Saudi Arabia wants to invest money and provide farming technology to help poorer nations raise food production and ease a crisis triggered by soaring food prices, Saudi King Abdullah told an Italian newspaper on Wednesday.

‘We have a remarkable experience in technology linked to agriculture, and the capital needed to invest in this sector,’ Abdullah told La Repubblica.

He said the investments would aim to ‘improve and raise agricultural production in countries with fertile land but lacking from an economic point view.’    

‘Let’s transfer technology and develop farming enterprises to help boost the harvest and give food to humanity,’ he said.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, has already donated $500 million to the United Nations World Food Programme — the largest single cash donation in the history of the world body. … more>>

Here.

Their houses are made of wood with dirt. They eat mostly cooked cereal and milk, but they rarely eat meat. Their clothes are secondhand, sent from Europe to be sold in local markets. Water comes from wells, cooking is done over wood fires, and lighting is from small kerosene wick lamps. Sanitation is provided by pit latrines. Children are unlikely to go to school, and there are seldom operating health facilities close-by.

In the towns, for those with employment, conditions tend to be better. The lower middle class lives in housing made of cement blocks with tin rooftops and concrete floors. There is electricity and water some of the time. Moreover, schools and dispensaries are close. The poor live in slums where they construct their shelters from scraps of material, plastic, and rusty metal sheets. They use pit latrines and communal water taps. Urban poor have better access to medical care and schools for their children, but there are shortages of these facilities, and often the charges are too high for a poverty-stricken family to afford.

Niger is a low income country, and 61 percent of the population were below the US$1 per day poverty line in 1992, with the incidence of poverty greatest in the rural areas. Niger is ranked 173 out of 174 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index.

Average life expectancy is estimated at 47 years, and this age is a significant improvement on the 1970 figure of 38 years. Infant mortality is estimated at 125 deaths per 1,000 births (in the United States the rate is 7 per 1,000) and 320 children out of every 1,000 will die before the age of 5. There are 3 doctors and 70 nurses per 100,000 people. … more>>

Shortage of water, food seriously harming state of animals in post-invasion Iraq.

The drought in Australia’s main food bowl, the Murray-Darling Basin, has worsened, with record low inflows into the river system in June and an even gloomier situation predicted for the coming months.

Neil Plummer, acting head of the National Climate Centre, described rainfall during the southern hemisphere autumn as “an absolute shocker”, and said: “I’m gasping for good news”. Wendy Craik, chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, said the river system’s condition was “critical… tending towards flatlining”. She added: “We have got it on life support.”

The basin, which straddles four states and is the size of France and Germany combined, produces 41 per cent of Australia’s fruit, vegetables and grain. Agricultural products worth more than £10bn are exported from the region annually to Asia and the Middle East.

But flows of water last month into the two mighty rivers that irrigate the basin were the lowest since records began 117 years ago, equating to only 16 per cent of the June average. During February to June, the levels were only marginally higher than last year, which was the driest autumn on record.

The dire assessment of the rivers’ health came only a few days after government scientists warned that Australia – the world’s driest populated continent – could expect the frequency of heatwaves to increase tenfold, from once every 22 years to every one or two years. They also predicted that droughts would occur twice as often and affect twice the usual area. The findings were described by the Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, as reading “more like a disaster novel than a scientific report”. … more>>

Rising food prices have emerged as a top political issue in many countries of the world. In some places, they have sparked riots in which people have died.

Food inflation is a burgeoning political problem in Eastern Europe too. It has forced families to make difficult choices about what they put on their tables.

Take the Malkhasyan family from Sochi, in the south of Russia.

Lamara is an economist and the family’s breadwinner. Her husband, Sergei, is a pensioner. And their daughter, Marietta, is a student.

The city, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympics, is in Russia’s most famous agricultural region. It is surrounded by corn fields - but the Malkhasyans complain that food costs as much as in Moscow.

They pay 70 Roubles ($2.80) for a kilo of potatoes; 120 Roubles ($4.80) for a kilo of apricots; 220 Roubles ($8.80) for a kilo of pork.

Lamara says more than half the family budget goes on food, and claims prices for some staples have more than doubled over the past year. This time a year ago potatoes cost just 30 Roubles a kilo. She blames the increases on the announcement of the city as the venue for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

According to the World Bank, the gross national product (GNP) per capita in Russia is $13,166…. more>>

The Russian minister of farming, Aleksei Gordeyev, says Russia hopes to boost grain production by fifty percent within five to seven years. Gordeyev describes Russia as a leading producer and seller of grain. He expects his country to harvest at least 85 million tons of grain – more than it did last year – and sell about 15 million tons of grain to foreign buyers in 2008.

For those following economic trends, the past 18 months are notable primarily for two reasons. First, the US housing market, long seen as overvalued finally went from boom to bust. Over the span of a few months, housing in some markets depreciated by as much as 30%, and some economists estimate that losses may ultimately reduce value by as much as 50% in some cities.

Second, the market for commodities, especially food and oil has been growing at an alarming rate. While the per-barrel price of crude oil has been rising since about 2005, the upsurge in food prices has been even more rapid. Rice, the world’s largest staple crop, has more than doubled in value since January of this yearalone, with wheat prices not far behind.

Economists are citing many reasons for the upsurge in grain prices, including increased demand in developing countries, especially India and China, as well as poor harvest due to adverse weather conditions in some places.

While changing consumption and production patterns due to things like global warming and wasteful consumption patterns (particularly in the developed world) may be a worry, in most of the world grain stores are still more than sufficient to handle these fluctuations. With the exception of East Africa, where there are genuine shortages and a genuine danger of famine, the rise in global food prices can’t be explained solely in terms of supply and demand.

Economists also agree that speculation is playing a role in pushing up global food prices. They argue that many investors are engaging in hoarding or other kinds of speculation, anticipating that they will receive bigger returns on their investments in the future than what they could make now. According to this mainstream argument, speculation is a secondary or less important reason for the price boom, with supply and demand factors and rising fuel costs being the primary factors.

While the story of rising food costs is no doubt complex, the sudden rise of commodities prices and the simultaneous collapse in many financial markets is unlikely to be a coincidence. … more>>

As world leaders discuss poverty and climate change from the comfort of their conference halls in Japan, the real effects of those issues are being harshly felt.
In Chad, rising temperatures have brought drought, which is reducing crop yields and causing widespread malnutrition.

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda.

The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the “unnecessary demand” for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use of food.

Mr Brown and his wife Sarah were among 15 guests at the “blessings of the earth and the sea social dinner”.

The dinner consisted of 18 dishes in eight courses including caviar, smoked salmon, Kyoto beef and a “G8 fantasy dessert”.