Recent spikes in staple food prices resulting from the invasion of Ukraine have once again highlighted the difficulty faced by low-income countries that rely on imports for a substantial portion of their
Rome: World food production must rise by 50% by 2030 to meet increasing demand, UN chief Ban Ki-moon told world leaders on Tuesday at a summit grappling with hunger and civil unrest caused by food price hikes. The secretary-general told the Rome summit that nations must minimize export restrictions and import tariffs during the food price crisis and quickly resolve world trade talks. "The world needs to produce more food,' Ban said.
Soaring prices at Europe's superMarkets and petrol stations require a coordinated response by the world's top eight economies rather than fiscal or monetary policy changes, EU finance ministers said on Tuesday. "We have to accept external shocks and we have to discuss (this) at a multilateral level," said Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia ahead of a monthly meeting of the EU's finance ministers.
At FAO summit, Ban reminds world leaders of the severity and scale of crisis U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon mapped out a twin-track strategy to tackle soaring food prices as world leaders met for a three-day summit on Tuesday in a global response to the food crisis. "You all know about the severity and scale of the global food crisis. Before this emergency, more than 850 million people in the world were short of food,' said Mr. Ban at the summit, hosted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
by Harender Raj Gautam THE Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations is holding an emergency meeting of heads of states from June 3 to 5, 2008, to discuss "World Food Security and the Challenges of Climate Change and Bio-energy.' World foodgrain stocks are at historic lows and there is enough only for three months. World over, food prices have almost doubled in the last three years, threatening to push 100 million people into absolute poverty. The threat of hunger and malnutrition is growing. Millions of the world's most vulnerable people are at risk.
Rich countries came under attack yesterday at the United Nations food summit for their biofuel subsidies and production targets, declining spending on development aid for agriculture and large subsidies to European and US farmers. Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, told heads of state and governments gathered in Rome that "nobody" understood why cereals had been diverted from human consumption "mostly to satisfy a thirst for fuel vehicles".
European Union finance ministers struggled yesterday to forge a response to food and fuel price inflation, proposing remedies from windfall taxes on oil companies to the suspension of various food import tariffs. Several ministers, notably Wilhelm Molterer of Austria, denounced what they termed "speculation" on commodities futures markets, saying it partly accounted for recent increases in food and oil prices. But the attack attracted little support and was omitted from a letter to EU heads of state and government, who will discuss food price inflation at a Brussels summit on June 19.
India is facing growing pressure from African countries to exempt them from export ban on rice implemented by New Delhi to curb domestic food price inflation. The pressure illustrates how efforts by large producers such as India to control a sharp rise in food costs are hurting poor nations and giving rise to a form of rice diplomacy. "I have a minister from Mali (here)," said Kamal Nath, India's commerce and industries 1 minister, in an interview with the Financial Times.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe defended land policies blamed for devastating his country's agricultural sector, asserting at a U.N. food summit Tuesday that the West was trying to cripple the nation's economy. Mugabe's presence at a summit addressing high global food prices sparked protests from some world leaders. He is blamed for the economic collapse of a country once considered a regional breadbasket and Zimbabweans increasingly are unable to afford food and other essentials. MUGABE SLAMMED: Critics attack Zimbabwean for attending summit
Biofuel subsidies came under attack on Tuesday at the opening of the United Nations food summit in Rome as the head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation claimed that "nobody" understood the diversion of food to fuel cars. The opening salvo is likely to set the tone for the next three days and put countries such as the US and Brazil, the world's largest biofuel producers, and also the European Union, on the defensive over their support of biofuel production.
Some rice-producing nations may drop their reluctance to use genetically modified (GM) seeds in the next few years to help offset a crisis that has forced millions to go hungry, a top expert said. "If we consider the challenges that face us, I think we would be very foolish and actually irresponsible to not invest in the development of GM crops," said Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
