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Pti, New York, The Daily Star, 24 May 2008
Poor countries, relying on food imports, are expected to spend 40 per cent more this year than the last year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has said.
According to the latest Food Outlook, a biannual publication by the FAO focusing on developments affecting global food and feed markets, this year’s food import bill for the Low Income Food Deficit Countries is forecast to reach $ 169 billion.
Characterising this as a ‘worrying development’ the FAO noted that by the end of this year imports could cost four times as much as they did in 2000.
“Food is no longer the cheap commodity that it once was,” said the agency’s Assistant Director-General Hafez Ghanem, stressing that soaring food prices are likely exacerbate the food deprivation suffered by 854 million people.
“We are facing the risk that the number of hungry will increase by many more millions of people,” Ghanem said.
Although the global production outlook is favourable, this is unlikely to translate into the decline of many agriculture commodities because of the need to replenish stocks and rising utilization.
It predicts record cereal production this year but says tight markets will result in continued price volatility.
International prices of most agricultural commodities, the Food Outlook report says, have started to decline, but they are unlikely to return to the low price levels of previous years.
The food price index has remained stable since February 2008, but the average of the first four months of 2008 is still 53 per cent higher when compared to the same period a year ago.
Despite a favourable global production, the expected price decline in many basic agricultural commodities during the new 2008-09 season is likely to be limited, because of the need to replenish stocks and an increase in utilisation. Due to rising utilisation, more than one good season is required to replenish stocks and reduce price volatility, report adds.
The FAO’s latest forecast for world cereal production in 2008 points to a record output, now at nearly 2192 million tonnes, including milled rice, up 3.8 per cent from 2007.
Among major cereals, the tight wheat supply is likely to improve most, given the prospects for better harvests in 2008.
Despite record production levels in several crops, tight markets will probably lead to continued price volatility during the season.
Heads of state and government will address the problem of high food prices and the challenges of climate change, bio-energy and food security at the upcoming three-day summit in Rome beginning on June 3.
The rise in international prices of oilseeds and oilseed products, it says, has accelerated in 2007-08, with values climbing to new record levels in March 2008.
World markets have tightened considerably as reduced supply growth for oils and a drop in meal supplies are coinciding with further expansion in demand.
First forecasts for the 2008-09 season point towards a strong recovery in global oilseed production, and the resulting oil and meal output should be sufficient to meet global demand, the FAO report adds.
Regarding sugar, it says, generally favourable growing conditions led to a record world production in 2007-08 and although world sugar consumption is foreseen to increase at a sustained rate, it will not be enough to absorb an expected second consecutive global supply surplus.
International sugar prices are likely to remain under downward pressure, it predicts.
Global meat output, the agency says, is expected to grow in 2008 despite high feed prices. Strong economic growth is expected to sustain steadfast consumption in many developing countries.
Global milk production, which is responding to the past year’s high milk product prices, is forecast to grow strongly in 2008. However, it says there is uncertainty as to where dairy markets will head.
Global trade in milk products is anticipated to fall again in 2008 mainly because of reduced exportable supplies.
Food Outlook forecasts that aquaculture production growth will continue this year with the historic milestone of reaching the same level as the expected capture fisheries in 2008. Prices for wild species from capture fisheries are moving upwards strongly but the price increase for farmed species are expected to be more moderate.
Worldwide potato production could expand over the next decade between 2 and 3 per cent annually with developing countries, especially those situated in Sub-Saharan Africa, being the main engine of growth.
China, the world’s biggest potato producer, is reviewing proposals for the potato to become one of the country’s major food crops, while India plans to double its output in the next five to 10 years, it adds.
Afp, Rome, The Daily Star, 29 May 2008
A summit next week hosted by the UN food agency will provide a key opportunity to relaunch the fight against hunger and poverty in the developing world, the Food and Agriculture Organisation said Wednesday.
The three-day gathering starting Tuesday “will offer a unique forum for world leaders to adopt the policies, strategies and programmes that are required to overcome the new challenges to world food security,” the Rome-based agency said.
“We hope that world leaders coming to Rome will agree on the urgent measures that are required to boost agricultural production, especially in the most affected countries,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said in a statement.
He added that “at the same time (the measures should) protect the poor from being adversely affected by high food prices.”
Several heads of state and government are expected at the summit on food security, global warming and the rising demand for biofuels.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will open the meeting, while the presidents of Argentina, Brazil and France, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Nicolas Sarkozy, have confirmed their attendance.
Afp, Rome, The Daily Star, 04 June 2008
UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for a huge rise in food production Tuesday as world leaders started a summit on the food price crisis that threatens to plunge millions more people into poverty.
The UN secretary general said food output had to rise 50 percent by 2030 to meet rising demand, increased finance for agriculture and the elimination of “trade and taxation policies that distort markets.”
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda urged fellow world leaders to release excess stockpiles of food to ease shortages in poorer countries, offering more than 300,000 tonnes of imported rice held by Japan.
“I believe that this not only constitutes an emergency response measure towards food shortages, but also serves as a short-term measure to return some degree of equilibrium to the food market,” he told the summit.
Ban said it was also essential for the Doha round of World Trade Organization talks to be completed as quickly as possible to alleviate the crisis.
“We have a historic opportunity to revitalise agriculture,” Ban told some 50 heads of state and government, gathered for the three-day summit.
“I call on you to take bold and urgent steps to address the root causes of this global food crisis,” he said at the Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome.
With food prices at a 30-year high, the UN secretary general warned that while the world must “respond immediately,” it must also put the long-term focus on “improving food security.”
Food prices have doubled in three years, according to the World Bank, sparking riots in Egypt and Haiti and in many African nations. Brazil, Vietnam, India and Egypt have all imposed food export restrictions.
Rising use of biofuels, trade restrictions, increased demand from Asia to serve changing diets, poor harvests and increasing transport costs have all been blamed for the price rise.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said two billion people across the world are struggling with high food prices, and 100 million extra people in poor countries may be pushed into poverty by the crisis.
The summit opened amid controversy over the presence of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
Britain’s International Development Minister Douglas Alexander said he would snub Mugabe at the summit, telling AFP his attendance was “obscene.”
UN agencies have launched appeals for more than one billion dollars to alleviate the food crisis. Saudi Arabia has already given 500 million dollars to a World Food Programme appeal.
But the charity Oxfam has accused the international community of spending a “pittance” on supporting agriculture in developing countries compared to the huge support given to farmers in rich Western countries.
Oxfam stressed that European and North American biofuel policies are only one of several factors causing higher food prices.
Estimates vary on the extent to which demand for biofuels has pushed up food prices, ranging from 30 percent by some experts to less than three percent according to the US Agriculture Department.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defended biofuels, saying they could be an “important tool” against food insecurity.
“Biofuels are not bandits … We must remove the smokescreen of powerful lobbies that blame ethanol production for the rise in food prices. It’s a mockery, an affront,” he said.
FAO Director General Jacques Diouf lamented the failure to reach a goal set by the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome of reducing the number of hungry by half by 2015.
“With current trends, the summit’s goal will be attained in 2150 instead of 2015,” he said.
Afp, Tokyo, The Daily Star, 18 May 2008
The head of the UN food agency urged Japan and other rich nations to give priority to aid for agriculture to solve the current global food crisis.
Japan has pledged to put the food crisis on the agenda when it hosts the annual summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations in July
