SPONSORED BY:

Now It’s the $6 Loaf of Bread

 

Email To A Friend

Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.

Separate multiple addresses with commas

SPONSORED BY
 

Global leaders are waking up to the threat. "Finally, everyone is paying attention," Jacques Diouf, the Senegalese director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, told NEWSWEEK last week after leaving 10 Downing Street, where he had met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have pledged to attend a food-security summit Diouf is hosting in Rome in June.

There's likely to be little relief soon, however. The factors that could aggravate or improve the situation in the short term (which include the weather, and growth in China) are beyond policymakers' control. Crops don't grow overnight, and investments needed to make farming more efficient and productive in the developing world will take years.

The markets that set prices have been known to fall, as well as rise. Wheat prices, which have leveled off recently, could fall if a bumper harvest materializes this year, a development that would help bring rice prices down, too. But until that happens, and until the dynamics of supply and demand change, there's a sense that urgent actions will be required to feed the truly hungry, while the rest of us will have to tighten our belts. As Abdolreza Abbassian, an analyst at the Food and Agriculture Organization, puts it: "The era of cheap food is over."

With Ashley Harris and Barrett Sheridan in New York, Miyoko Ohtake in San Francisco, Karen Macgregor in Durban, South Africa, and Criselda Yabes in Manila

© 2008

Label

Newsweek Top Stories
Visions of a Decade
Visions of a Decade

From 2000-2009, one photo per month.

The Failure of Copenhagen
The Failure of Copenhagen

Why there could be a silver lining in a failed climate treaty.

Sex Scandals of the 2000s
Sex Scandals of the 2000s

From John Edwards to Mark Sanford, the decade's memorable affairs.

118 Days in Hell
118 Days in Hell

A NEWSWEEK journalist recounts his captivity in Iran.

Discuss

Sponsored by

Member Comments

  • Posted By: Jaray24 @ 05/05/2008 10:56:16 PM

    American needs to focus on itself. As prices increase more and more people will turn to stealing, or they will just foreclose on their home commit a federal crime, (rob a bank) and go to prison where they have a roof over their head, 3 meals a day, and the rest of America pays for it. The Gov. needs to look at it's own people and get them there they need to be, then help others. You can't help others for to long if you don't help your own people.

  • Posted By: patriciakaye @ 05/03/2008 8:49:38 PM

    It would also help if we wouldn't allow every tom, dick and harry into america ....and say no for once we have enough ehre..

  • Posted By: patriciakaye @ 05/03/2008 8:40:13 PM

    If The American Gov. would start Worrying about America things might be better here..America is falling and they were about china ,india and iraq . I don't want anyone to starve but seems to me that i dont here a mention of Americas poor and weak and how they will survive a food shortage and price raising!!!!

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse

My Take

Customize the NEWSWEEK homepage
to feature your favorite columnists.

Customize Now