UN Food Price Index

Rising global food prices squeeze the world’s poor, By Ben Arnoldy, February 10, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Amid the stalls of neatly stacked vegetables at this city’s Sarojini Market, Manju shops with her young granddaughter. Her bags have become lighter in recent months, as she’s cutting back on the basics. Food prices have risen sharply over the past year and Manju is even going with fewer onions, the ubiquitous ingredient that fills just about every Indian gravy dish. ‘The kids have stopped eating properly,’ she says. ‘They have lost the taste for food and are complaining.’ Families in many parts of the world – especially India, China, Mexico, Haiti, and Egypt, where food costs spiked in the past year – are making sacrifices and seeking alternatives. The United Nations Food and Agri­cultural Organization (FAO) food price index hit an all-time high in December. This sparked concern that high prices just prior to the global recession could reflect longer-term structural changes in supply and demand that will imperil the poor’s ability to eat…”