Rising food prices to push 100 million into deep poverty: WB
Rising food prices has come on the agenda of the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organistion(FAO) which warned that it could push 100 million people into deep poverty and hit hard the poorest countries.
By PTI |
WASHINGTON: Rising food prices has come on the agenda of the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organistion(FAO) which warned that it could push 100 million people into deep poverty and hit hard the poorest countries.
The grim warnings by the top UN agencies, which wanted governments to quickly put urgent measures to avert a global food crisis, came amid mounting alarm at the social and political upheavals that world leaders fear could be triggered by spiralling prices of cereals.
"Based on a rough analysis, we estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty," Zoellick said in a statement at the conclusion of the World Bank spring meeting here.
The FAO cautioned that the fast rising food prices will hit hard the poorest countries whose cereal import is expected to rise by 56 per cent in 2007-2008. The report comes over and above the 37 per cent increase it had witnessed in 2006-2007.
As many as 37 countries worldwide are facing shortage of cereals. Among them China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Vietnam are facing severe localised food insecurity and Afghanistan widespread lack of access, it said.
"We have to put our money where our mouth is now so that we can put food into hungry mouths. It's as stark as that," Zoellick said.
"This is not just a question about short-term needs, as important as those are. This is about ensuring that future generations don't pay a price too," he added.
IMF managing director Dominque Strauss-Kahn had also warned that "Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today... the consequences will be terrible."
"As we know, learning from the past, those kind of questions sometimes end in war," Straus-Kahn warned.
The grim warnings by the top UN agencies, which wanted governments to quickly put urgent measures to avert a global food crisis, came amid mounting alarm at the social and political upheavals that world leaders fear could be triggered by spiralling prices of cereals.
"Based on a rough analysis, we estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty," Zoellick said in a statement at the conclusion of the World Bank spring meeting here.
The FAO cautioned that the fast rising food prices will hit hard the poorest countries whose cereal import is expected to rise by 56 per cent in 2007-2008. The report comes over and above the 37 per cent increase it had witnessed in 2006-2007.
As many as 37 countries worldwide are facing shortage of cereals. Among them China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Vietnam are facing severe localised food insecurity and Afghanistan widespread lack of access, it said.
"We have to put our money where our mouth is now so that we can put food into hungry mouths. It's as stark as that," Zoellick said.
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"This is not just a question about short-term needs, as important as those are. This is about ensuring that future generations don't pay a price too," he added.
IMF managing director Dominque Strauss-Kahn had also warned that "Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today... the consequences will be terrible."
"As we know, learning from the past, those kind of questions sometimes end in war," Straus-Kahn warned.
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