From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Thu Nov 15 2007 - 15:45:36 EST
You might think that of all commodities, food would show the most stable supply/demand pattern, but... Rapid food price increases are fuelling consumers' fears about overall inflation in the 13-country region, the European Central Bank has warned, as official data confirmed that the rate of price rises had hit the highest level for more than two years. (...) Eurozone inflation leapt to 2.6 per cent in October from 2.1 per cent in September, Eurostat, the European Union's statistical unit has confirmed, the fastest rate of increase since September 2005. Economists see a significant risk that food prices and energy costs will push inflation to 3 per cent before the end of the year. The ECB aims to keep the annual rate "below but close" to 2 per cent. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5983196-9370-11dc-a884-0000779fd2ac.html LA Times: Food prices are rising faster in 2007 than they have in the last 15 years, after April saw a 3.9 % national increase in grocery prices. Although there are many factors in the rising prices, including inflation, drought, and unseasonable freezing temperatures, the bulk of the blame is falling on the rising price of corn, now in high demand for ethanol production. http://www.sustainabletable.org/blog/archives/2007/05/food_prices_on.htm "THE world's most vulnerable who spend 60% of their income on food have been priced out of the food market," is the alarming warning from Josette Sheeran, head of the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP). As the price of wheat, maize, corn and other commodities that make up the world's basic foodstuffs is soaring the poorest people in the poorest countries are the hardest hit. (...) "Until two years ago we had too much food, but it was badly and unequally distributed," says Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the intergovernmental group for grains trade at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a UN agency. Today about 850m people, mostly women and children, remain chronically hungry while 1.1 billion are obese or overweight. http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10085859 LONDON (Reuters) - Soaring food and energy prices could trigger political upheaval and riots in developing countries, the United Nations world food body chief Jacques Diouf said on Wednesday. Food prices are booming: the Food and Agriculture Organization's food price index in July stood at its highest level since its inception in 1990, and was almost 70 percent higher than in 2000, the Rome-based FAO director-general said. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/10/24/worldupdates/2007-10-24T212420Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-301424-1&sec=Worldupdates
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