World food prices hit record high: UN agency

[Lisa]

World food prices hit record high: UN agency

Feb 3 09:14 AM US/Eastern

World food prices reached their highest level ever recorded in January and are set to keep rising for months, the UN food agency said on Thursday, warning that the hardest-hit countries could face turmoil.

Rising food prices have been cited among the driving forces behind recent popular revolts in north Africa, including the uprising in Egypt and the toppling of Tunisia's long-time president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

And in its latest survey, the Food and Agriculture Organisation said its index which monitors monthly price changes for a variety of staples averaged 231 points in January -- the highest level since records began in 1990.

"The new figures clearly show that the upward pressure on world food prices is not abating. These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come," FAO economist and grains expert Abdolreza Abbassian said in a statement.

The Index rose by 3.4 percent from December -- with big increases in particular for dairy, cereal and oil prices. The rises were most significant in China, India, Indonesia and Russia, data from FAO's monthly report showed.

"There are a lot of factors that could spark turmoil in countries and food is one of them," Abbassian said, pointing out however that several countries have become better at managing prices after a series of riots in 2007 and 2008.

"They have learnt from previous episodes," he said, adding however: "These are obviously not very easy times. There is now no hope that prices will return to anything we can consider normal, at least until the summer."

The data from the Rome-based FAO showed that prices for dairy products rose by 6.2 percent from December, oils and fats gained 5.6 percent, while cereals went up by 3.0 percent because of lower global supply of wheat and maize.

"The increase in prices follows stronger export demand during the last month and concerns about tightening supplies of high quality wheat. The market was also supported by higher oil prices and a weaker US dollar," FAO said.

Meat prices remained broadly stable due to a fall in prices in Europe caused by last month's scare over dioxin poisoning in eggs and pork in Germany, compensated by a slight increase in export prices from Brazil and the US.

"High food prices are of major concern especially for low-income food deficit countries that may face problems in financing food imports and for poor households which spend a large share of their income on food," Abbassian said.

Global aid agency Oxfam said: "Millions of people's lives are at risk."

"Poor people in developing countries spend between 50 and 80 percent of their income on food, making higher prices, as well as unpredictable prices, a serious threat to their ability to eat," Oxfam said in a statement.

Oxfam blamed the price rises on reduced production due to bad weather, increased oil prices making fertilizer and transport more expensive, increased demand for biofuels, export restrictions and financial speculation.

It called on governments to implement social protection programmes for the people hardest hit by the price rises and to help control prices "by increasing support and investments in small scale agriculture."

The FAO data showed the Food Price Index hit 200 points over the whole of 2008 at the height of the 2007/2008 food crisis. It breached that level for the first time in October 2010 with 205 points.

In Africa, Somalia has been particularly hard hit by a rise in prices for red sorghum and maize due to a poor 2010 crop, while Uganda has seen a rise in the price of maize because of strong demand from neighbouring countries.

Meanwhile ongoing unrest in Ivory Coast had helped push up prices in West Africa as a whole because of its status as a key transport hub, it said.

But the most dramatic rises were seen in Asia and in particular in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and China, it added.

 

 

 

[Lisa]

Authoritarian governments start stockpiling food to fight public anger
Authoritarian governments across the world are aggressively stockpiling food as a buffer against soaring food costs which they fear may stoke popular discontent.


Riots started in Tunisia initally over the price of staple food like sugar, salt and grain Photo: AP

By Ben Farmer in Islamabad 4:11PM GMT 28 Jan 2011

Commodities traders have warned they are seeing the first signs of panic buying from states concerned about the political implications of rising prices for staple crops.

However, the tactic risks simply further pushing up prices, analysts have warned, pushing a spiral of food inflation.

Governments in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa have recently made large food purchases on the open market in the wake of unrest in Tunisia which deposed president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Resentment at food shortages and high prices, as well as repression and corruption, drove the popular uprising which swept away his government.

Youths reportedly chanted "bring us sugar!" in the demonstrations which toppled his regime.

 

[Lisa]

Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions
Political risk has returned with a vengeance. The first food revolutions of our Malthusian era have exposed the weak grip of authoritarian regimes in poor countries that import grain, whether in North Africa today or parts of Asia tomorrow.


As we sit glued to Al-Jazeera watching authority crumble in the cultural and political capital of the Arab world, exhilaration can turn quickly to foreboding. Photo: REUTERS

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 7:30PM GMT 30 Jan 2011

332 Comments

If you insist on joining the emerging market party at this stage of the agflation blow-off, avoid countries with an accelerating gap between rich and poor. Cairo’s EGX stock index has dropped 20pc in nine trading sessions.

Events have moved briskly since a Tunisian fruit vendor with a handcart set fire to himself six weeks ago, and in doing so lit the fuse that has detonated Egypt and threatens to topple the political order of the Maghreb, Yemen, and beyond.

As we sit glued to Al-Jazeera watching authority crumble in the cultural and political capital of the Arab world, exhilaration can turn quickly to foreboding.

This is nothing like the fall of the Berlin Wall. The triumph of secular democracy was hardly in doubt in central Europe. Whatever the mix of aspirations of those on the streets of Cairo, such uprisings are easy prey for tight-knit organizations – known in the revolutionary lexicon as Leninist vanguard parties.

In Egypt this means the Muslim Brotherhood, whether or not Nobel laureate Mohammed El Baradei ever served as figleaf. The Brotherhood is of course a different kettle of fish from Iran’s Ayatollahs; and Turkey shows that an ‘Islamic leaning’ government can be part of the liberal world – though Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan once let slip that democracy was a tram “you ride until you arrive at your destination, then you step off."

 

 

 

[Mark]

Goldman Sachs Made $400 Million Betting On Food Prices In 2012 While Hundreds Of Millions Starved

Why does it seem like wherever there is human suffering, some giant bank is making money off of it?  According to a new report from the World Development Movement, Goldman Sachs made about 400 million dollars betting on food prices last year.  Overall, 2012 was quite a banner year for Goldman Sachs.  As I reported in a previous article, revenues for Goldman increased by about 30 percent in 2012 and the price of Goldman stock has risen by more than 40 percent over the past 12 months.  It is estimated that the average banker at Goldman brought in a pay and bonus package of approximately $396,500 for 2012.

 So without a doubt, Goldman Sachs is swimming in money right now.  But what is the price for all of this "success"?  Many claim that the rampant speculation on food prices by the big banks has dramatically increased the global price of food and has caused the suffering of hundreds of millions of poor families around the planet to become much worse.  At this point, global food prices are more than twice as high as they were back in 2003.  Approximately 2 billion people on the planet spend at least half of their incomes on food, and close to a billion people regularly do not have enough food to eat.  Is it moral for Goldman Sachs and other big banks such as Barclays and Morgan Stanley to make hundreds of millions of dollars betting on the price of food if that is going to drive up global food prices and make it harder for poor families all over the world to feed themselves?

(Read More....) http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/goldman-sachs-made-400-million-betting-on-food-prices-in-2012-while-hundreds-of-millions-starved

[Kilika]

Bankers been doing it for centuries. The commodities market has become the way they manipulate the prices. The movie "Trading Places" was a pretty realistic spin on it. In theory, it's based on supply and demand, and for the most part, it is, but, the reality is that supply is manipulated and controlled to "manage" the markets, artificially inflating prices to support a given agenda. So in practice, the commodities market is a sham of epic proportions.

If there is a shortage of food anywhere, it's because somebody made it that way intentionally. Ask UNICEF about that.

[Psalm 51:17]

Bankers been doing it for centuries. The commodities market has become the way they manipulate the prices. The movie "Trading Places" was a pretty realistic spin on it. In theory, it's based on supply and demand, and for the most part, it is, but, the reality is that supply is manipulated and controlled to "manage" the markets, artificially inflating prices to support a given agenda. So in practice, the commodities market is a sham of epic proportions.

If there is a shortage of food anywhere, it's because somebody made it that way intentionally. Ask UNICEF about that.

Interesting you mention that movie - I believe one of the producers was Aaron Russo...the same guy that dropped that bombshell over his meeting with Nick Rockefeller a year before 9/11(and their agendas with this false flag).