UN calls for emergency meeting on rising food prices

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) called for an emergency meeting on rising food grain prices after Russian Prime Minister Vlamidir Putin extended the country's ban on grain exports on Thursday.

Russia, one of the world's largest producers of wheat and barley, banned wheat exports after a severe drought destroyed much of the season's crop this summer. In response to the food shortage, President Putin banned export of food grains till at least the next harvest - which would be in mid-2011, leading to food prices shooting up across the world.

The FAO cut 2010 world cereal production outlook to 2,238 million tons from 2,280 million tons, mostly due to lower wheat production, but the production levels are still the third highest on record.

At current forecast levels, world cereal utilization would slightly exceed production in 2010-11, the FAO said in a report.  Wheat production in 2010 is expected to be about 646 million tonnes.

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Despite these cuts, world cereal and wheat production levels will be the third highest on record, the FAO added. However, the growing human population in the world offsets the rise in food grain production.

Natural disasters in other parts of the world like Pakistan have also resulted in further shortages of the grain. Severe flooding in Pakistan has affected over 18 million people and wiped out much of the country's livestock.

Pakistan might likely cancel plans to export over 2 million tons of wheat due to the disaster. The FAO warned that Pakistan would need immediate global assistance to sustain the upcoming wheat planting season if the food security of the nation has to be maintained.

The meeting will take place on 24 September, probably in Rome, the UN arm said.

The scarcity in food grains and fears about further shortages seems to have spurred massive price increases across the world and started riots in some regions.

Mozambique is currently witnessing the second day of riots over rising prices as the United Nations warned that the spike in costs for food will hit the world's poor the hardest. At least seven people were reported dead by media agencies. The riot was triggered by soaring bread prices in the country.

The FAO is turning its attention to the crisis as several nations are concerned that riots might spread to other countries, as was the case during the 2008 food prices crisis.

The price of wheat almost doubled in 2008, leading to severe riots in regions such as Bangladesh and Egypt.