Allowing Higher Food Prices, Instituting Social Protections Can Waste Less, Feed More

Inter Press Service: Higher Food Prices Can Help to End Hunger, Malnutrition and Food Waste
Andrew MacMillan, former director of the Field Operations Division of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

“…The idea that low food prices will reduce the scale of the hunger problem is flawed since the main reason for people being hungry is that they cannot afford the food they need, even when prices are low. Rather than, as now, shielding all consumers from paying a full and fair price for food, it seems to make more sense to let prices rise and increase the food buying power of the poor. … But to eliminate hunger quickly, income transfers, targeted on poor families and with their value indexed to food prices, are also needed, at least until countries begin to manage their economies more equitably…” (6/25).

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