Oxfam: Food prices to double by 2030

WASHINGTON, May 31 (UPI) -- International humanitarian organization Oxfam in Washington said global food prices could double in the next two decades.

The report released Tuesday, "Growing a Better Future," said prices of staples such as corn were already at record highs.

The largest single factor, Oxfam said, is climate change. "Up to half of this rise is due to climate change and the world's poorest people, who spend up to 80 percent of their income on food, will be hardest hit," Oxfam said in a statement.

Rising prices for staples in 2010 "pushed an estimated 44 million people into poverty," Oxfam said.

The report, which kicks off a GROW campaign within the organization, "catalogs the symptoms of today's broken food system. It warns we have entered a new age of crisis," Oxfam said.

The organization estimates food demand will rise 70 percent by 2050, all the more critical as "the average growth rate in agricultural yields has almost halved since 1990 and is set to decline to a fraction of 1 percent in the next decade."