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WORLD BANK / FOOD PRICE INDEX
STORY: WORLD BANK / FOOD PRICE INDEX
TRT: 1:56
SOURCE: WORLD BANK
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 15FEBRUARY 2011, WORLD BANK, WASHINGTON DC / FILE
FILE – JULY 2009, MALAWI
1. Wide shot, grain market
2. Close up, grain market
15 FEBRUARY 2011, WORLD BANK, WASHINGTON DC
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director, World Bank:
“According to our research at the World Bank, the recent food price hikes have thrown another 44 million people into extreme poverty. I feel we have now entered a danger zone. National food security issues are becoming a global food security issue. This is a challenge for the world. Almost one billion people are going to bed hungry.”
FILE – JUNE 2008, VIETNAM
4. Wide shot, rice fields
5. Med shot, women cultivating onions
FILE – JUNE 2009, CHINA
6. Various shots, woman in kitchen cooking rice
15 FEBRUARY 2011, WORLD BANK, WASHINGTON DC
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director, World Bank:
“The international community needs to help develop countries mitigate the impact of food price hikes and the volatility of food prices, and I think that there are several measures that we can take. One is to improve the transparency of information on food stocks. Often there is an excess of food produced in one country, which can be distributed to another but we just don’t have that information. We also need to help farmers with better forecasting, we need to help with better storage and distribution systems.”
FILE – JUNE 2010, MOROCCO
8. Wide shot, farmer in field
9. Wide shot, women with goats
The latest World Bank Group food price index showed that rising food prices have driven millions of people into poverty in developing countries since last June as food costs continue to rise to near 2008 levels.
According to the latest edition of Food Price Watch, released ahead of the G20 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Paris, food price index rose by 15 percent between October 2010 and January 2011, and is 29 percent above its level a year earlier and only three percent below its 2008 peak.
The Bank’s Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, warned that “we have now entered a danger zone” since “recent food price hikes have thrown another 44 million people into extreme poverty.”
The Food Price Watch reported that the increase in extreme poverty (under US$1.25 a day) due to the price hike is associated with higher malnutrition, as poorer people eat less and are forced to buy food that is both less expensive and less nutritious.
Among grains, global wheat prices have risen the most, doubling between June 2010 and January 2011. Maize prices are about 73 percent higher, but crucially for many of the world’s poor, rice prices have increased at a slower rate than other grains. Sugar and edible oils have also gone up sharply. Other food items essential for dietary diversity in many countries have increased, such as vegetables in India and China, and beans in some African countries.
Okonjo-Iweala added that the international community “needs to help develop countries mitigate the impact of food price hikes and the volatility of food prices.”
Measures to address the recent round of food price spikes include expanding nutritional and safety net programs in countries where food prices are rising fastest, avoiding food export restrictions, and finding better information on food stocks. More investments in agriculture, the development of less food-intensive biofuels, and climate change adaptation, are also needed.
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