Oxfam launches its first eBook: Growing a Better Future

International aid agency Oxfam today releases a digital edition of its report "Growing a Better Future: Food justice in a resource constrained world" to coincide with the beginning of ‘GROW Week’ – a week of activism highlighting the world’s broken food system that sees one billion people going hungry each day.

The report was first released in June 2011 and received worldwide media attention with the finding that food prices could as much as double in the next 20 years. The report highlights how spiralling food prices and endless cycles of regional food crises will create millions more hungry people unless we transform the way we grow and share food. The digital edition sets to build on the original report including new information, case studies and videos (in the iBook edition).

Drawing on work with communities and partners around the world, the eBook is set to be the first of many digital editions for Oxfam, bringing the organization’s research and policy to new audiences.

The "Growing a Better Future" eBook is free to download from the iBookstore, Kindle Store and www.oxfam.org/grow/reports/growing-better-future.

Teresa Cavero, Oxfam’s GROW campaign research lead said: “This is a first for an international NGO. It’s a powerful new way to access authoritative research, on-the-ground experience and key policy in support of a movement for a world where everyone has enough to eat. Oxfam is delighted to be working with industry leaders like Apple and Amazon to bring this material to a new audience.”

“The eBook format means that we can expand on the original report 'Growing a Better Future',” says Robert Cornford from Oxfam’s Communications Team. “And the fully enhanced eBook also includes images, graphics and video. We will be publishing it in three languages: English, French and Spanish.”

The new digital edition of "Growing a Better Future" includes additional case studies from Bolivia to Malawi, and new papers and research which develop and update the main themes of the report. These include information on:

• the growing scandal surrounding the new wave of land investments
• how climate change might affect future food production in East Africa
• how people living in poverty around the world have coped with food price crises

An endorsement from Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and a short documentary on India’s failing food system are included in the iBook edition.

Oxfam’s GROW campaign is calling for global action to fix a broken food system where 925 million people already go hungry every day. This could get worse in the face of dwindling natural resources, like land, the gathering pace of climate change and increasing food price volatility. Find out how we can help prevent this from getting worse at www.oxfam.org/grow.

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