Africa update: The food security 'death sentence' blighting millions of lives

CI's Cathy Rutivi lifts the lid on the horrendous food shortages which many Africans face - and outlines how the consumer movement is trying to help. 

The right to basic needs is still a far cry for most consumers in Africa. Access to basic essential services like water and food is still a constant problem.

Food security is a major issue here and even food sufficiency alone does not guarantee an end to hunger. There are many factors internal or external that can affect or alter the availability, affordability, quality and safety of food in different degrees.

A number of factors like war, natural disasters like floods or even drought and famine have often displaced people and left them without food.

There are many people who rely on humanitarian relief aid just to survive especially in the Sahel and Horn of Africa regions. Access to land for farming is also a critical issue in most countries in Africa as this also addresses food security.

Most countries in Sub Saharan Africa have seen a decline in national income due to the economic and financial crises, poor governance, corruption and wars.

This has resulted in people living in very hard and harsh economic environments with high unemployment and lack of service delivery for most services.

When you picture people in these situations what they are mostly concerned about is having just a meal a day, if they can find it. Even in countries like South Africa (SA) that are considered more developed than most developing countries in Africa, 12 million people go to bed hungry each night.

According to a recent published report by the University of Cape town’s African Food Security Unit Network: “There are children whose daily food is half a white bread sandwich” (in most cases it is just half a slice with no spread on it; just dry taken with water).

The implication of this is a death sentence, says Food Bank SA. The figures on the surveyed cities in South Africa showed 77% of households were either moderately or severely food insecure. Most analysts however believe the figures to be far higher than this.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, of the 870 million people worldwide who are chronically undernourished, 234 million of them live in Sub Saharan Africa .

The main problem is also access to adequate nutrition, not necessarily availability of food. People are too poor to afford to buy food and accessibility is also a major issue for people in rural areas where either markets or supermarkets are located far around urban areas.

Queuing for food at a school in Eastern Cape, South Africa

Picture by Shelley Christians; Image by: The times/Shelley Christians/Gallo Images

Most school feeding programmes like the one seen above in the picture are used as an intervention to ensure children receive at least a balanced meal of corn maize and bean soup.

Towards the end of last year in October 2013, I attended a food safety workshop on Early Warning Rapid Alert (EWRA) systems hosted by FAO in Rome, Italy.

It was a platform to share knowledge and experiences on early warning, rapid alert and horizon scanning systems.

It also served to generate concrete ideas on how FAO - in collaboration with other key partners  - could assist countries and regions to build early warning and rapid alert capacities in food safety and to benefit from global/regional horizon scanning as well as creating opportunities for collaboration.

The workshop discussions sought to answer critical questions that, given the many competing national priorities, to what extend are the EWRA systems in food safety a realistic priority for low to medium income countries, and, if not, how do we make them a priority?

A lot of food in these countries is lost in post-harvest activities from the farm before it reaches the markets. This results in food losses which also has a big impact on food security.

Over the years, consumer organisations in Africa have participated in national, regional and international food security programmes aimed at reducing poverty and hunger as well as collaborating with research NGOs/institutions and other global CI Members to establish the fundamental issues of the whole food chain (accessibility, affordability, availability and safety).

CI Africa will soon be working on a paper on Food Security, Nutrition and Safety in Africa to define a CI Africa agenda on the issue, including recommendations for consumer policy positions.

We would like to hear from our Members in Africa about their current country experiences regarding food security, nutrition and safety. Please share with us on our African Consumers International Facebook group or via Twitter.

CI debate: Does being poor prevent people from eating healthily ?

Television chef Jamie Oliver - whose books and television programmes have been shown all over the world  - caused big headlines in the UK when he questioned whether there was a link between poverty and healthy eating.

He claims to have seen families eating badly even though they own expensive televisions. Critics attacked Oliver, insisting that he had simplified a complex problem.

We asked the consumer movement and our Facebook friends for their thoughts.

No - you can still eat healthily on a low budget. A lot of fresh, filling and healthy basics are cheap - fruit and veg in season, potatoes, pasta etc. And you can make a little meat go a long way. Processed food is pretty expensive and you don't know what's in it!
Julie Hunter

If people are willing to buy store brands instead of famous brands of food, it can be affordable to prepare healthy meals. But the mentality of poor English people is another matter altogether for another day. Fast foods are favourite of lazy poor people over here! Jamie Oliver is doing a programme to prove that on Channel 4. Most poor people in my old neighbourhood, they live off the little plot of land they have. Growing spinach, pumpkin, using pumpkin leaves for morogo, potatoes, you name it. It is a multi dimensional subject.
Mantinini Moroka

Access and not only affordability also affect the ability of those living in poverty to choose healthy diets. For example, it is quite common for low income communities to have few if any healthy food grocery stores in their neighbourhoods thus limiting people's access to securing healthy foods. Furthermore the intersection of race and class in certain countries, makes this an even more complex topic.
Onica Nonhlanhla Makwakwa, CI Head of Africa

I think that there is a connection, not the least when it comes to making sustainable choices and other links to health that might be a bit less apparent. To buy food where there's not been and compromise with quality such as animal health (antibiotics), unsafe pesticides or slaughter products with unclear origin, simply costs more in the store, so of course there's a link there...
Emma Wieslander

In our context poverty and ignorance can be so strongly linked and the poor have increased chances of receiving cheap unhealthy foods such as hydrogenated fats, imported food snacks with high quantities of salt, additives and sugars. Distracted advertising confounds choices among the poor and this may stop health eating habits.
Youth Education Network

Junk food may be cheaper now, but who will pay the doctor's bills in 10 or 20 years from now? Once you start on hypertension or diabetes medicines, you normally can't stop. Finally, try buying directly from small farmers or local fresh markets (if you can). Food is generally better in quality and lower in price as the middlemen (supermarkets) are left out of the chain.

Hubert Linders

In Greece poverty has watered down all consumers' rights. According to a survey we conducted in May, 40.3% of consumers use price as the basic criteria for choosing the goods they purchase. 70% of consumers whose income is below 600 euro have decreased the purchase of food. Poverty undermines the right to consumption the right of satisfaction of basic needs. So all the other consumer rights that are based on this one are also undermined. Recently a young couple with two kids 4 and 5 years old and who had both lost their jobs asked for our help so that the bank would not confiscate their home. The mother told us that she had fed her two children for one week with 2 euro. She has bought 2 kilos of flour and made bread and one kilo of rice and made soup. If this is not poor nutrition for these two kids I do not know what else is poor nutrition.
Evangelia Kekeleki,  KEPKA Consumers Protection Center Greece

The US supermarket price of a nice white fish; for example, a red snapper is ($7) + romaine lettuce & tomato salad ($3) compared to a fish fillet + french fries menu meal at a fast food restaurant for ($5). It costs more to eat better. Then, factor in that fast food restaurants serve Coke and Pepsi products which are empty calories, which cause weight gain among other health consequences. Unfortunately, when govt. tries to do anything about unhealthy choices, as recently Mayor Bloomberg did in NY, they are ridiculed and told it is not their place. Meanwhile, some two-thirds of American kids are obese. Denial ain't just a river in Africa.

Global Alliance for Legal Aid

Poverty affects your judgement of opportunity cost; eating healthily for some is related to how they value themselves. Unfortunately, many consumers weigh their own value on the scale of the purchasing power.

Dieunedort Wandji

A global food crisis is upon us

CI’s Anna Glayzer examines the effect of recent droughts and subsequent food price rises on consumers and what needs to happen to curtail shortages worldwide.

Global food prices are rising again spurred by the worst US drought in more than half a century. 

America is the world's largest producer of corn and the destruction of this year’s crop will lead to disastrous knock-on effects across the globe, particularly in countries where food shortages are already a reality.

Big corn importers, including South Korea, Japan, Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador, Columbia and much of East Africa will be badly affected, according to Marie Brill, a policy analyst at ActionAid, as reported in the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

Couple the US problem with persistent dryness in other key grain-producing countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, and corn, soybean and wheat prices are being pushed to record highs. 

In the latest developments, farmers in many parts of the world have begun a  mass slaughter of farm animals, as few can afford the huge prices hikes in feed resulting from the lacklustre harvest.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Programme issued a joint statement last week calling for swift, coordinated international action to stop the spike becoming a crisis. 

According to the statement: “We need to act urgently to make sure that these price shocks do not turn into a catastrophe hurting tens of millions over the coming months.”

Drought

In the US, the effects of the drought are immediately apparent. Scores of drought-starved animals have been invading towns and cities across the country looking for food. 

Elk and mule deer are stealing into farmers’ corn and alfalfa fields more aggressively, and in greater numbers than usual, wildlife officials say. 

Bears have been spotted lumbering through alleys, raiding rubbish bins and climbing into people’s homes through open windows and unlocked kitchen doors. At least two sweet shops have reportedly been burgled by bears.

The effect of the drought on consumers is less straightforward. Prices have gone up already, and are expected to continue to rise, though no one can predict by how much. 

How consumers are affected will depend on where they live. As usual, the poorest consumers will suffer the most. In countries where the supply chain is shorter, price rises are passed on to the consumers directly. In economies like the US, food companies may try to absorb some of the rises themselves, rather than lose their customers.  

As The Wall Street Journal argues: “Consumers monitor what we pay for milk more than our electricity bills. Any big shift in consumer behavior — less buying of hamburgers, say — could hammer the bottom line of a food company already struggling with tighter profit margins.”

It is not clear yet how governments will act to stop the price spike from becoming a crisis. Measures will need to include revising biofuel targets and taking measures to prevent commodity speculation.  

Last week French president Francois Hollande called for the use of the strategic global and regional agricultural stock piles to help cool prices.

Price crisis

Oxfam estimated that a global grain reserve of just 105 million tonnes would have been enough to help avoid the food price crisis in 2007-2008. 

The cost of maintaining this reserve would have been 1.5 billion USD; or just 10 USD for each of the 150 million additional hungry people that may have been fed. 

Jose Graziano da Silva, the director-general of the FAO, has expressed support for the French proposals. 

The success of any such plan will depend on whether there is support from national governments. 

Graziano da Silva is talking to China next month. China operates extensive state crop stockpiles. 

The US generally opposes regional or global reserves as counter-productive, costly and disruptive to the market.

CI will continue to watch food prices and report on changes via its Food Prices Monitor, a quarterly international overview of current news, research, policy developments, CI member and NGO activity in relation to food prices. See the latest Food Prices Monitor on our website.

Israel's cottage uprising: consumers unite on Facebook to force inflated food prices back down

Prof Michal Gal, by Shmuel Almani

Professor Michal Gal reveals how consumers in Israel have used Facebook and collective power to successfully force high food prices back down.

There have been some exciting events taking place in Israel for the past three months or so. The first is a revolt by consumers, in what has come to be known as "the Cottage Uprising", which reached one of its climaxes this week when hundreds of thousands of consumers decided to boycott Tnuva products, a major supplier of dairy products. This figure represented a large number of consumers for such a small country. They were connected and informed through social networks, supporting media and volunteers.

It all started when one conscientious consumer posted a call on Facebook to boycott cottage cheese produced by Tnuva, the largest cottage cheese manufacturer in Israel. Cottage cheese is an important part of an Israeli diet and, believe it or not, it is actually tasty! He pointed to the fact that in the past year, ever since the price of cottage cheese was deregulated, it rose by more than 25% percent. Surprisingly, more than 100,000 consumers joined him within days.

Tnuva has caved in to consumer pressure

At first Tnuva, which is now largely owned by the British APAX investment fund, responded that it would not reduce prices, but soon it began to understand that it had a real problem on its hands. Within days it reduced prices and set them closer to their previous levels. The harm to Tnuva was not only the direct loss it suffered: Tnuva uses the picture of a "cottage" (house) which is posted on its cottage cheese as its main image and bases its slogan on it: "Tnuva - the Israeli home".

This was only the first step in this summer's social revolution. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli consumers (450,000 people - out of approximately 7 million people participated in the biggest march ever in Israel) protested against the high prices of many products. These high prices make it difficult for many to live a comfortable life despite many having a good education and working long hours. Indeed, research done for the Israeli parliament indicated that between 2006 and 2011 the average salary in Israel rose by 2.6 percent while the Consumer Price Index rose by 25 percent. Salaries in Israel are the third lowest of all of OECD members, while prices and taxes are among the highest.

This was mainly a protest led by the young and educated, who saw their dreams of buying their own apartment get further away from them due to the extreme rise in housing prices. They have also experienced growing difficulties of paying their bills, not to mention saving for a rainy day. They were joined by many other groups protesting against "social injustice." They pointed to, among other things, the fact that while the country's macro-economic indicators painted a bright picture, the benefits did not trickle down to most groups in society and they were largely enjoyed by a small group of business people who control large parts of the Israeli market. This small group, whose interests are often protected by politicians, enjoys the quiet life by not stepping on each others' turf.

Accordingly, the protest was not necessarily about the capitalistic model that Israel adopted, but mostly about the unnatural causes that enabled huge conglomerates to develop and prosper and the lack of regulatory tools applied to limit their market power.

As part of this social revolution, people built tents in the centres of towns all around Israel, and created "town squares" for public discussions about how to use public funding to create a better life for most citizens. It is a great example of Israeli democracy that these "temporary settlements" were allowed, despite the fact that they criticised the government quite severely (it was a great lesson in democracy for my kids).

Earlier this month, after the largest march, most tents were taken down by the protesters. The hope is that the discussion will continue and will affect governmental policies. Committees were created in order to push forward a more socially oriented policy. As studies began to accumulate that showed the high profits of many major suppliers in Israel, a group of students initiated what they call a "changing boycott," where each week one major food producer would be boycotted, to indicate the consumers' power if prices were not reduced to "fair" levels.

Tnuva reacted to this action not by reducing prices, but by increasing the sizes of its products by 10% and selling them for the previous price. We will have to wait and see what will develop.

I find this collective use of consumer power quite exciting, especially when this power is used to reduce high prices that are a result of governmental failure to perform the regulatory tasks it should have performed (eg reducing entry barriers, placing more emphasis on market power considerations in privatisation decisions, resisting interest-group pressures, and not allowing conglomerate mergers with significant market-power effects that do not create offsetting efficiency benefits). At the same time I hope that such consumer power is not abused and will not reduce incentives for dynamic and efficient production. I hope we will get the right balance.

Professor Michal Gal is a Professor, Vice Dean, and Co-Director of the Forum on Law and Markets at the Faculty of Law, Haifa University, Israel.

Why consumers benefit from grocery Unit Pricing

Australian consumer advocate, Ian Jarratt, says consumers benefit from unit pricing (pricing per unit of measure) on packaged grocery items.

I am a volunteer advocate with the Queensland Consumers’ Association in Australia. I believe that, because a good unit pricing system can provide so many benefits for consumers, consumer organisations in places where there is no unit pricing should now begin campaigning for its provision and for high standards.

Unit pricing makes it easier for consumers to make informed decisions about ‘value for money’, for example, to choose between cornflakes in cartons if:
480g of Brand A costs $7.60 per kg
775g of Brand A costs $7.10 per kg
but
500g of Brand B costs $6.40 per kg.

Unit prices are provided in addition to selling prices and help consumers overcome the confusion created by the ever-increasing number of package sizes, brands, products, types of packaging, and product forms on sale. Consumers who use unit prices can save significant amounts of money and time.

The provision of unit pricing varies greatly around the world. In some places, provision is compulsory and there are usually legislated standards. But, where provision is voluntary, normally there are no, or only minimal, legislated standards and the extent of provision varies greatly. Depending on the system in place, the quality and usefulness of unit pricing for consumers can vary enormously.

In the European Union, some parts of the United States, and now in Australia, supermarkets are required to provide the unit price of packaged grocery items as well as the selling price.

Since December 2009, large supermarkets in Australia must provide the unit price of most pre-packaged grocery items.

The Australian system is a result of a lengthy campaign by several Australian consumer organisations, including Consumers International members, Australian Consumers Association (CHOICE), and the Consumers Federation of Australia. Most supermarkets strongly opposed the concept and refused to provide unit prices even voluntarily.

During the campaign I visited parts of the USA and Europe to study the diverse systems in use there to report on the best system for Australia. A copy of my report is available here.

I have discovered there are many places where existing compulsory and voluntary unit pricing systems are sub-standard and believe that consumer organisations there should be campaigning for improvements.

Some examples of sub-standard practices are: unit prices that are very difficult or even impossible to read; provision for only some sizes and brands within a product type; and use of more than one unit of measure within a product type.

A critically important standard is that unit prices on shelf edge labels should be very prominent and very easy to read - for example as displayed on the label from the USA in the photo of tinned salmon (above).

Consumer advocates currently involved in, or wanting more information about grocery unit pricing can contact me at unitpricing@australiamail.com. Currently, I am assisting consumer organisations in Canada (Option Consommateurs, Quebec) and New Zealand (Consumer NZ).

Undercover video exposes Serbian supermarket overcharging

A Serbian consumer organisation has taken video footage showing how one supermarket rebrands food past its expiry date. It is quite eye-opening how sloppy the supermarket tries to cover it up. The video was anonymously shared with Consumers International on our Contact Us page.

Attack on 'Fair Play in the Supermarket'

Claus Jørgensen, Senior Environmental Officer at the Danish Consumer Council (Forbrugerrådet), talks about the Fair Play in the Supermarket campaign.

On 26 of August we launched the little film, Fair Play in the Supermarket, to put focus on consumer goods (coffee, chocolate and fruit) produced in the developing countries.

We chose a typical setting for Denmark (and, I suppose, for a lot of European countries), Friday evening, at home having a cosy time with the kids and enjoying delicious products. The film rewinds to show that the joy we all experience does have a hidden price for the people producing the goods. On 1 September we also had the film shown in 35 movie theaters across the country in a showing of the film Blood in the Mobile.

At the time of the release of the film, we also launched a postcard, which was distributed nationwide in cafés, restaurants, movie theaters and universities. The postcard encourages consumers to make a difference by visiting our website and from here send an electronic postcard to their favourite supermarket asking for more fair trade!

We have a Fair Play in the Supermarket Facebook site where we bring relevant updates two to three times a week.

The latest development has been an attack on our campaign in a letter to the editor in one of the national newspapers. The two authors claim that by supporting and promoting Fair Trade labeled products, the Danish Consumer Council are advocating not using the market economy and its instruments.

We have responded, saying that we believe they have misunderstood our campaign, and that we actually ask supermarkets to demand more ethically produced goods, and we have asked consumers to push this demand from supermarkets by buying or asking for more Fair Trade labeled products to put pressure on the supermarkets. And this in our view, is actually using the instruments of the market economy.

What do you think? Leave your opinion in the comments.

Nutrition conference: no unhealthy foods, just unhealthy consumers. Hubert Linders, CI Information Adviser, finds this hard to swallow.

Last week I participated in the most important conference for nutritionists in Latin America to officially launch the PAHO policy statement on reducing salt intake. About 2000 professionals and students were in Santiago to learn about diets, micronutrients, functional foods, food safety, or malnutrition, which not only means that there are people sick or dying because they don't have enough to eat. Increasingly it is used for overweight and obese people who eat too much processed food with high levels of salt, sugar and fat.

According to the industry, there are no good or bad foods, only unhealthy diets and a sedentary life. If that's true, why is fast food offered in huge portions? Or are fruit juices produced with flavours that don’t come close to the taste of the fruit shown on the packaging?

Asking companies, present with samples of their products, they told me ‘this is what the consumer wants.’ I very much doubt that. Does the industry produce what consumers want or do we eat what they offer because there are almost no other options? True, there are products called ‘light’, with less salt and better quality, but why do they always have to be more expensive?

If the industry produces what we want, why spend billions of dollars a year in advertising? On several occasions during the congress I heard that nutritionists have to educate consumers, called ‘patients’, because they don't know the truth. It seems obvious that they do not, simply by the fact that food ‘rich’ in salt, sugars and fats are more and more aggressively marketed in all media including TV, radio, Internet and on billboards, kiosks, schools and sporting or cultural events.

All this marketing is paid for by an industry that would have us believe that it is only our fault that almost all of us suffer from overweight and diseases like hypertension, while they want to ‘hook’ us on salty, sugary and greasy foods as young as possible. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Desperate measures!

According to Pradeep S Mehta, Secretary General, CI India-based member CUTS, the country’s authorities are short of long term solutions to the runaway rises in consumer prices.

Writing in the Economic Times of India, Mr Metha argues that the recent price rises of food items, manufacturing goods, fuel, cement and steel have contributed around 75% of the total rise in the inflation rate in India.

Whilst short-term solutions, such as restricting exports and reducing import duties, have been put in place, there are concerns for the long-term investment environment in the country.

The economic outlook for consumers, Mehta fears, looks grim.

Food in Brazil: consumers reel from the effects of rising prices

In the last 36 months the price of the average food shopping basket in Brazil rose by 25%.

idec (Instituto Brasileiro de Defesa do Consumidor) recently highlighted alarming price increases in certain basic foodstuffs between March 2007 and March 2008 in their monthly magazine revista do idec (see below).

Food in general	12.7%	Margarine	14.6%
Rice	7.7%	Soya oil	48%
Beans	164.4%	Maize oil	40.2%
Milk	25.2%	Beef	19.9%
French Bread	8.7%	Pork	12.1%
Cheese	24%	Poultry and eggs	13.8%

Brazil, a major grain producer, is expecting a record soya harvest in 2008, including 25 million tons earmarked for export. However, the country still depends on imports for 70% of its wheat consumption and consumers are feeling the effects of recent price rises.

idec believes Brazil should develop a national policy on food sovereignty. They are also calling on the government to protect and support indeginous small scale food producers who are suffering more than their industrial counterparts in the current environment.

At the Fifth African Roundtable Conference in South Africa

CI’s Cathy Rutivi recently attended the Fifth African Roundtable Conference in South Africa. She writes:

“I attended the African Roundtable Conference on Sustainable Consumption and Production (ARSCP-5) in Johannesburg from 4-6 June 2008.

The roundtable reviews the ongoing activities of the African 10-Year Framework Programme on Sustainable Consumption and Production and identifies what needs to be done to strengthen sustainable consumption and production in the region.

UNEP says the progress so far is very encouraging.

I delivered a presentation on the African consumer perspective on sustainable consumption during a session on Sustainable Lifestyles by the Swedish Task Force.

This was a very interesting session because for Africa we still grapple with basic development issues such as poverty alleviation, access to basic services, gender inequality, environmental protection and other long-term sustainable development goals as opposed to the level of where our developed counterparts are. Lifestyles, human behaviour and consumption patterns are affected by most of these development challenges.

As a consumer activist I believe that sustainable consumption practices will ensure that African consumers are well equipped to make informed choices and take appropriate action to meet these development challenges sustainably.

We also discussed the food crisis and touched on issues such as saving water and curbing losses and wastage in the food chain. Consumers the world over are facing this global challenge but the hardest hit are the poorest of which most of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Many development organisations, including CI, are working to alleviate poverty in the region, and seeking to address the dignity of people through addressing human rights abuses of which food is a basic consumer right and environmental protection to minimize the effects of climate change.”

Here's more on CI's sustainable consumption work.

Have your say - join the food crisis debate

Kicking off the debate on the increase of food prices around the world is Justin Macmullan, CI's Head of Campaigns:

"The price of food is rocketing for people around the world.

World leaders are meeting to discuss the issue and there are daily articles and programmes in newspapers and on the radio and television. But despite all the talk and discussion there is no clear concensus as to what should be done.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that there are so many contributing factors to the current crisis.

Long term issues, such as growing prosperity in India and China, have contributed to changing diets and increased demand for food.

Energy prices and the growth in biofuels have certainly had an impact as well.

Poor harvests have also had an impact this year and it appears that financial speculation, an issue that for many people is hidden behind in the obscure world of financial markets, is also pushing up prices.

Two issues are often forgotten or taken for granted in this. Firstly for millions of people the idea of a food crisis is nothing new. Back in 2006, before talk of the current crisis, the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) reported that 40 countries were facing food emergencies. Any response to the crisis should address this ongoing crisis that has been as much about poverty as the availability of food.

Secondly, recent events have again underlined how interconnected the world is. Developments in one country or group of countries can have an impact around the world. Countries need to work together, plan ahead and adapt international and national systems - taking responsibilty for how their actions may impact on others, particularly the most vulnerable.

CI has recently released a short statement mapping out some of the causes and possible solutions.

Now we need to hear from you - the public and our member organisations. Join this debate, have your say - we look forward to read your comments and contributions."

Combat rising food prices - avoid wastage and increase food self-sufficiency

A recent article published in Konsumer - the magazine published by the Consumer Association of Penang (CAP) in Malaysia - focused on avoiding food wastage through increasing food self-sufficiency.

In response to the rise in food prices Konsumer champions that Malaysia becomes self-sufficient in producing food rather than relying on imports.

It points out that organic farming methods should be promoted to avoid over dependence on expensive pesticides and that the issue of food wastage needs to be addressed.

Of the solid waste produced in Malaysia, 45% comes in the form of discarded food.

Konsumer calls on the government to take the lead in tackling the culture of waste by reducing the lavish amounts of food available to participants of official seminars, conferences and meetings.

19% increase in food prices

From Natcof (National Consumers Forum) in the Seychelles comes the news that according to the Nationial Statistics Bureau, the Consumer Price Index shows that the price of food has seen an increase of more than 19% compared to the same period last year.

Most imported food items like meat, milk and cereals have registered an increase of 27%.

CI has recently released a statement on the food crisis, and other member organisations are also monitoring the issue at national levels and urging their governments to act.

Calls for extension of rice import tax exemption to include other staple foods

REDECOMA, the Consumer Defence Group of Mali, has called on the Malian government for the extension of food tax exemption measures to include other staple foods such as milk, oil, sugar and flour.

The Malian government have recently decided to remove tax from rice imports for the period stretching from 1 April to 30 September 2008.

Monitoring the situation, REDECOMA has found that food prices have neither stabilised nor decreased since the introduction of this measure, but have continued to rise.

This has prompted the organisation to reiterate its calls for the government to be proactive to ensure that the dialogue and consultation process produce positive effects and prevent Malian consumers from suffering more aggravating circumstances.

REDECOMA said that, ‘it is convinced that no measure is too much for relieving the suffering of the population in these times of crisis and in order to preserve social peace.’

At the same time it also reminded the authorities of World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) 2008 when Malian consumers, faced with the ever increasing cost of living, expressed their concerns by solemnly calling on ‘the relevant authorities to take prompt and appropriate measures to tackle the price increase of staple commodities’.