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
The sweltering summer heat has continued to send more people, mainly children and elderly, suffering from diarrhoea and crowding hospitals in Dhaka city and other parts of the country. A two-year girl, Ria Moni, of Narayanganj died Tuesday on way to ICDDR,B hospital at Mohakhali in Dhaka, her family said. At least one person died and 11,861 others infected with diarrhoea in past seven days, according to the control room of the health directorate that complies reports from public hospitals in districts.
"Banning exports and going after traders is not going to prevent shooting up of prices. This is based on a false assumption. And planting Jatropha instead of soyabean will only end up tripling of food prices,' Vandana Shiva, eminent environmentalist said. Substituting food crops with alternatives such as jatropha will only end up in the extinction of agriculture she said. Shiva blamed the build up of fossil fuel infrastructure for the rise in prices.
The Asian Development Bank on Tuesday criticised rice export bans, saying governments should instead resort to fiscal measures to help the poor, as prices of the staple continued to climb. While Indonesia promised more support to its farmers to encourage them to sell their produce to the government, signs China may extend rice exports this year came as a relief for the market scrambling for cargoes after bans by India and Vietnam.
Developed nations should stop paying agricultural subsidies to encourage biofuel production because the payments are making staple foods more expensive, the Asian Development Bank said Monday. Biofuels should also be re-examined by governments around the world as it is increasingly unclear how environmentally friendly they are, said ADB managing director general Rajat Nag in an interview with The Associated Press in Singapore. The production of biofuel leads to forests being destroyed and reduced land area for growing crops for food, he said.
Even as the World Trade Organisation director general Pascal Lamy is expecting a break-through in the Doha Round negotiations in the next few weeks, several countries, including India, are expected to factor in rising food prices and use of bio-fuels in their discussions. However, this will not necessarily lead to a change in the strategies of individual countries on tariffs and subsidies, an official in the know of developments at WTO said.
AMID the intense suffering and pain generated by food inflation, our understanding of its causes is getting murkier. This issue is, predictably but unfortunately, getting increasingly politicised. Any sound and sustainable solution requires a sound understanding of the issue. Food inflation is now a macro and global phenomenon. Global price developments are pushing food prices higher all over the world. But vocal and populist, and often fact-free, debates at home are suggesting otherwise.
Egypt is to review its food subsidy system as it seeks ways to tackle rising inflation, which reached 14.2 per cent in March. Youssef Boutros-Ghali, finance minister, told the Financial Times that the government would look to raise additional revenues through new taxes or increasing existing taxes. However, he said corporate taxes, which were reduced in recent years as part of wider economic reforms, would not be altered, adding that no tariffs that impacted "on profit and production" would be increased.
AND all nations came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain because everywhere the famine was severe:" Genesis 41:57 The Old Testament. The World Bank chief, Robert Zoellick, recently said that the demand for ethanol, droughts in Australia and Europe, financial market speculation, and increased demand for food due to rising incomes in China and India, has significantly contributed to "soaring" food prices around the world.
Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops. In Japan and South Korea, some manufacturers for the first time have begun buying genetically engineered corn for use in soft drinks, snacks and other foods. Until now, to avoid consumer backlash, the companies have paid extra to buy conventionally grown corn. But with prices having tripled in two years, it has become too expensive to be so finicky.
Record global food prices will be on the agenda of the Group of Eight heads of state summit in July for the first time in almost 30 years, amid mounting concerns about the social, political and economic impact of the food crisis. The International Monetary Fund on Monday gave its starkest warning about the impact of rising commodities, saying food and oil prices "risk becoming a destabilising force in the global economy'. Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's prime minister, said in a letter to his G8 colleagues that soaring food prices were posing "imminent and serious' global challenges.
