|
|
Ethiopia: Food Prices Remain 'Extremely' High - UN
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa)
25 December 2007
Posted to the web 28 December 2007
Addis Abeba
Despite a series of measures taken by the government, prices remain extremely high and above the long-term average across the country, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday.
Price increases follow general inflation in the country, which was 18.4 percent in August 2007, according to the National Bank of Ethiopia.
"The wholesale prices of mixed teff, white wheat, and white maize were 66 percent, 80 percent and 97 percent greater than the five-year average (2002-2006) in September respectively," the UN agency said in its weekly humanitarian report.
The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) last week called for urgent steps to protect the poor from soaring food prices.
It said action was needed to improve access to inputs to boost local food production in most affected countries.
FAO said it was urging governments and the international community to implement immediate measures in support of poor countries hit hard by dramatic food price increases.
Currently 37 countries worldwide are facing food crises due to conflict and disasters. In addition, food security is being adversely affected by unprecedented price hikes for basic food, driven by historically low food stocks, droughts and floods linked to climate change, high oil prices and growing demand for bio-fuels.
High international cereal prices have already sparked food riots in several countries.
In its November issue of Food Outlook, FAO estimated that the total cost of imported foodstuffs for Low Income Food Deficit Countries (LIFDCs) in 2007 would be some 25 percent higher than the previous year, surpassing US$ 107 million.
"Urgent and new steps are needed to prevent the negative impacts of rising food prices from further escalating and to quickly boost crop production in the most affected countries," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf was quoted as saying at a press conference at the Organization's Rome headquarters.
|
"Without support for poor farmers and their families in the hardest-hit countries, they will not be able to cope. Assisting poor vulnerable households in rural areas in the short term and enabling them to produce more food would be an efficient tool to protect them against hunger and undernourishment," Dr Diouf added.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2007 The Daily Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
