Mainstream boy band takes on Big Grain: As part of the campaign to end hunger, popular British band One Direction says that “big corporations [named by the campaign as Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, Glencore and Louis Dreyfus] avoid paying millions in taxes to Africa every day,” and that “if we stop this, all of Africa could have enough food today.”

Hundreds of millions of people face starvation because five multinational companies control 90 per cent of the world’s grain trade, leading charities were protesting last night as they launched a campaign to reduce levels of hunger in developing countries.

The coalition Enough Food for Everyone IF called for fresh action to crack down on tax avoidance by global corporations, claiming that the lives of 230 young children could be saved every day if firms paid their proper dues in the nations where they operated.

It says five multinationals – ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Glencore and Louis Dreyfus – control all but ten per cent of the world’s grain supplies.

The campaign’s chair, Max Lawson, Oxfam’s head of policy, said: “It is nothing short of a scandal that rich countries’ failure to crack down on tax havens is costing developing countries tens of billions of pounds every year – money that could be used to buy food for hungry people.”

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