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World food stocks dwindling
rapidly, UN warns
Elisabeth Rosenthal
IHT
Tuesday December 18, 2007
In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world
food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to
historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the
United Nations warned Monday.
The changes created "a very serious risk that fewer people
will be able to get food," particularly in the developing
world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization.
The agency's food price index rose by more than 40 percent this
year, compared with 9 percent the year before - a rate that was
already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total
cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25
percent, to $107 million, in the last year.
At the same time, reserves of cereals are severely depleted,
FAO records show. World wheat stores declined 11 percent this
year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks
of the world's total consumption - much less than the average
of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005.
There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the
earlier period.
(Article continues below)
Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs, Diouf said
Monday. Wheat prices have risen by $130 per ton, or 52 percent,
since a year ago. U.S. wheat futures broke $10 a bushel for the
first time Monday, the agricultural equivalent of $100 a barrel
oil. (Page 16)
Diouf blamed a confluence of recent supply and demand factors for
the crisis, and he predicted that those factors were here to stay.
On the supply side, these include the early effects of global warming,
which has decreased crop yields in some crucial places, and a shift
away from farming for human consumption toward crops for biofuels
and cattle feed. Demand for grain is increasing with the world population,
and more is diverted to feed cattle as the population of upwardly
mobile meat-eaters grows.
"We're concerned that we are facing the perfect storm for
the world's hungry," said Josette Sheeran, executive director
of the World Food Program, in a telephone interview. She said
that her agency's food procurement costs had gone up 50 percent
in the past 5 years and that some poor people are being "priced
out of the food market."
Full
article here.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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