farmers

Major European supermarkets have upped their dividend payouts to shareholders by an average of 123 percent during the first eight months of the pandemic. Shockingly, hardly any of these supermarkets paid any substantial COVID-19-related support to the workers and farmers who throughout the crisis kept supply chains going.

Big food companies have hit a crossroads in their efforts to support a living income for millions of farmers in their global supply chains, and, in many ways, momentum could be slowing.

Using land alone to remove the world’s carbon emissions to achieve ‘net zero’ by 2050 would require at least 1.6 billion hectares of new forests, equivalent to five times the size of India or more than all the farmland on the planet, reveals a new Oxfam report today.

Oxfam’s Emergency Food Security and Vulnerable Livelihoods Advisor, Emily Farr, in response to a new report on Tigray by the IPC Famine Review Committee: "The IPC report by independent food security experts today confirms our fears, that now 400,000 people are experiencing catastrophic hunger in Tigray, Ethiopia. The report’s projections for the future are even more grim, making predictions that there is a high risk of famine."

The areas of Cagayan, Isabela, Kalinga and Apayao seem to be some of the worst hit regions at this point, with significant damage to shelter, infrastructure, and agriculture.  

Oxfam conducted research on government and donor investments in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania. It found that governments and donors are failing to provide women farmers with relevant and adequate support for farming and adapting to climate change.

Farmer seed systems and community seed banks provide an important safety net for cash-strapped, vulnerable people. They also help small-scale farmers manage climate risk. Supporting them is an adaptation opportunity that is currently being missed.

In most of sub-Saharan Africa, maize is a staple food crop. This paper explores some of the reasons why maize markets fail and argues that a major reason is because there is so little trust or cooperation between governments and private traders.

Rice, soy beans, corn, wheat and palm oil together lead to more greenhouse gas emissions than any country’s individual footprint, apart from China and the United States, according to new Oxfam research into the food industry and climate change.

Eight of the “Big 10” international food and beverage companies have improved their overall scores in our in "Behind the Brands" scorecard since February 2014 but French dairy producer Danone and the US based Coca-Cola Company have failed to improve.