Title:
World Food Prices Expected to Stay High or Keep
Rising
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
Economists across the world are expressing concern
about rising food prices. The United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization recently released its
Food Price Index. The list showed that a number of
foods cost more than during the world food crisis of
two thousand eight. The index is at its highest
level since it began in nineteen
ninety.Demonstrations and deadly food riots broke
out in January as they did in two thousand eight.
The F.A.O. predicts that world market prices for
rice, wheat, barley, sugar and meat will stay high
or continue rising. One reason for this is the
threat of shortages caused by bad weather. Current
and recent weather disasters have harmed agriculture
and affected prices in several parts of the world.
For example, flooding in Australia has damaged crops
in the usually fertile Queensland area. Chickpea,
wheat, sorghum and corn are among the crops
affected. Floods also have harmed other vegetables
and fruits. Local agricultural producers report that
standing water could destroy up to half of next
year's sugar crop. And economists say prices for the
fruits and vegetables could likely increase over the
next six months.The effects on prices from floods
last year in Pakistan and China are still being
felt.In January, Russia extended an earlier ban on
wheat exports. Russia acted after heat, drought and
wildfires destroyed about a third of its wheat crop
last summer. The ban was placed to make sure
Russians have enough wheat. The first ban caused
worldwide wheat prices to climb last year by almost
fifty percent. In Algeria, the government reduced
taxes after food riots late last year and in
January. Among the causes of the riots were price
increases for cooking oil and sugar. Several people
died in the riots, and hundreds of others were
injured. Food prices are also part of the economic
problems to blame for the deadly riots in Tunisia.
Shenggen Fan heads the International Food Policy
Research Institute from its Washington, D.C. office.
Mr. Fan says countries must invest in making their
farmers more productive. He says the world will need
to feed more hungry people with less available land,
water and other resources. For VOA Special English
I'm Alex Villarreal. Our programs are online with
transcripts and MP3 files at voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
