Global food prices will ease, but stay high: UN

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — Global food prices will fall from record peaks in the next few years, but the cost of feeding the family will still be far higher than in the past decade, an international study forecast on Thursday.

The price bubble has added to the number of people in extreme hunger and some humanitarian aid is "urgently required," the OECD said in a joint survey with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

But they warned that food subsidies and trade protection are not the answer, saying that high prices might even be part of the solution by stimulating neglected investment in agriculture in poor countries.

Raising food supplies in poor countries also depended on raising the quality of government and improving policies in fields from infrastructure to...