S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The World Bank disclosed on Monday evening (15) a report showing that the price of food on the international market is close to the record level of 2008, prior to the international financial crisis. The study warns about the risks and the volatility that commodities may cause, especially for poor populations in developing nations.<\/p>\n
The bank informs that prices in July were, on average, 33% greater than those registered in the same month last year. In the case of maize, the growth was 84%; sugar, 62%; wheat, 55%; and in soy oil, 47%. Apart from that, the price of the barrel of oil rose 45% in the period, pressuring production costs and, especially, the cost of fertilizers, which rose 67% in the same comparison. Agriculture uses inputs from the oil industry.<\/p>\n
The report recognises that from April to July there was an average drop of 5% in the average price of commodities, after a peak in February, but added that prices remain volatile in the period. As examples, the bank mentions maize and wheat, which lost value in June, only to appreciate again in July, and rice, which dropped from February to May, but then returned to growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersistently high food prices and low food stocks indicate that we\u2019re still in the danger zone, with the most vulnerable people the least able to cope,\u201d said World Bank president Robert Zoellick, according to a press release by the institution.<\/p>\n
As an example, the bank uses the situation in the Horn of Africa, where the population is starving. Although the situation in the region was triggered by a long period of drought, and worsened by the civil war, in the case of Somalia, the institution says that high prices have contributed to the current situation, with the death of 29,000 Somali children under the age of five over the last three months and with over 600,000 at risk.<\/p>\n
"Nowhere are high food prices, poverty and instability combining to produce tragic suffering more than in the Horn of Africa,\u201d said Zoellick. According to him, the bank provides assistance to the region with a budget of US$ 686 million. In Somalia, 3.7 million people are in crisis, of which 3.2 million are in urgent need.<\/p>\n
The study shows that over the last 12 months up to June, the price of maize has risen over 100% in Somali capital Mogadishu, Kampala (Uganda) and Kigali (Rwanda), while the same product has dropped 19% in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and in Mexico City.<\/p>\n
The examples show great variation on the global market, but, as a whole, the price of basic foods has risen significantly over the last quarter, according to the document, especially in South and Central America and in Eastern Africa. This has triggered inflationary processes in several nations.<\/p>\n
In this scenery, the report recommends attention while global stocks remain low and prices volatile. In the case of oil, the text points out that uncertainty regarding the behaviour of the global economy and recent studies in the Arab world are going to maintain price volatility in the near future.<\/p>\n
The bank also informs that the heads of state of the G20, the group of the 20 largest economies in the world, should discuss the matter in a meeting scheduled for November.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Mark Ament<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The institution points out that, despite oscillations, the value of commodities remains close to the peak of 2008. Those suffering are the poor in developing nations. The Horn of Africa is an example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"The institution points out that, despite oscillations, the value of commodities remains close to the peak of 2008. Those suffering are the poor in developing nations. The Horn of Africa is an example.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}