The increased cost of energy, rising demand for biofuels, the waning US dollar and trade shocks pertaining to restrictive exports, panic purchases, and unfavorable weather caused the 2007-8 food price crisis, according to a preview of a think tank's study to be released early next month.
"Future food price crises can be prevented," said Shenggen Fan, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, according to commodityonline.com. He and Derek Headey, IFPRI research fellow, co-authored "Reflections on the Global Food Crisis", which will be released on December 1.
The authors advise that additional crises can be averted by securing agricultural commodity trading, confronting long-term threats to agricultural productivity, increasing safety precautions in countries where food runs the risk of being insecure and encouraging reliant countries to embark on becoming independent by producing their own agriculture, according to the report.
The report also debunks additional reasons as the most prominent causes of the crisis. Among the reasons fitting in this category are rising economies in India and China issuing demands that were too strong, failing agricultural yields, and speculation about the performance of market futures.
"On China and India, the evidence is now unequivocal: they weren't buying up the world's grains," co-author Headey said.
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