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Madrid: The Asian Development Bank called on Saturday for immediate action from global governments to combat soaring food prices and pledged fresh financial aid to help feed the Asia Pacific region's poorest nations.
"The food crisis calls for immediate response of governments and the international community," the ADB concluded in a 15-page report detailing its planned response to soaring global food prices that have jumped 43 per cent in the year through March.
"The ADB's short term response will include targeted interventions to protect the food entitlements of the most vulnerable groups and income and livelihood programmes for the poor to mitigate the immediate impacts of the crisis," the report said.
"ADB will also consider budget support to hardest-hit countries to alleviate the fiscal pressures and assist imports of food grains and agricultural inputs," said the report, which gave no detail or figures on the size of the support programme.
ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda told a news conference in Madrid, where the bank is holding its four-day annual meeting, that total lending "could be sizeable, but not enormous" and would depend on the scale of requests it received for help.
"We are getting in touch with potential recipients of this kind of assistance and we will soon come up with appropriate figures," Kuroda said, citing Bangla-desh and Tajikistan as being among several countries that appear to be seriously affected by rising food prices.
The Asia-Pacific region is home to two thirds of the world's poor with 1.5 billion people - three times the population of Europe - living on less than $2 a day.
Rice is a staple food in most Asian nations and any shortage could lead to unrest and instability, governments are extremely sensitive to its price.
The five mainland Southeast Asian nations produce a combined 60 million tonnes of milled rice each year, about 14 per cent of world output. But only Thailand, the world's number one rice exporter, and Vietnam have major surpluses.
Countries including India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brazil have imposed curbs on food exports in a bid to secure domestic supplies and limit inflation.
The ADB report blamed such market interventions for increasing price volatility, arguing that they had reduced current supply and increased uncertainty about future supplies.
Malaysian measures
Meanwhile, Malaysia has set aside 2.5 billion ringgit ($788 million) for food security in 2008, Agriculture Minister Mustapa Mohamed was quoted as saying by state new agency Bernama.
The measures being planned include raising rice production, building a rice stockpile and granting some 513 million ringgit ($162.2 million) in incentives to farmers.
Global food prices, based on United Nations records, rose 35 per cent in the year to the end of January, markedly accelerating an upturn that began, gently at first, in 2002. Since then, prices have risen 65 per cent.
Waves of discontent have been felt. Violent protests hit Cameroon and Burkina Faso in February. Protesters rallied in Indonesia recently and media reported deaths by starvation. In the Philippines, fast-food chains were urged to cut rice portions to counter a surge in prices.
John Bruton, the European Union's Ambassador to the United States, predicts that the world faces 10 to 15 years of steep rises in food costs. And it is the poor in Africa and, increasingly, South East Asia, who will be most vulnerable.
Bush speak: 'Energy driving prices'
Food prices have been rising as a result of soaring energy prices but the use of corn-based ethanol is not the main driver behind rising prices at the supermarket, US President George W. Bush said yesterday.
"The reason why food prices are high now is because, one, energy costs are high and if you're a farmer you're going to pass on your costs of energy in the products you sell otherwise you go broke," Bush said.
- Reuters
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