Food Prices Climbing, With No End in Sight
by Abra Pollock
WASHINGTON - Globalisation, climate change, and the mass production of biofuels are pushing up food prices worldwide, which could jeopardise the livelihoods of the world’s poorest, according to a report released Tuesday by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
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“Food prices have been steadily decreasing since the Green Revolution, but the days of falling food prices may be over,” said Joachim von Braun, lead author of the report and director general of IFPRI.
Titled, “The World Food Situation: New Driving Forces and Required Actions”, the 16-page report examined how various global trends are impacting world hunger on both the supply and demand ends of the market.
“Surging demand for feed, food, and fuel have recently led to drastic price increases, which are not likely to fall in the foreseeable future,” von Braun said. But “climate change will also have a negative impact on food production.”
Similar findings have been reported by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, according to IFPRI.
Researchers predict that shifting weather conditions resulting from climate change will disrupt rainfall patterns that farmers rely on to nourish their crops and water the grasslands that feed their livestock. As a result, cereal production in South Asia could drop 22 percent by 2080, while wheat production in Africa may virtually disappear by that time, the report said.
Furthermore, temperature increases of more than three degrees Celsius could in turn lift food prices by as much as 40 percent.
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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/06/5656/