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
Chicago wheat prices rose by the most in more than five years, breaching $12 a bushel for the first time as investors poured money into agricultural commodities on signs that global crop production isn't keeping pace with demand. Global wheat stockpiles will probably fall to a 30-year low this year, while corn inventories are headed for the lowest since 1984, the US department of agriculture said on February 8. Almost $1.5 billion flowed into farm commodities in the week to February 19, investment bank UBS AG said in an e-mailed report on Monday. Wheat, soybeans, corn and palm oil are among commodities that touched records this month, stoking prices of bread, pasta and noodles worldwide. The gains have driven up costs for food Companies from Kellogg Co to Nissin Food Products Co and complicated efforts to curb prices in China, India and Malaysia. "Speculators keep jumping into the market as supplies are very tight globally, especially spring wheat,' Takaki Shigemoto, an analyst with Tokyo-based commodity broker Okachi & Co. Dry conditions in some wheat-producing areas in northern China and also lent support, he said. Wheat for May delivery rose by the daily limit of 90 cents, or 8%, to $12.145 a bushel in after-hours trading on the Chicago Board of Trade, the biggest one-day percentage gain since October 2002. Record prices, led by scarce high-protein varieties, have not deterred buyers. Export sales from the US, the world's largest shipper of the grain, are up 56% since June 1 compared with the same period a year earlier. Global wheat stockpiles may fall to 109.7 million metric tonne by May 31, while corn inventories may decline to 101.9 million tonne as of October 1, the US government estimated on February 8. US inventories of wheat will drop to 7.4 million tonne, the lowest for the end of the marketing year since 1948, according to the USDA. Hard-red spring varieties, traded in Minneapolis, are in short supply as dry weather curbed output last year in the US and Canada. On the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, wheat for May delivery advanced $1.35, or 7.9%, to $18.4325 a bushel. The March contract, which has no limit because it is the closest to delivery, rose as high as $24.26 a bushel, after Monday becoming the first US wheat contract to top $20 a bushel. On the Kansas City Board of Trade, hard-red winter wheat for May delivery also rose as much as the 90-cent limit, or 7.7%, to $12.65 a bushel. Q4 earnings at Kellogg Co, fell 3.3% as price increases failed to keep pace with the higher expense of making Eggos, Frosted Mini-Wheat cereal and cookies.
Wheat growers have expressed disappointment over the wheat procurement price of Rs510 per 40 kg fixed by the government and expressed apprehensions that wheat might be smuggled to neighbouring countries if incentives were not offered to growers. Sindh Abadgar Board president Abdul Majeed Nizamani said the procurement price should have been between Rs700 and Rs800 per 40 kg in view of the fact that phosphate fertiliser (DAP) was available at Rs2,500 per bag. He said: "Wheat production can be increased by over 50 million maunds if an attractive procurement price is announced because there is still time to give some inputs to the standing crop. Wheat is cultivated on around 17 million acres of land.' He said wheat had not been cultivated on around five lakh acres due to the late harvesting of sugarcane and according to Sindh secretary agriculture's figures, wheat was sown on 20 per cent less land than the fixed target, and according to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, the sowing was 15 per cent less. SAB general secretary Mahmood Nawaz Shah said that imported wheat cost Rs1,050 per 40 kg and the government should have fixed the price at around Rs650 per 40kg.
Political parties have been demanding parity with wheat for kharif season NEW DELHI: The Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices has recommended that the minimum support price (MSP) for paddy be fixed at Rs. 1,000 a quintal for the common variety and at Rs. 1,050 a quintal for the A grade variety for the 2008-09 kharif marketing season. Several political parties have been demanding that the support price for paddy be raised to Rs. 1,000 a quintal to bring it on a par with wheat. The support price for wheat this rabi is Rs. 1,000 a quintal as against Rs. 850 a quintal last year. The MSP for paddy at present is Rs. 745 a quintal for the common variety and Rs. 775 a quintal for the A grade. This included a bonus of Rs. 100 a quintal announced by the Central government after several political parties exerted pressure to raise it. The Commission said the estimated costs of paddy production put out by State governments were "much higher' than those estimated under the Comprehensive Scheme of the Directorate of Economic and Statistics. It, however, warned of an overall increase in the price of essential commodities in 2008-09 due to the "tight supply position.' The CACP suggested that the MSP for jowar be fixed at Rs. 840 (hybrid) and Rs. 840 (maldandi). For maize and and bajra, it recommended a support price of Rs. 840. It said the MSP for tur (arhar) could be Rs. 2,000, moong Rs. 2,520 and urad Rs. 3,520. The MSP it recommended for groundnut was Rs. 2,100, soyabean (black) Rs. 1,350 and soyabean (yellow) Rs. 1,390. The MSP for sunflower should be Rs. 2,215, nigerseed Rs. 2,405 and sesamum Rs. 2,750, it said. It recommended that the support price for cotton be Rs. 2,500 for a staple length of 24.5-25.5 mm and Rs. 3,000 for a staple length of 29.5-30.5 mm. In its recommendation to the Ministry of Agriculture, the Commission said it had taken into account the cost of inputs for all crops based on consultations with all stakeholders including State governments, scientists, farmers, millers and traders. The Ministry will take a view on the Commission's recommendations before placing them in the Union Cabinet for approval.
Chief of Army Staff General Moeen U Ahmed called for utilising every inch of land for boosting food output. He made the remark while addressing a rally on the Char Jubli Habib Ullah Mia Hat High School premises in Subornachar upazila yesterday. "Import of food would not solve the food deficit problem nor will it bring down prices of rice. Food deficit has to be solved through boosting production,' he said, calling for utilising 30 crore hands of 15 crore people. General Moeen told the audience that two-thirds of allocated money of development projects used to be wasted earlier.
A food crisis looms large in Bangladesh after two waves of floods and a cyclone. Three natural disasters within four months have ruined the late-monsoon aman paddy, the second major cereal crop in
Wheat prices may rise further because farmers in India, the world's second-biggest grower, may harvest a smaller crop after dry weather delayed planting. The crop may decline 5 per cent to as low as 72 million metric tonnes in the March-April harvest from 75.8 million tonnes a year earlier, S Pramod Kumar, president of Karnataka Roller Flour Mills Association, said yesterday. That's less than the government estimate of 74.8 million tonnes.
Some of the most profound and direct impacts of climate change over the next few decades will be on agricultural and food systems. A research by Lobell et al show that increasing temperatures and declining precipitation over semiarid regions are likely to reduce yields for corn, wheat, rice, and other primary crops in the next two decades. These changes could have a substantial impact on global food security.
The recent rapid increases in the international prices of many basic food commodities have raised many questions from policy-makers, the media, the public, and the farmers who have the opportunity to benefit from the situation.
China has levied taxes on exports of food grains such as wheat, corn, rice and soybean from January 1, 2008. The move is apparently aimed at reining in surging domestic food prices, which have driven
