According to the UN agency's monthly Food Price Index, the May 2015 forecast for the global production of wheat, coarse grains and rice has been “upgraded” as maize harvests in China and Mexico as well as more abundant wheat harvests in Africa and North America are currently anticipated.
The resulting drop in prices for May marks a steady 3.8 per cent monthly decline in the cereal price index, a 2.9 per cent drop in the dairy price index and a one per cent drop in the meat price index.
In addition, the Organization also predicts that global rice output will grow by 1.3 percent from last year mainly due to increases across Asia. That forecast, however, remains subject to “much uncertainty,” as the outcome of the season will very much depend on the unfolding of the season in the next few months, the FAO said.
Overall, the agency added, the Food Price Index is registering its lowest value since September 2009.
Meanwhile, bucking the trend, the sugar price index rose 2 per cent, due to temporary delays in Brazil's crushing season despite abundant supplies and the vegetable oil price index rose 2.6 per cent, partly driven by concerns that the strengthening of meteorological conditions provoked by El Niño may affect production in Southeast Asia.
The Food Price Index is a trade-weighted index that tracks prices on international markets of five major food commodity groups: cereals, meat, dairy products, vegetable oils and sugar.
[un.org]
4/6/15
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Senior UN official calls for global movement to end hunger once and for all...
ReplyDeleteThe head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today called for a global movement to eradicate hunger as countries look ahead to the new set of development goals that will be adopted in September.
“The entire world is called to join in a global movement to end hunger and malnutrition once and for all,” FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said today during his opening address at the International Agricultural Forum at EXPO Milan.
He called on delegates to “embark on this journey,” noting that the UN system is offering full support to more than 100 countries that have already committed to end hunger. “Citizens, producers and the private sector all have a role,” he underlined.
Mr. Graziano da Silva noted that the Forum, attended by more than 50 agriculture ministers and delegates from more than 100 countries and international organizations, comes at a crucial moment in history as it coincides with the end of a 15-year global effort to reduce hunger as well as a new one that will promise to eradicate it altogether.
Progress achieved through the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which targeted the halving of the share of populations suffering hunger, demonstrates that the next and bolder goal is possible, according to FAO.
A priority of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) currently being negotiated by the international community is a time-bound framework to “end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture,” Mr. Graziano da Silva explained.
“Hunger’s root cause is not the scarcity of food but poverty, itself linked to a spectrum of inequalities and revolving around questions of access – access to water, land and other productive resources, access to resources, income and markets, as well as access to adequate social protection,” he added.....http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51052#.VXC0U1Ipr2Y