UN debates global food cost rise

Just because the issue of food prices has not been in the headlines recently it has not gone away.

Although prices have fallen from the highs recorded during the unprecedented spike at the beginning of 2008, they have not fallen back to where they had been before the crisis began.

And many of the factors that contributed to the rise then are still driving prices up.

These include competition with biofuels for scarce land, worsening agricultural productivity, the increasing proportion of people living in cities, and the effects of climate change threatening harvests.

Since an emergency summit meeting in Rome last June, the UN has set up a task force to coordinate action on food, now headed by Dr David Nabarro, who established a troubleshooting reputation when he led the UN response to the threat of bird flu.

Ahead of a two-day meeting in Madrid designed to put fresh momentum into the food price issue, Dr Nabarro said: “The worldwide economic crash did not put an end to the food crisis; instead, it complicates and exacerbates the situation.”

BBC