World menaced by food price rise
https://www.ipn.md/en/world-menaced-by-food-price-rise-7967_969231.html
High food prices are threatening recent gains in overcoming poverty and malnutrition, and are likely to persist over the medium term, says a new World Bank (WB) Group policy note, quoted by Info-Prim Neo.
“Poor people are suffering daily from the impact of high food prices, especially in urban areas and in low income countries,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick. “In some countries, hard-won gains in overcoming poverty may now be reversed.”
According to Rising Food Prices: Policy Options and World Bank Response, increases in global wheat prices reached 181 percent over the 36 months leading up to February 2008. Food crop prices are expected to remain high in 2008 and 2009 and then begin to decline, but they are likely to remain well above the 2004 levels through 2015 for most food crops.
According to the Note through which the WB announces it changes its policy in this respect, while households that are net producers may benefit from higher prices, price increases for staple foods will increase poverty in several countries.
Increased bio-fuel production has contributed to the rise in food prices, according to the report. Concerns over oil prices, energy security and climate change have prompted governments to increase bio-fuel production and use leading to greater demand for raw materials including: wheat, soy, maize and palm oil. Food price hikes are also linked to higher energy and fertilizer prices, a weak dollar and export bans.
The report notes that many governments are already taking action. Some are expanding targeted safety nets, such as cash transfer programs to vulnerable groups, food-for-work programs, or emergency food aid distribution.
In its turn, the World Bank seeks to help out countries by calling on the international community to make up the $500 million food gap required by the UN's World Food Program to meet emergency needs. The WB is going to make agriculture a priority, doubling agriculture lending in Africa in Fiscal Year 2009 - from $400 million to $800 million.
Last week, Zoellick called for a New Deal for Global Food Policy to focus not only on hunger and malnutrition, access to food and its supply, but also on the interconnections with energy, yields, climate change, investment, and the marginalization of women.
