World Food Prices Up 36 Percent
WASHINGTON-world food prices to date have increased by 36 percent compared to last year. According to the World Bank notes, this increase was also influenced by the political crisis in the Middle East and North Africa which push up fuel prices rose 21 percent in the first quarter of 2011.
Another cause is bad weather that hit the major wheat producing countries, export restrictions, the use of biofuels production and lower global production.Food commodity prices also continued to flare up. As a result, "The number of poor people is also rising," said World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick in a press release on Saturday (16 / 4).
The World Bank in the Food Price Watch report states experienced the highest increase in food commodities are soaring commodity corn to 74 percent. The second position is the wheat which has risen 69 percent, soybeans rose 36 percent, and sugar up 21 percent. Prices of vegetables, meat, cooking oil and fruits also continued mengingkat. While the rice tends to be stable.
If food prices rise again by 10 percent, it will encourage the 10 million people into poverty. The World Bank estimates, there are 1.2 billion people in the world who live below the poverty line, with the consumption of U.S. $ 1.25 per day.
In Indonesia, rice prices hit consumer spending. Half of the population, spending half their income on food drain. The increase in the poverty rate this year may repeat the increase in 2005-2006. In 2005-2006 the poverty rate was up 2.1 percent from 15.7 to 17.8 percent.
In recent months, food price inflation slowed in Indonesia. In February 2011, with the start of the harvest of rice and imported by Bulog, making food prices tend to be stable.
Elimination of import tariffs of certain food commodities such as rice, soybeans and wheat to make food price inflation down. In March of food price inflation reached 9.9 percent year on year, better than the inflation rate of 10.6 percent in February.
Tempo interaktif.com.
