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
AMID deepening hunger crisis, Bangladesh is gradually beginning to stand on her own feet. One standing crop, Boro, is going to change the scenario. The impact of the healthy farm condition is being reflected in the wholesale and retail markets of staple foods, and the prices are going down everyday. The lines in the Open Market Sales (OMS) shops are shortening gradually.
A senior World Bank official said on Thursday that countries should not greatly increase biofuels production until there is more clarity about how much they have contributed to the global food price crisis. Juergen Voegele, director for agriculture and rural development department at the World Bank, cautioned against shifting a lot of the blame to biofuels but also said massive subsidies for the biofuel industry was not helping the crisis.
A new company hopes drivers will kick the oil habit by brewing ethanol at home that won't spike food prices. E-Fuel Corp unveiled on Thursday the "MicroFueler" touting it as the world's first machine that allows homeowners to make their own ethanol and pump the brew directly into their cars. The portable unit that sells for $10,000 resembles a gasoline station pump and nozzle -- minus the slot for a credit card, or the digital "SALE" numbers that whir ever faster at retail pumps as global demand pushes fuel prices to record levels.
Commodity market regulator Forward Market Commission on Thursday raised doubt over government's decision on Wednesday to ban futures trading in four agricultural commodities to control inflation. Its chairman BC Khatua said it is quite unfortunate that government banned four items despite there is no firm evidence that inflation is linked to futures trading. Khatua, however, assured investors that he would make efforts to bring back all eight banned commodities on the exchange platform.
When Shri Bush and Kumari Condoleezza Rice talk about rising prices of food and pass the buck of their failure to grow enough food for the American people onto the growing middle classes of what were once-upon-a-time third world countries, they merely endorse the fact that India and China are no longer dependent but instead, economically powerful and making a strong, determined impact on the rich Western world led by the United States of America. The Iraq war has debilitated America and exposed its many warts
India, a major importer of pulses, is faced with a delay in shipments of urad and tur owing to the cyclone in Myanmar, a major exporting nation. With an annual supply of 1.5 million tonnes of pulses to India, Myanmar accounts for almost 50 per cent of the country's annual pulses imports. "The cyclone would lead to a one-month delay in shipments of urad and tur. Shipments to the tune of 50,000 tonnes is estimated to have been stuck," said K C Bhartiya, president of the Pulses Importers Association.
Even as the world faces an unprecedented shortage in items of staple food and the consequent rise in global prices, President George W Bush has brewed up another storm in a tea-cup by holding India responsible. According to his logic, growing prosperity amongst the Indian middle-class has led to demand on its part for better food, causing prices to sky-rocket. The latest Bushism is just a take-off from what his Secretary of State had asserted earlier.
The government's decision to suspend futures trading in four more agri commodities has come under fire from the committee which studied the impact of trading of essential items on their prices but found no conclusive evidence. The committee's chairperson and members today expressed their disappointment calling the decision "irrational". "It is obvious that the government has taken a decision without taking our view into consideration. There is a bit of overreaction," chairman of the committee and Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen told Business Standard.
Grameen, the pioneering microlending institution, has seen a sharp rise in problems for millions of poor borrowers across the developing world in repaying loans as food prices soar, according to Muhammad Yunus, its founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Food prices have jumped in the past year, sparking riots in more than 30 countries and rising protectionism as governments seek to ensure food supplies.
At your local kirana store, the middle income upwardly mobile Indian can be found buying branded atta which he proudly takes home and also a kilo of jwar and makka which he buys daily to feed the pigeons in his neighbourhood locality square. A mile away in a squatters colony, under a plastic shed a family of 5 also buys 1 kilo of makka daily to feed their hungry stomachs.
