Global Food Prices Have Increased By over 80% Since 2005!

Global Food Prices Have Increased By over 80% Since 2005!

www.thenews.com.pk

WASHINGTON: A new world trade deal, more than six years in the making, finally appears to be within reach, but it may not ease raging global food costs that have protesters pouring into the streets from Egypt to Haiti.

On the contrary, many experts expect a new global pact would actually lift food prices slightly, at least at first.

Policymakers plugging the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha round have said closing a deal on the plan to lower farm subsidies and tariffs the world over would stabilize food markets, lock in lower tariffs and spur food production.

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Yikes....EIGHTY PERCENT? Now I have definitely seen the price of many items on the shelves sky-rocket 40-50% in the past year in my area, but if it gets to be on a par with world averages like this, we are going to see some MAJOR hardships coming...With the cost of fuel going insane with no let-up in sight, and the crap job markets, this is the makings of a total nightmare...

“The poor need lower food prices now,” Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said recently as he called for a “new deal” to respond to the commodity revolution that has pushed up global food prices by over 80 percent since 2005.

“If ever there is a time to cut distorting agricultural subsidies and open markets for food imports, it must be now. If not now, when?" aked the former U.S. trad negotiator

And lest anyone think that the more developed countries are immune from this:

Even prosperous countries such as the United States, where more people are relying on government-funded food stamps to purchase food, are not immune.

Many countries are scrambling to deal with rising food costs, imposing export restrictions or slashing import tariffs in a bid to ease prices at home.

www.thenews.com.pk
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