The FAO and IFAD say food prices will increase, and governments need to manage their agricultural policies better

The global food crisis has come in for special mention from both the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Director General of the FAO, Jacques Diouf, warned on April 10, 2008, that the “world food situation is very serious today”. In New Delhi, where he met India’s Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Diouf said that the wrong policies of the last 10-20 years had created a situation today where food riots have occurred in several countries in Africa and could spread to other countries as well.

He said the FAO had warned of the impending crisis a year ago, but the warning had not been headed by governments. The organisation, which has 191 members, has called an emergency meeting in Rome in June to discuss the food security situation. Diouf said world food stocks were at their lowest levels since 1980, enough only to feed the population for eight or 12 weeks.

He said increased demand from big developing countries such as India and China, diversion of productive land to produce bio-fuels to counter the energy shortage, and high input costs and low yields had caused the shortages. He urged governments to invest more in agriculture and to allow small farmers better access to seeds and fertiliser.

Developing countries will be more badly hit by rising food prices, he said, because people there spend 50-60% of their income on food, while in developed countries they spend just 10%.

Lennart Bage, President of the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), also said he was “very concerned” about the global food crisis which would hit the poorest the hardest.

In an interview published in Outlook magazine, he said there was a likelihood of food getting more expensive especially because land was being diverted to producing bio-fuels. He said it would be a problem for India too, but India was “less vulnerable than smaller and more impoverished countries, which depend more on food imports. India is a strong country and has strong institutions”.

He pointed out that there are opportunities for India if prices come down but stay at a higher level than in the last five years because the country has strong potential in producing “a vast array of grains and foodstuffs and also, over time, in food processing”.

However, in all this, “one has to ensure that the large base of small landholders is used to provide input for the agricultural industry... use it to add value,” he said.

Source: Outlook, April 14, 2008
            Hindustan Times, April 10, 2008