Food Prices Again: To Stay High and Volatile

This blog also looks at food prices and related investments. For example, we have looked at stocks such as Cresud, farmland as farmland is a good place to be in times of very high uncertainty as we are now. Besides all the turmoil in Europe and the U.S., the United Nation's body Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said that global food prices are expected to remain high and volatile in the next 12 months.

All the money printing in the world makes currencies drop in value. They can't all drop at te same time, unless perhaps you look at a references such as gold, but gold is highly manipulated and a relatively small market (for example when compared with exchange markets, or the global derivatives business, markets which run in the hundreds of trillions of dollars, while gold is in the single or low digit trillions.


FAO's Director, the Brazilian Jose Graziano da Silva said in a statement: "The prices will remain high compared with the other years, previous years, and the volatility will also be very high,", adding that the food crisis in some parts of the world is one of his biggest challenges.

World food prices had hit a record all-time high in February 2011. The FAO's Food Price Index (FPI) was just 10% below its peak in February 2011. FPI is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar.

"The ongoing food crisis will be among the biggest challenges we will face during the next 12 months and the food crisis in regions of West Africa would be a key target of FAO's programmes,"
According to FAO's latest estimates, 33 countries around the world are in need of external assistance as a result of crop failures, conflict or insecurity, natural disasters and high domestic food prices.

Ending Hunger

"Ending hunger requires the commitment of everyone, neither FAO nor any other agency or government will win this war alone.", adding that equal efforts are required from member countries, United Nations agencies, the private sector, civil society and other stakeholders.