usatoday

Feb 16, 2011

World Bank: High food prices push 44 million into poverty

09:18 AM

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

Residents hold up their food tickets as they queue at a food distribution centre at an informal settlers area in Manila on Feb. 16, Rising food prices have pushed about 44 million people into poverty in developing countries since last June, the World Bank warns in a new report.

CAPTION

By Ted Aljibe, AFP/Getty Images

Rising food prices have pushed about 44 million people into poverty in developing countries since last June as food costs near peak 2008 levels, the World Bank warns in a new report.
The bank's food price index, which jumped 15% between Oct. 2010 and Jan. 2011, is 29% higher than a year ago and only 3% below its 2008 peak, according to the report released Tuesday.

World food prices jumped 15% between Oct. 2010 and Jan. 2011 and are now 29% higher than at this time last year, the World Bank reports.

CAPTION

By World Bank

"Global food prices are rising to dangerous levels and threaten tens of millions of poor people around the world," World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said in announcing the findings. Citing food riots in 2008, he said the rising prices are not "the primary cause" for current political instability in the Middle East but have been "an aggravating factor that could become more serious."
The report comes as finance ministers convene Friday in Paris for a two-day G20 meeting and as the United Nation's top climate official, Christiana Figueres, warns of the destabilizing effects created by growing water stress, declining crop yields and damage from extreme storms.
"It is alarming to admit that if the community of nations is unable to fully stabilize climate change, it will threaten where we can live, where and how we grow food and where we can find water," Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat, said Tuesday in a speech


The World Bank report, entitled Food Price Watch, says people pushed into extreme poverty, defined as less than $1.25 a day per person, often suffer malnutrition as they eat less nutritious food and less overall. It finds global wheat prices doubled and maize prizes jumped 73% between June 2010 and Jan. 2011.


It says two factors have prevented even more people from falling into poverty: the price of rice, a staple in many developing countries, has increased at a moderate rate and good harvests in many African countries have kept prices stable.


The World Bank says its Global Food Crisis Response Program is helping 40 million people through $1.5 billion in food relief and loans to improve agriculture. In a Dec. 2008 report, its economists estimated that 105 million people had fallen into extreme poverty, then defined as $1 a day per person.
(usatoday.com)
================================================