Higher Prices On Food!

A report by the UN's Food & Agriculture Organizationvand the body for rich nations, the OECD, said prices will fall, but only gradually. Food has gone up 300% in the last 10 years. That is an outrageous number. It said that a recent price surge was the highest that it had been in many years. The price has risen because of horrible weather conditions for raising crops. Factors, such as rising biofuel demand, will keep future costs high. In its annual Outlook report, the FAO predicted beef and pork prices might be 20% higher by 2017, wheat could be up to 60% more expensive and the cost of vegetable oils might rise by 80%. World prices for wheat, maize and oilseed crops doubled between 2005 and 2007, and while the FAO expects these prices to fall, the decline may be slower than after previous spikes. "Biofuels are the largest new source of demand for agriculture and are causing higher prices," said Merritt Cluff, one of the authors of the report. "We are very worried particularly about biofuel policy. US government incentives for ethanol producers are distorting the market," he also said. "We are hugely concerned about the poorest and we expect the number of undernourished people to rise."