Record crop production to ease food crisis

[N.Sukumar]

WASHINGTON: Good weather will help the world's farmers reap record
wheat and rice crops this year, the US government said on Friday,
which should allay fears of shortages and help bring prices down from
current high levels.

The US Agriculture Department also forecast a record global crop of
feed grain, used to feed livestock. The USDA announcement was expected
to calm fears of food shortages, worsened by the cyclone that hit
Myanmar's rich rice-producing Irrawaddy delta last week, and by a
larger than expected 500,000 tonne Malaysian rice purchase on
Thursday.

Disappointing harvests, the boom in biofuels and higher meat
consumption have pushed up grain prices in the past two years, raising
food prices and sparking protests in some 40 poorer countries whose
people have felt the effect most strongly.

Officials at the UN Human Rights Council said it would hold a special
session on May 23 to assess the effect of the food crisis on the right
to food of millions of people suffering from high prices, notably in
sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

"We're keeping our fingers crossed that we get good harvests this
year ... and that it brings prices down some from their high peaks,"
said analyst David Orden of the International Food Policy Research
Institute, a think tank.

Even with bountiful crops, Orden said, larger international food aid
efforts would be vital because prices would be higher than usual for
the next couple of years at least. The USDA said the world wheat crop
would rise 8 percent to a record 656 million tonnes in 2008/09.

N.Sukumar
Research Analyst