UN eases fears amid rising food prices

An extraordinary meeting of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome heard that global conditions had changed.

The overall harvest in 2010 could also be the third highest on record, delegates were told.

The meeting was called after grain prices hit a two-year high.

The FAO's top grain expert, Abdolreza Abbassian, said "there is always concern" about important food security crops such as wheat or rice.

"I don't want to undermine that," he said.

"However, the spillover effects are nothing like we had in 2007-8, because a lot of other conditions that we had in 2007-8 which led to that sort of situation fortunately are not present."

The rise in prices then was the first sign that things had gone badly wrong in the global economy, heralding the worst financial meltdown since the 1930s.

This week's extraordinary meeting was called after the price of grain hit a two-year high at a time of year when the harvest in the northern hemisphere should be pushing prices down.

Russia has already imposed an export ban after its crop was badly hit by drought in the summer, sparking fears that the world could be heading once again for a price spike.

But despite the serious flooding in other large producer nations - including Pakistan and China - during the summer months, there are many differences between now and then, in particular a more stable oil market; Kazinform cites BBC.

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