policy brief, The Food Crisis and Latin America, explains the lack of access to and affordability of food in Latin America a result of trade and agricultural policies implemented over the past three decades. Beginning in the 1980s, Latin America as a region enacted the most sweeping reforms to its trade policies in the world, producing dramatic increases in agricultural trade. The policy brief examines if these gains have done anything to shield the region from inflation in world commodity prices and if they have made Latin America more food secure.

The policy brief also finds that even though world commodity prices have somewhat stabilized and recent reports indicate a downward turn in commodity prices, store shelves across the region are still void of affordable food and the crisis warrants immediate measures to address the failures in the global food system.

Click Here to Download a Copy of the Report

This will be a grim Thanksgiving for millions in the U.S.

Hunger and food insecurity is on the increase in the U.S. as families face ultimatums: to pay for food or rent, food or medicine. The situation has been made worse with the U.S. facing the worst food inflation in 17 years. Families are running out of food by the end of the month, parents are skipping meals so children can have enough to eat, and families are doing without minimally adequate, balanced and healthy diets.

Children are among the most vulnerable U.S. populations. According to a recent report from the USDA, hunger among children worsened in 2007, increasing by more than 50 percent. 691,000 children suffered from hunger sometime in 2007, up significantly from 430,000 in 2006.

Season of Hunger: A Crisis of Food Inflation & Shrinking Safety Nets in the U.S., examines the causes of growing hunger and food insecurity in the U.S. and suggests structural changes required to reform the precarious food system, emergency food assistance programs, wages, and employment in the United States.

Read the Briefing Paper

Going Gray in the Golden State, a new report from the Oakland Institute documents the root causes of poverty among seniors in Oakland, California — the city with the largest population of impoverished seniors in the state that leads the nation in concentration of seniors living in poverty.

These vulnerable seniors, close to 400,000 Californians 65 and older, are acutely affected by the growing recession, which is causing deep reductions in safety net services.Governor Schwarzenegger’s $510 million line-item veto cuts in the 2008-2009 budget are bound to make things worse.

Drawing upon survey data as well as first-hand testimonies from seniors, advocates, and social service providers, the report examines the lived experiences of seniors and contrasts their reality with the myths that obscure their dire situation. “Myths such as, ‘If you work hard and manage your money well, you’ll be secure in retirement’ are often used to pin the responsibility for economic woes on individuals, effectively passing the buck onto the backs of the most vulnerable and preventing action from being taken to ensure seniors’ welfare.

The report also highlights successful strategies for both elder care and advocacy, and calls for municipal and state planners to enhance the quality of services provided to seniors by drawing upon the successes of integrative, community empowerment-based models.

Read the Press Release

Download Going Gray in the Golden State: The Reality of Poverty Among Seniors in Oakland, CA

"The borders between our countries should be common grounds to unite us, not lines that divide us."

Since NAFTA’s passage in 1993, the U.S. Congress has debated and passed several new trade agreements – with Peru, Jordan, Chile, and the Central American Free Trade Agreement. At the same time it has debated immigration policy as though those trade agreements bore no relationship to the waves of displaced people migrating to the U.S., looking for work.

Meanwhile, a rising tide of anti-immigrant hysteria has increasingly demonized those migrants, leading to measures that deny them jobs, rights, or any pretense of equality with people living in the communities around them. To resolve any of these dilemmas, from adopting rational and humane immigration policies to reducing the fear and hostility towards migrants, the starting point has to be an examination of the way U.S. policies have both produced migration and criminalized migrants.

Read Uprooted: The Impact of Free Market on Migrants, by David Bacon, Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute.

The Oakland Institute has produced a series of Policy Briefs and Briefing Papers to reframe the global debate around the real root causes of global food crisis and, through its advocacy and outreach activities, has ensured that real solutions find their way into on-the-ground policy.

Click here to read our reports on the food price crisis

The collapse of the Doha Round of global trade talks in Geneva marks a victory for small farmers and workers in developing countries whose governments stood up to the pressure and arm twisting tactics of the U.S. and the EU over the last week.

The rich nations, along with the International Financial Institutions such as the WTO, World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, presented the rapid conclusion of the Doha negotiations as a solution to the current food price crisis. However, it is widely recognized that opening of markets, removal of tariffs, and withdrawal of state intervention in agriculture, has turned developing countries from net food exporters to net food importers and burdened them with huge import bills. This process which leaves the poor dependent on uncertain and volatile global markets for their food supply, has wiped out millions of livelihoods and placed nearly half the humanity at the brink of hunger and starvation.

Click Here to Read Oakland Institute's Statement on the Collapse of the Doha Talks

Later this year, the Bush administration is set to have discussions with lawmakers on whether the US import tariff (US $0.54 per gallon) on ethanol should be allowed to expire or not. Designed to protect US corn-based ethanol makers from cheaper imports, elimination of this import tariff is expected to have wide implications for ethanol exporting countries, especially Brazil that accounts for more than 70% of imports (2006 figures).

While Brazil's leadership on biofuels - particularly sugarcane-based ethanol - has been held as a global model for sustainable biomass production, a new report from the Oakland Institute and Terra de Direitos, Food & Energy Sovereignty Now: Brazilian Grassroots Position on Agroenergy, describes the opposition that biofuels face from the Brazilian social movements and civil society, as formulated at the First National Agroenergy Conference, held in Curitiba, Brazil in October, 2007. The report also exposes how the 'ethanol factor,' within the current drive for 'energy security' in the US, is becoming the integrating force in the region that is shaping a new geopolitical configuration in Latin America.

Read the Press Release

Click Here to Download the Report

Click Here to Download the Report in Portuguese

Find Out What Heating Homes in New York City with Biodiesel Has to Do with Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

On October 24, marking the 62nd anniversary of the United Nations, Anuradha Mittal and the Oakland Institute received the United Nations Association (UNA) East Bay's 2007 Global Citizen Award, in recognition of the Institute's work to promote social and economic justice globally.

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