World Bank finds food prices at alarming levels
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Feb. 16: Now it is the World Bank that is worried about the rising food prices. The development institution says that the rising food prices of the past year have pushed 44 million people around the world back into poverty.
The bank says that food prices today are 29 per cent higher than last year and close to an all time high. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations says that prices are already at an all-time high. The FAO had said earlier that the high food prices are likely to persist for several months. In India too, consumers are facing the heat as food price inflation — which measures rising prices — has been in double digits for several weeks now.
“Global food prices are rising to dangerous levels and threaten tens of millions of poor people around the world,” said the World Bank group president, Mr Robert B. Zoellick in a statement.
“The price hike is already pushing millions of people into poverty, and putting stress on the most vulnerable, who spend more than half of their income on food,” the World Bank president said. The key driver behind the upward spiral in the food price index has been sharp rises in the prices of wheat, maize, sugar and oils, the World Bank says.
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