Rising food prices

Einar Kjelland-Fosterud — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:27:16 -0500

Don't forget the population explosion! A major cause of increasing food prices must be increasing population. We used to hope that increasing standard of life lead to slower population growth, but this seems not to be true in India and in Muslim countries.

Ban Ki-moon Writes About the Challenge of Rising Food Prices

Francisco Noguera — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:38:23 -0500

March 12, 2008 - 08:00, The Washington Post

The New Face Of Hunger

Story Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/11/AR2008031102462.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Teaser:

The price of food is soaring. The threat of hunger and malnutrition is growing. Millions of the world's most vulnerable people are at risk.

An effective and urgent response is needed.

The first of the Millennium Development Goals, set by world leaders at the U.N. summit in 2000, aims to reduce the proportion of hungry people by half by 2015. This was already a major challenge, not least in Africa, where many nations have fallen behind. But we are also facing a perfect storm of new challenges.

The prices of basic staples -- wheat, corn, rice -- are at record highs, up 50 percent or more in the past six months. Global food stocks are at historic lows. The causes range from rising demand in major economies such as India and China to climate- and weather-related events such as hurricanes, floods and droughts that have devastated harvests in many parts of the world. High oil prices have increased the cost of transporting food and purchasing fertilizer. Some experts say the rise of biofuels has reduced the amount of food available for humans.

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Rising food prices

Ban Ki-moon Writes About the Challenge of Rising Food Prices