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Lee Hudson Teslik
WASHINGTON -
For consumers and businesses in the United States and Europe, bubbling inflation and rising oil prices bring varying degrees of hardship. ... Elsewhere in the world, these factors threaten more existential consequences. World Bank data show rising commodity prices have prompted a dramatic spike in global food prices, with the cost of staples like wheat and rice showing the greatest increases. Unrest has risen along with prices. Riots over food prices have broken out in North and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia. ... Economist Jeffrey Sachs calls it the “worst crisis of its kind in more than 30 years.” ... In the United States, some policy-makers are grappling with the role agricultural subsidies play [in] distorting food markets. This, experts say, is the broader problem that must be turned to once immediate World Food Program funding shortages have been addressed. ... Daniel Gustafson, the director of the Washington office of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, says the next U.S. president should incorporate liberalized agricultural policy into the United States’ broad development agenda. Concerns over agricultural subsidies in the United States and other countries have come sharply into focus during trade debates and seem likely to continue to percolate as Congress nears approval of a new farm bill. Analysts caution against underestimating the stakes. The World Bank projects food prices will remain at current levels or above through 2009. For the world's poor, many of whom Gustafson says spend as much as 80 percent of their income on food, the clock is ticking. Read more @ www.cfr.org |