Help urged over global food crisis

Oxfam said millions more lives would be wrecked next year despite falls in global prices. It is running a £15 million appeal launched last month to help victims of the crisis who are in danger of being forgotten in the midst of the credit crunch.

Phil Bloomer, campaigns and policy director, said: "Asking the public for money is difficult in the current economic climate when we are all feeling the pinch. But giving just a few pounds can make a real difference to the survival chances of families caught in a crisis that is not of their own making."

More than 100 million people have been pushed into hunger since the food crisis began two years ago, the charity said.

Although global prices have fallen in recent weeks, many poor people have not benefited, price volatility remains a problem and the underlying causes of the crisis have not been addressed, it added.

It has carried out a "cradle to grave" analysis of the human cost of hunger which shows that women and children are hardest hit as they are first to cut back on what they eat.

In many countries, even pregnant and nursing mothers are likely to give up food for their husbands and many mothers are forced to choose between feeding their children or themselves, it said.

The charity said a child dies every five seconds from hunger related causes, 13 million babies are born stunted each year because their mothers did not have adequate diets during pregnancy and one in five mothers who die in childbirth do so because they did not get enough iron from their diet.

Many of the long-term factors that caused the food crisis, such as climate change and the rush to grow biofuels, have not been tackled, the charity said.

Mr Bloomer added: "The world cannot turn its back on the millions of stunted babies born each year or the millions of children whose education and health is ruined by hunger. No mother should be faced with the terrible choice of whether to feed their children or themselves."