Fwd: [bangla-vision] Pakistan food prices too high: UN food relief agency

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From: Romi Elnagar <bluesapphire48@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 9:23 PM
Subject: [bangla-vision] Pakistan food prices too high: UN food relief agency
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Pakistan food prices too high: UN food relief agency Laos needs emergency food aid: WFP Hanoi (AFP) March 23, 2011 - More than 111,000 people in impoverished Laos will need emergency food aid before the next harvest, the United Nations World Food Programme said Wednesday. The WFP said shortages of rice in the communist-run country's south and centre stem from a combination of weather factors last year -- dry spells, a late rainy season and flash floods. "We're now raising funds" to support an emergency rice distribution probably in June or July, filling a gap before the harvest which occurs around November, WFP spokeswoman Cornelia Patz told AFP. In the meantime, villagers will have to use stocks from the last harvest or buy rice in the market but prices are now "very, very high compared to last year", she said. A joint study by the WFP and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said weather shocks "impacted already vulnerable households" in areas that had not fully recovered from Tropical Storm Ketsana. Ketsana struck in October 2009 and led to some of the worst flooding in Laotian history. It killed at least 11 people, caused more than $100 million damage, and prompted a government appeal for international help. While starvation is not now a major concern, coping with limited food resources can have knock-on problems such as a reduction in protein, which can lower resistance to disease, Patz added. Rice is the staple food in Laos and per capita consumption is among the highest in the world, the WFP-FAO study said. Laos has about six million people and is one of Asia's poorest nations. by Staff Writers Geneva (AFP) March 23, 2011 Pakistan's government has pushed food prices too high for an impoverished population, as malnutrition levels rise despite the recovery of crops after devastating floods, a UN food relief official said Wednesday. Wolfgang Herbinger, director for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Pakistan, said food crops especially wheat in the southern flood-hit plains were recovering fast with the prospect of decent crops over the coming weeks. "The crop outlook is not bad but the food security situation remains difficult because prices remain so high," he told journalists one the sidelines of humanitarian meetings in Geneva. "The government is the biggest buyer of wheat in Pakistan they are setting the farm gate price and they dominate market," Herbinger explained. "That's why the wheat price in Pakistan didn't adjust when, for example, in 2009 and early 2010 the wheat price had gone back a lot, it stayed high to the detriment of local consumers." Now ordinary consumers pay double the price for wheat compared to three years ago and the food security situation has "changed dramatically," the WFP official added. Malnutrition levels in the southern province of Sindh have reached 21 to 23 percent, according to the agency. "That is well above African standards. The emergency standard is 15 percent," the WFP official said. A recent survey found that in some flood-hit areas 70 percent of people were taking out loans and even using them to pay for food. Herbinger admitted that the WFP was "struggling a bit" to bring the message across to authorities. "You may have the country full with food but people are too poor to buy it," he explained. "We are working a lot with the Ministry of Agriculture to explain to the minister that it is not enough to have enough production in the country if people can't afford it." "Maybe for political reasons he doesn't always understand it, that it's one thing to be nice to the farmers but if your consumers can't afford it then... there's something wrong with agricultural policy," Herbinger added. Massive floods caused by monsoon rains in July and August 2010 killed thousands, destroyed 1.7 million homes and damaged 5.4 million acres of arable land, experts have said. http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Pakistan_food_prices_too_high_UN_food_relief_agency_999.html

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