UN agencies caution about food riots

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New Delhi, April 9: The chiefs of UN agencies – FAO, UNIDO and IFAD – have cautioned about food riots in the near future if corrective steps were not taken in time. They expressed concerns over the rising food prices across the world.

Briefing mediapersons in New Delhi on Wednesday, the director-general of UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Jacques Diouf said: "World food prices have risen 45% in the last nine months and there are serious shortages of rice, wheat and maize."

He singled out bio-fuel programme as one of the major contributing factor to the global price rise as it has caused diversion of farmland from food to fuel crops and the prices of bio-fuels which scaled up in tandem with the prices of fossil fuels in turn affected the food prices.

The heads of the three UN agencies are here in India to participate in the meeting of the Global Agro-Industries Forum.

Diouf also said that the climate change has had its impact like droughts, floods and natural calamities at places. He called for smoothening of the demand-supply chain. He informed that global food stocks were at historic low since 1980s. He said that another reason for the price rise was the high GDP growth rate in populous countries like India and China where rise in disposal income had caused a change in life style and increased demand.

The FAO chief suggested that the governments should step up their investments in agriculture, particularly in irrigation, storage, feed and livestock, infrastructure and mechanism for ensuring sanitary and phytosanitary measures. "The critical situation of today is due to the wrong policies pursued in the last 20 years," he said.

Regarding global market he said that it should ensure a level playing field and should not be distorted by subsidies and high tariffs.

The UNIDO Director-General, Kandeh K Yumkella said, "industry can play a major role in post-harvest management, processing and in supply of inputs."