Good News, Bad News on Food Prices and Production

July 17, 2012

Indian laborers work at a potato field at Nathatop, 110 kilometers from Jammu, India

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Food prices have risen sharply over the past few years. The good news is that the rate of increase has slowed. The bad news is that prices will not go down anytime soon.

Also, the rate of global agricultural production is slowing. Yet it needs to increase sixty percent over the next forty years to feed a growing world population.

These are among the findings from the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2012-2021. The OECD is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The FAO is the Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations agency.

FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva spoke at a news conference in Rome last week when the report was released. Mr. Da Silva said that, not surprisingly, the world's poorest people will feel the greatest effects of higher prices.

JOSE GRAZIANO DA SILVA: "For the millions and millions of people living in extreme poverty, the implications of high food prices are clear -- they might have to change their diets, usually to ones with poorer nutrition quality."

In middle-income countries, people are gaining weight as they eat fewer fruits and vegetables and more of the cheaper but less nutritious foods.