The United Nations, which is trying to reach out to nearly a billion undernourished people, some living in perpetual hunger, is anticipating another food crisis later this year. And the signs of impending trouble have been there for some time.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned last week that world market prices for rice, wheat, sugar, barley and meat will remain high or register significant rises in 2011 - perhaps replicating the crisis of 2007-2008. Rob Vos, director of development policy and analysis at the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), told IPS that higher food prices are already affecting many developing countries. He said countries like India and a number of other East and South Asian countries are facing double-digit inflation, mainly caused by higher food prices - alongside higher energy prices.
The short-term implications are not only that the poor are especially heavily affected - and that more people could be pushed into poverty - but also that it will hamper the recovery in the countries facing higher inflation as consumers lose purchasing power, he noted.
"Food riots and civil unrest affected some 30 countries in 2008, and this can be repeated today since the situation has not changed in the last three years," said Mousseau, author of 'The High Food Price Challenge: A Review of Responses to Combat Hunger.' The most vulnerable countries are those which are the most dependent on food imports and the least able to handle high prices in international markets through public mechanism and public policy, he noted.
According to the FAO price index released last week, the price of a basket of cereals, oil seeds, dairy, meat and sugar has continued to rise for six consecutive months.
Abdolreza Abbassian, an FAO economist, was quoted by a London daily as saying: "We are entering danger territory."
