World food prices are likely to stay high and volatile for the foreseeable future despite some record crops this year, according to a report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation yesterday.
Food import bills around the world are expected to total more than a trillion US dollars in 2008, $215bn (£108bn) more than last year. The poorest and most vulnerable countries will be the hardest hit. The FAO report said poor nations' collective food import bill was expected to rise to $169bn this year, up 40% from 2007.
The FAO's Food Outlook report suggests that production has responded to the price rises of recent months, which have threatened 100 million of the world's poorest people with hunger. But it said that high agricultural input prices, national policies curbing exports, the cultivation of crops for biofuels, and rising demand would mean that prices would fail to stabilise or return to the low levels of previous years.
"Rice has caught the headlines in recent weeks, but from dairy to wheat and soybeans to sugar, price spikes and market volatility appear to have become more the norm than the exception," the FAO report said.
The overall picture has improved in the weeks since the height of the crisis in March, with prices of most staples falling slightly. Wheat production has responded particularly quickly to the high prices, with huge increases in planting likely to lead to record wheat production this year.
Rice output is expected to rise this year by 2.3%, and the FAO predicts more will be grown than consumed, but the report predicted the rice market would remain tight because some countries, most importantly India, had imposed export restrictions to guarantee domestic supply.
