Det er ikke uventet de fattigste og mest udsatte ikke mindst i Afrika, der kommer til at bære de relativt største byrder, konkluderer FN – her en global oversigt fra FN-nyhedsbureauet IRIN.
JOHANNESBURG, 6 August 2012 (IRIN): As global grain prices begin to climb, the Sahel countries of West Africa, those in the Horn, and in central and southern Africa – many of which depend mainly on imported cereals (kornprodukter) to feed their people – are most exposed to the impact of more expensive food, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Around the world plenty of people are already living with high food prices, and more will be joining them.
The international prices of cereals began to rise to record levels in mid-June this year, when the implications of one of the worst droughts ever to hit the US, the world’s largest producer of maize and soybeans, became breaking news and commodity markets reacted.
Soaring food prices in 2007-08 forced the poor to sell their assets (værdier), cut down their spending on quality food, education and health, leaving them more vulnerable to future shocks, said FAO.
The transmission of high international prices to consumer prices in countries is not only the result of import dependency and domestic production. Other factors, in particular policy interventions, also play a role, said Liliana Balbi, Team Leader of the FAO Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS):
“In North African countries, for example, the price transmission to consumers during the food price crises of 2007-08 and 2010-11 was limited due to extensive food subsidies,” noted she.
Gary Eilerts, programme manager at the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), run by the USAID (Amerikas Danida), told IRIN:
“In the food insecure world, in general, the pricing impacts may, at least initially, be more muted (dæmpet) and relatively delayed, due to less reliance of many of these countries on the global grain trade.”
FEWS NET monitors 30 countries vulnerable to food insecurity.
Eilerts went on:
“Abundant (rigelige) rice supplies will help to counter price rises in some countries. An important issue to watch is whether, and to what extent, wheat prices are carried along by the corn/maize prices, and thereby put growing pressure on bread prices, a product heavily consumed by urban populations in the food insecure world.”
The Sahel
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96032/FOOD-Price-shock-hotspots
Se også om virkningerne i Kenyas større byer på
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96035/KENYA-Urban-poor-face-rising-food-insecurity
