Poor starve as food prices set to rise 40pc
Pastor Dale Morgan
Poor starve as food prices set to rise 40pc*
From correspondents in Rome
May 24, 2008 04:07am
Article from: The Courier-Mail
THE world's poorest nations could pay 40 per cent more for food this
year than they did last year because of rising prices, according to a
United Nations report released yesterday.
This meant the numbers of hungry people could increase by many millions,
said Hafez Ghanem, the assistant director-general of the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation.
In order to feed growing demand, agricultural production would have to
increase 50 per cent by 2030, he told a news conference.
While the FAO's latest figures put 2008 world cereal production at
record output levels, this only represents a 3.8 per cent increase over
2007. Food shortages and subsequent price hikes have disproportionately
affected the world's poor, setting off riots in many countries.
"Food is no longer the cheap commodity that it once was. Rising food
prices are bound to worsen the already unacceptable level of food
deprivation suffered by 854 million people," Mr Ghanem said.
The FAO is hosting a food security summit on June 3-5 in Rome to address
the global food crisis.
The crisis has reached Australia's doorstep with aid group Church World
Service warning yesterday that climate change and rising prices were
helping to push malnutrition in the Indonesian half-island of West Timor
to levels "higher than in Africa".
A survey of 4800 households by the group found 61.1 per cent of children
under five in the region were stunted due to chronic malnutrition, while
13.1 per cent of children were acutely malnourished.
"The prevalence of stunting and underweight children in West Timor is
higher than in Africa," Julia Suryantan, the lead author of the report,
told reporters.
About 50 per cent of West Timorese children - out of a total population
of up to two million - were moderately or severely underweight, compared
with a figure of 21.9 per cent in Africa overall, according to the report.
"It's a complex situation in West Timor. They have a food security
problem there and also limited access to health services," she said.
Ms Suryantan said the half-island in Indonesia's east, which is drier
than much of the tropical archipelago, was suffering as subsistence
farmers faced declining rainfall due to climate change.
"Before they could plant enough corn for one year but now it only lasts
them eight months," she said, adding that higher prices mean many
families cannot afford to eat well.