Record food prices to climb through 2010
mongabay.com
March 6, 2008
The U.N. expects record high food prices to continue through 2010, driving hunger and poverty in the world's poorest countries, said a top U.N. official Thursday.
Speaking in Brussels at a meeting with European Union officials, Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations' World Food Programme, said the world "has now entered a perfect storm for the world's hungry" driven by the high oil and crop prices.
"Our assessment is that the current level will continue for the next few years ... in fact rise in 2008, 2009 and probably at least until 2010."
Sheeran said the convergence of food and oil production — triggered by rising demand for biofuels — have made conditions ripe for a global food crisis for the world's poor.
No reprieve for the hungry. The U.N. FAO's global food price index rose 40 percent in 2007 to the highest level on record. Last Monday wheat prices jumped 25 percent.
"This is leading to a new face of hunger in the world, what we call the newly hungry. These are people who have money, but have been priced out of being able to buy food," she said. "Higher food prices will increase social unrest in a number of countries which are sensitive to inflationary pressures and are import-dependent. We will see a repeat of the riots we have already reported on the streets such as we have seen in Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Senegal."
"Governments need to look more carefully at the link between the acceleration in biofuels and food supply," Sheeran continued. "We are not seeing any benefits to small farmers, particularly in the less-developed world. This land could be better used."
"This is not a short-term bubble and will definitely continue," Sheeran concluded.
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