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Escalating prices move food beyond the reach of the poor.
The poorest of the poor spend two thirds of their income on food. They are the hardest hit by the escalating prices for food. The price of rice in Asia has risen from $460 per ton in March to more than $1,000 two months later. Before this emergency, more than 850 million people in the world were short of food. The World Bank estimates that this figure could rise by a further 100 million who can no longer purchase the food they need. And the simple rise in food process does not convey the reality of the human tragedies of deprivation and of children marked for life by the absence of the minimum nutrition which is vital to meet their basic needs.
Such enormous rises in the price of food are the causes of unrest and violence in a growing number of countries. They are also the symptoms of deeper factors which have profound longer-term indications. The increases in price are driven by many factors: the demands of a growing population in many developing countries; changes in the pattern of demand as rising living standards increase the demand for meat products; spreading degradation of the environment and weakening of the productive ecosystems on which food production depends; increasing stress on water resources as consumption exceeds sustainable levels; and, most recently, the rush into first-generation biofuels to improve perceived energy security.
Thus, food price increases are a symptom of fundamental trends and processes: consequently, coherent longer term strategies - integrating ecological, environmental, technological, cultural, social and economic aspects - will be essential to deal with the profound causes of the current crisis and to establish the foundations of sustainable food security which a growing global population will demand.
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