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Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats:Covering the constituencies of Twickenham and Richmond Park |
Tonge quizzes Northover on Food Stockpiles
January 28, 2012 10:41 AM
• [Jan 25] Baroness Tonge (Liberal Democrat): My Lords, some of us may be old enough to remember that in times of plenty the Pharaohs used to build up stores of excess supplies to use in times of famine. I wonder whether the international community has made any progress in pre-empting these crises by making sure that there are stores in strategic parts of the world that are likely to suffer famine in advance of the famine occurring.
Link to this Hansard source (Citation: HL Deb, 25 January 2012, c1049
Baroness Northover (Whip, House of Lords; Liberal Democrat): The World Food Programme and UNICEF are indeed already stockpiling supplies and a lot of work is going into how best to ensure that these crises do not occur. The Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, was all about how to pre-empt such crises and develop resilience in an area where already the population is exceptionally vulnerable. A lot of the problems are because of rising food prices rather than necessarily food scarcity. The noble Baroness's point is well taken.