Making radiowaves

By Guest, 3 April 2011

Catherine Negus, used to be Campaigns Assistant

The WDM campaign against speculation on food prices has had some brilliant radio coverage in 2011. Our campaigns officer Heidi Chow called in to You and Yours back in January, and with the help of the BBC we’ve been able to make two other programmes available for downloading from the WDM website.

On 13 January BBC Radio 4’s Face the Facts by John Waite, with input from WDM, provided a clear overview of the issue. The programme includes helpful explanations of spot and futures markets, how they are supposed to work, and what they are doing in reality. There are quotes from Jane Anyango, chairperson of Kibera Women for Peace and Fairness in Nairobi, who talked with WDM staff when they visited Kenya last July.

Other authoritative voices are those of Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and Michael Masters, a US hedge fund manager who was so dismayed by his industry’s lobbying against reform that he gave evidence to a Congress inquiry. He describes the way in which speculators affect the real price of food as ‘a self-fulfilling prophecy’. Strikingly, Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, is heard calling the activities of speculators in causing extreme price rises ‘silent mass murder’.

This programme could be a great tool for introducing the food campaign to new audiences, as well as clearing up the queries of those already familiar with it. A transcript of the programme is also available.

On the BBC World Service’s 16 January edition of One Planet, presenter Mike Williams tried out buying futures contracts himself, showing how easily any internet user can essentially take a gamble on food prices. He then talked to WDM’s policy officer Murray Worthy about the effects this has had in increasing world hunger, and how markets can be made to work properly. The programme also reported from Hanoi, Vietnam, where rice prices fluctuated 40 per cent over just three months during the 2008 food crisis. The discussion on speculation begins around 12 minutes into the programme and is just another example of the exciting coverage this campaign has been receiving lately, all increasing public pressure for the regulation which is so necessary.